The Package

For all you tech dorks out there wondering what I brought on this trip well here’s the post you’ve been waiting for!

SECTION 1.
I brought along my main DSLR; my Nikon D300s. I’ve owned it since it was released back in 09 or was it last year? I’m sure like many other D300s shooters I’m happy with its features, it’s a camera I’m sure ill be using it for many years and will most likely use it as a second body when I get the cash for an FX body (Hurry up D800 or whatever your name is going to be). I’ve got a cheap Phottix battery grip connected to it, I bought it just a few weeks before I left and I think it’s a piece of shit really. I’ve really put my D300s through some tough environments and it’s managed to hold up but during the end of this trip the battery grip seems to be playing up on. It sometimes isn’t recognized when attached and the exposure/aperture dials don’t work now and then even though the shutter works? When I have some spare cash ill purchase Nikons battery grip, it’s three times the price but I know with all Nikon products you are defiantly paying for quality.
My good mate Mal kindly let me borrow his Canon G11 and his water housing. I mostly just used it for all the underwater shots I did and not much “terrain” shots. I find it like an advanced point and shoot camera, they’ve just whacked on manual dials on it to give a SLR feel but on a roided up point and shoot body. Im a Nikon/SLR shooter so I’m used to twisting dials and pressing buttons so I wasn’t really used to the G11’s internal display settings (I thought I couldn’t shoot in RAW until I wrote this post. Fuck). Picture quality is good but of course I prefer my SLR and the lense quality (No matter what body you use; cheap or expensive, its always about lenses guys!). As for the water housing, that was a bitch to get used too. You really had to have a strong finger to push it down so it can set the focus and then squeeze it down a bit further to shoot you image, but then you had to time it right because there was a bit of lag time from when you hit the shutter till the actual camera taking the shot. Another frustrating thing about the body you couldn’t have the G11 set in manual because the housing didn’t have a dial to turn the dial that controls the shutter and aperture setting. So I had to either put it in auto, which I hate doing because I never get the results I personally want, or the two pre-custom settings (C1/C2), which I mostly assigned it to. My experience with that camera just shows I prefer SLR’s, big whoop they’re bigger! From that you get quality and speed. Screw you mirrowless cameras pffft…
That two eyed yellow box is my Blackbird Fly. It’s one of those toy 35mm film cameras, creates some cool colours and some nice textures when developed.

SECTION 2
My SB600 with my cheap Cactus wireless transmitters for any creative lighting I chose to do, which I don’t think, I really did.

SECTION 3
My versatile Nikon 18 -200 VR1 with a Hoya PL-CIR filter screwed to it. This thing is a must when travelling. It covers all the needed focus lengths from wide to long. The adjustable CIR filter is a good combo, adjusting the strength of contrast to what I please really it helps dramatize the colours and removing the glare from the water.
Sigma 10-20. I’ve had this for a while but its time to upgrade to something with better optics. I think I’ve done something to it, I haven’t properly looked into it but It has some error that I cant change the aperture? I think the CPU contacts are dirty… I hope.
My Nikon Nifty Fifty, Always handy to have in the bag,. Its light and small with a good focal length for when I’m walking down the streets wanting to snap up a photo of a stranger without them “kinda” knowing and that low F stop to really centralize the subject.
The handy dandy Nikon 35mm f1.8. I got this lens from mother dear for Christmas and after thrashing the crap out of it on this trip (probably on my body 50% during this whole trip), so I must say if you’re a DX shooter pick one up from the shops. For a prime lens I find the focal length suitable enough if I had to use it for landscape or taking a shot of a single subject with the help of the wide aperture. If you don’t have one already you can pick them at a good price range under $350 so if your just starting into photography, it would be a great lens to learn from and it wont break the bank.

SECTION 4
3 pack of 35mm film for the Blackbird. To keep me up to date with the world I bought a wireless usb thingy. I normally bought P300 of credit and then you message the network carrier the code on the type of deal they have to offer, so I mostly just chose the deal which cost P200 for five full days of interwebbing, no download limit. An assortment of two and four gigs of memory cards, I dont like carrying anything larger then eight gigs just incase the card shits itself before I get the chance to archive them.

SECTION 5
My out of dateish’ Lonely Planet guide. I didn’t care that it was out of date; I just used it as a guide. Shouldn’t really constantly go by the book, remember you should always get off the beaten track! My little journal, I write all my journals, ideas, sketches, maps, pretty much everything because my memory sucks so its best that I write these things down.

SECTION 6
It can get pretty hot and humid in most of the places I ventured so it was best to protect myself from what Mother Nature had to give.

SECTION 7
I got advised to buy some sanitizing gel and it was a good idea! I found it hard trying to wash my hands before a meal or such so it’s good to have that handy. Like I mentioned I put my gear into some rough terrain and gees did my lenses get dirty. So it’s a definite must to bring some lens cleaning tools.

SECTION 8
My trusty Blackberry Bold 9700. Got it unlocked while I was over, shout to Mal for taking care of that. After my 80 gig IPod crapping itself I had to rely on this. I honestly couldn’t fathom venturing out on long trips to destinations with no beats. Unfortunately i managed to damage it when I went kayaking in El Nido but for some really weird reason in just over a week it would slowly fix itself. Most of the buttons weren’t working and the memory card wasn’t reading. But then it would randomly restart itself and certain features would work again, eventually fully functional. If I wanted to listen to my favorite bands like Bombay Bicycle Club, Shout Out Louds or Neon Indian Id like to treat my ears with the right headphones, so I bought a pair of Sennheiser headphones just before I left. I’ve previously owned a pair of these models but a dog chewed on them. So I know they’re comfy, portable and the bass and clarity is what you would expect from a German brand.

SECTION 9
My 15 inch MacBookPro8,2. Fairly new, it hasn’t failed on me during the trip. I had a 17inch MacbookPro before this one and I’ve noticed 15 inch is the way to go. 17 are just too big and heavy to lug around. Now you guys probably want to know what programs I use to work on my images? I use Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5 and Nik’s HDR Efex Pro.

POST PRODUCTION PROCESS
I’ll share you how I process my images and its quite simple. I don’t really want to be sitting on my mac while I’m oot and aboot in another country so I try to make it quick and simple like you should because you wont learn anything if you completely edit your images in post production, get it right the first time and that’s taking the actual shot on your camera. I believe you wont learn that much if you rely completely on post production work. This is just my opinion and I hope others agree. Anyhoot at the end of the day or when I get the chance I transfer all my images into Lightroom, archiving them into its on catalog. I’m pretty trigger happy taking a crap load of shots a day so I have a filtering process that I start of with flagging through the ones I approve, then narrow it down by colour coding them green. Once completely filtered I move into develop mode and lightly adjust the tone and such but what i tend to enjoy playing around with is the split toning. If I find that images have some marks from particles on the lenses I drop them into Photoshop using the healing or stamp tools once that’s done the images are finished.

I didn’t bring a tripod because it would’ve been a pain in the ass to carry around. The only thing I would use it for if I had it around would be used for HDR processing, though i found an alternative technique then the tripod to create my HDR shots. I like to call it “Staying the fuck still” method. First off I set my bracketing between 3 or 9 depending my light source, switch my shooting mode to “CH” (Continues High Speed), firmly place the cam into my face, squeeze in my elbows into my body and by holding my breath I pull the trigger and the D300s will automatically stop shooting once all bracketed shots are done. I then throw that into Lightroom, highlight the images, right click then export it into Efix Pro. Efix Pro will do its best at automatically merging all the shots together even though the shots are not all framed the same, it will adjust them. Once that’s rendered I mostly play with all the settings cause the amount of data I get to play with but I don’t give it the whole HDR look, mostly subtle but a sense to show a light enough scene.

So there you go, if you have any questions, knock yourself out, ill be happy to answer your questions.

Uncle

Turbulence

Laters Palawan

I’m now back in the Pampanga hanging with the relatives for the remaining days till I head back to Australia. My time in Puerto was nice; I managed to make a new friend named Roy. his a 49 year old local of Puerto whom I had met while having breakfast at my accommodation as his sister runs the restaurant there, so he grabs a free feed every morning. Like a lot Filo’s they’re very welcoming and always interested to your stories and opinions. During the afternoons I mostly spent my time hanging out with Roy, he owned a tricycle so we went to bars for a few drinks and he also invited me to have dinner with him and his family at his house. Of course I had barely known Roy, all I knew he was a musician and is one heck of a traditional handicraftsman. Anything made out of wood he can whip up some abstract furniture or household display. He didn’t seem like a weirdo unlike previous strangers I’ve met during this trip so I knew I was safe.

Roy kindly dropped me off to the airport when it was time to head back to Manila. As always it was sad to say goodbye to a very down to earth bloke, but I’m sure ill see him next time I come back to Puerto. He even asked me if I had friends visiting Puerto to get in contact with him, as he would love to meet up and have a beer or two. So if anyone reading this who loves music and crafts this is Roy’s email; etnikustic@yahoo.com an all round nice guy!

The wheels on the bus go...

It was time to depart the beautiful place of El Nido and just over a week till I wrap up this adventure. Now I wasn’t too keen on catching the van back to Puerto so I chose to catch the bus. I’ve used the bus system before in Palawan in my previous visit and from what I remembered I wasn’t squashed and the ride was actually smoother because of the heavy-duty suspension and larger wheels. Another good point taking the bus is that its cheaper, only P350. That’s more than half the price of the van though the only downside it’s a longer trip. Taking an average of seven hours I chose to catch the 5am bus. Packing my gear the night before I set my alarm on my phone and was set for a 4 o’clock wake up.

With a ten-minute walk from my accommodation I arrived to the bus on time. I find it funny but the way the bus driver informs anyone wanting to catch the bus, he continuously beeps his loud horn even though it’s around 4.40am and that the depot is located around residential homes and nearby hotels.

We eventually left; it was still dark so I got the chance to watch the sun rise behind the mountains. Just like a typical sunrise it’s was a beautiful thing to watch. My memories of the bus ride were spot on, I wasn’t squished, it was a smoother ride and it felt good being able to stick your head out the window as you pleased. If you really want to take in the views and feel a bit free, take my advice and use the bus in Palawan.

There were constant stops picking school kids and local travellers, but we eventually arrived to Puerto at around midday. The night before when I had dinner with the other tourists, I asked if they knew of a decent cheap place to stay for the remaining time in Puerto. Lola Itang the previous place I stayed when I arrived was just a bit too pricey for my budget so I had to find an alternative. They mentioned a hotel located on the main road in the center of the town called Garcellano Inn. Getting a tricycle from the bus depot I arrived to the hotel, it really was conveniently close to everything by walking distance compared to Lola Itang. It was only P320 a night for a fanned room; true Filipino price.

Sunset

Ally way to paradise

Tour C

It was my last full day in El Nido, I would be heading back to Puerto Princesa for the remaining week till I fly out back to Manila and spend another week with some relatives and then head back to Australia. I would have to pay for my accommodation bill a day in advance, as I would be leaving at five in the morning. Since I’ve arrived I’ve mostly been eating and drinking at OG’s, instead of paying all the time I’ve just told them to put it on my accom tab…which I hadn’t paid yet. The total was smaller then I thought I came out with P2000 to blow so I thought Id go do another island hop tour and do tour C.

Like before I was appointed to a boat and met the crewmen. They were nice welcoming locals who could speak English well. There were another four more tourists joining, who were all Palawan locals. This tour was the most expensive (P900) but with the perfect weather it really showed that this tour is the grand tour of all tours. The destinations were just amazing; it really showed the highlights of the Bacuit Archipelago. So the first place was this little cove where we were able to snorkel around and check out the living and breathing reef where I finally found Nemo and Dory hanging out. We then headed off to an amazing beach spot where we would have lunch, it really had one spectacular view. I remember floating there for a good ten minutes taking it in, it was something I really wanted to staple in my head.

While the boatmen took care of preparing our lunch I did some swimming around and watched one of the young boatmen do some spear fishing with what seemed to be a hand made device, but hey it worked. Lunch was prepared and I scoffed down some fresh fish, squid and rice, I felt like one of those contestants in that reality TV show “Survivor”. Once we finished lunch we set sail to another destination called “Secret Beach”. Accessible by swimming through a little cracked opening we weren’t able to pass due to the high tide and it’s exposed to the open sea, so big swells were pushing through.

Turning back around we headed to this random shrine smack back in one of the islands. One of the tourists who were an El Nido local told me some “rich doctor fella” built it. Building his getaway mansion he added this impressive Catholic shrine and it’s also got one heck of a view point if you step you way up these safe’ish like stairs cemented into the sharp rock cliffs. After that we headed to our final island “Helicopter Island” as it was shaped as a helicopter – duh. I had already visited the island when I took the kayak but this time the weather was clear, so it was pleasant being there. When we got back to El Nido the other tourists kindly invited me to visit them at the place they were staying. I joined them for dinner and we discussed about the towns rubbish problem on the islands. They actually explained that it was an issue in the process of being fixed. Rubbish bins would be placed on the islands, as there weren’t any, which is something you would think you would place for a clean eco-system if you have tourist constantly visiting them? Anyways we discussed more about the town about its power and such and eventually said my farewells. The next morning I would be leaving El Nido so straight to bed for me!

In the Navy

Crowded Foreshore

Misty Rains

Invasion

Street

You can always find space

Tour A

Besides the towns power switched off 6.30am to 2.30pm the other annoying thing about El Nido is that theirs no ATM’s and “OG’s” the place I’m staying only takes cash so they don’t accept credit cards. Also most of the activities around here that cost money only take cash. I knew about the no ATM issue but would think the accommodation would take credit cards. What this meant I had to be careful as to how much I spent in my time at El Nido. I only had around P10,000 on me, so that would need to pay for my accom, food, booze and the activities (one night I had to sacrifice my dinner so I could booze it up). One thing for sure if I wanted to see more of Bacuit Archipelago id need to get on a boat.

Organised through my accommodation I was set to do some island hopping for the day. There’s three types of tours which take you to different places around the Archipelago. From word I heard that tour A and C were the best tours. I picked tour “A” cause it was the cheapest at P700 but then you have to add some bullshit “Environment tax” which was P200, a tax which I believe is just being pocketed by the mayor, because I remember on my kayak voyage rubbish was just littered all over the islands that I visited. Is it that difficult to pay a clean up crew to clear it up?

The tour goes for the whole day. Another 3 tourist accompanied me for the day, a couple from Korea and a Filo chick on vacation. Around 9.30 we headed to the islands, which was a bit rough! It was pissing down and the winds were strong. I had my SLR out and it was getting drenched. As I was the one sitting right at the front so I was exposed to what ever the ocean had to give! Thankfully one of the Korean couple kindly let me put my cam in their waterproof bag. Once we eventually got to the islands the seas started to ease and we begun cruising through the protected parts from the winds. The first stop was a little beach spot where we would have lunch. During my time here in the country I’ve noticed the people love to have early lunches/eat a lot. Anyways the price of the trip included food, so the boatman’s prepared our lunch, which were fish, rice, chicken, pork and salad. While that was getting cooked this gave us the chance to wander around the area, swimming and taking in the new scenery.

After enjoying our lunch we set sail to the next island. It was a snorkeling spot so we got the chance to swim around with the tropical fishies for a while. We then headed to a place called “Secret Lagoon” because it’s only accessible by swimming through a little rock opening. The lagoon reminded me of that other lagoon I went by kayak. Aqua coloured water and just scenically beautiful. We had one more spot to go, it was nothing special just a beach like spot where they had a little shop where u could buy some snacks and of course fresh coconuts. From there we headed back to El Nido at around five in the arvo and that pretty much wrapped up my day.

Dinner for one

Pump Boat

I've been spotted!

Convertible Kayak

So the things to do around El Nido is practically hop on a boat and cruise around the Bacuit Archipelago. Wasn’t too keen on joining a tourist guide with one of the organized trips just yet so I took an alternative and rented out a kayak for the day (P800). Now I haven’t used a kayak in years so I didn’t really know how well Id go out there, but fuck it. Just wing it; I know how to swim if the kayak somehow blew up?

Looking at the map Id be clocking up some miles with the places I intended to check out, id see how id go through the day I guess. I was cruising smoothly along my paddle, it was a bit overcast but the water was still clear and not that bumpy. Being out on your own, without the noise of an engine boat or having a companion with you in this environment is just awesome. Those photos above don’t do justice to the scale and beauty of this place. I was in constant awe every turn I took.

Through the journey I found some deserted beach spots where id walk around checking out the eco-system and trying to find young coconuts to drink and eat. After a good three hours of paddling around I would find another beach spot have my “packed lunch” (packet of chips and a bottle of water) and then enjoy a peaceful snooze under a coconut tree. Anyways for the rest of the day id paddle around islands and even checked out this amazing lagoon tucked away in this little bypass of an island. With the towering limestone cliffs and the aqua coloured water, it was seriously a sight to see!

Now the trip back home was a bitch of a ride. I would have probably clocked up a good 14kms and still had to head back home, which was about 7 or 8kms away. My arms were starting to ache, I was running out of water and it wasn’t helping having to deal with the bumpy seas and the stupid current constantly changing my direction. Oh and I had fucked up my Blackberry as I was using it for tunes. Bit of water kinda got on it and it shat itself. Anyways with only a few hundred meters to go I was nearly there! I remember yelling out to the ocean to “Go fuck yourself”, that I had won! Floating there I took in the scenery for one last time, then I heard this splashing sound, I looked around and from the distance I saw some sort of flying fish coming straight at me and it didn’t look like it was ready to stop. Squealing like a bitch I grabbed my paddle and did a Sir Donald Bradman and blocked that sucker from sinking my battle ship. I guess this was the oceans reply from my “Go fuck yourself” comment. I later did some research on what type of fish it was and seems to be some sort of barracuda?

Fresh Sardines

Click on image for higher-res

Tuesday morning, I organised my trip to El Nido, a five or so hour drive north. Compared to all the other trips I’ve had to deal with during my adventure here, this would probably be up there as the worst I’ve had to endure…so far. Yeh five hours isn’t that long, but when you're jam packed in a Toyota Hi-ace like a sardine, sitting next to a grown man who acts like a restless child, while also driving through some bumpy terrain, it really gets frustrating. I’m just lucky I had my blackberry to use for tunes after my iPod shat itself back at Siargao.

Besides my comfort status, the scenic point of the trip was nice. Tall tropical mountains on one side, and then gaze over to the other side, clear blue coastal oceans. I couldn’t really take that many photos because of how crammed I was between a glass window and a pommy dude leaning into me when he tried to sleep. Skip four hours later, and we started to see the towering mountains of the Bacuit Archipelago from a distance, and I knew my shitty road trip was nearly over!

Once we arrived to El Nido, I got my gear off the roof, got onto a tricycle, and headed down the road (there’s one main road about 300 meters long where all the hotels are situated in front of the beach) to a café called “Art Café”. From the research I did previously, I knew the “Art Café” was practically the town's information center. From here they had a list of all the accommodation places in town and their prices. I ended up picking a place called “OG’s”. It’s cheap (P600) and positioned right in front of the beach with one heck of a view.