It would be nice if I proof-read better.

I actually have only two hands even though I said "On the other hands" :-) and my purse has metallic mesh as protection, not 'nesh' ! Apologies, folks!

- Andrys

Yes, I definitely take my DSLR (Canon 30D). Typically, I just take one lens (Canon 17-85 IS), but I will also take my 100-400 lens on my next trip (Africa).

How I carry it depends on where I am going. In Cusco/Machu Picchu or while on safari, I use a Naneu Pro Bravo backpack. It is less expensive than most photo backbacks, doesn't scream "expensive camera bag," and its unique design makes it nearly impossible for thieves to lift a lens or body from it in a crowd. The design also allows you to put it on the ground to retrieve a lens or body without getting your back dirty when you put it back on.

If I'm in an urban area, I carry it in my purse. I just bought a new one from Club Monaco that I think will be ideal. The bag itself is quilted - like a down jacket - but I also think I will use the removable padding from the Naneu Pro. Plus, it's very lightweight, so it won't weigh my luggage down for the safari portion of my trip.

Based on the recommendations on this thread I just purchased a Lowepro Slingshot 200 bag. I had already "Outgrown" the smaller National Geographic bag which I will now use for lugging to an event.
Anyway do I ever love this bag. If you are in the market take a serious look. It comes in a 100, 200, and 300 - size being the main difference.
This bag will carry camera and your lenses and stuff easily. It has plenty of devoted pockets etc. Price is reasonable.
I love the way it rotates to the front of your body for access.
Don't mean to drone on but...
Thank you for your recs. Now if I can just get it into a 20" roll aboard to abide by the BA one bag ruke.

I would love a Slingshot, they are a great range of bags but they aren't big enough for the 50-500 Bigma sadly, so I have to stick to my Tamrac backpack.
Hope it fits in your other bag. Who needs clean clothes on holiday any way :D

<<
Now if I can just get it into a 20" roll aboard to abide by the BA one bag ruke.
>>

That's always a tricky issue, especially depending on what else is a must in your carry-on.

I was able to avoid it this year because I took a smaller camera bag that only took up about 1/2 the space in my roller case. It may be more efficient to pack the camera bag in your checked luggage and put your camera/lenses in your carry-on (carefully wrapped in the extra clothes you have in case your checked baggage is delayed).

In all the posts talking about how to pack so that one only needs to take carry-on, I've noticed that none of them have an SLR camera and lenses on their lists. ;)

I think it'd be very hard to only take carry-on to the UK with a dSLR system. So, I assume you also have another checked luggage.

If that is true, here's how I travel through the UK last Christmas:

I have a large backpack that's designed for camera gear. [Mine is Canon-branded, but doesn't matter.] I use that to keep my camera and lens for the plane trip. It's also large enough for one set of clothes, contact lens solution, medicine, etc.

In my checked suitcase, I put my empty camera day-bag. Stuffed with socks, underwears, etc during the plane trip. Once I get to my destination, I take that day bag out for my camera gear and use the camera backpack for other stuff.

From ShelliDawn:
"In all the posts talking about how to pack so that one only needs to take carry-on, I've noticed that none of them have an SLR camera and lenses on their lists."

Indeed, I gave up the thought of carry on-only travel when I started shooting an SLR. Now, I check all my clothing and hope for the best. :)

hetismij, you must be very strong to carry the Bigma! :) I recently made a rule not to buy any more lenses with their own tripod mounts after a miserable shooting day spent with an 80-400mm zoom - way too heavy! I'm now the happy owner of a relatively small & light 70-300mm VR.

Hehehe.. Somebody said "Bigma". Does anybody has a "Sigmonster"? ;)

That thing is massive!! Does it meet carry on dimensions? :-d

I'm still looking at the zooms. I have the Canon 75-300 II USM, but I'd like more reach and I don't think I'll be happy with the quality if I add an extender. With my price budget, I'm looking between the Sigma 80-400mm and the Tamron 200-500mm. I lose a bit of speed with the Tamron, but I would gain more range where I need it. I don't think I want to sell the 75-300 because it's a pretty lightweight lens for travel.

toedtoes - I guess there's nothing as too much "reach" in a lens. Like there's nothing as too many horsepower in a car! ;)

I'm just thinking. I recently bought the excellent 70-300IS. Someone can buy that lens and a XTi for just over a thousand dollars, and that gives you a 500mm-equivalent focal length, is very sharp, very light and compact and is easy handheldable to about 1/100 second. And with the 10MP on the camera, one can crop it down significantly unless producing very large print.

Not many years ago, to get that kind of reach, one needs to pay many times more, and nothing remotely as compact.

:)

Having been burdened on my travels with an old SLR, I'm looking forward to a point and shoot with the low light and battery performance of the Fuji F30 or 31 fd combined with a wide/r angle lens and a half decent viewfinder. Also in the frame is a slightly more bulky P&S camera which uses widely available AA batteries, such as the Canon A630 or 640.

Fellow 'non camera enthusiast' travellers contemplating a DSLR might at least look at the reviews and discussion forums on top digital camera sites such as <dpreview.com >. In a brief camera shop reconnaissance I found the highly regarded Nikon D40/x to have a significantly clearer viewfinder than the Pentax K100D, but the latter a better balanced feel overall, even in my small hands.

Camera experts remind us that the quality of the glass(lens)is what counts, but it appears that selecting a DSLR with just the one lens for travel convenience (with a decent wide/ zoom range)will usually require a compromise between lens versatility and quality anyway. At the entry level(which I haven't reached yet)I gather that it probably doesn't matter.

You're so right. The 300mm is a good reach on the XT (=480), but there's always that one shot you couldn't get close enough for. I've found with that combination that I can crop up to 1/4 of the image out and be OK quality wise. If I have to crop anymore than that, then I didn't get close enough to the subject to make it worthwhile.

Farrermog - lens quality vs. versatility is one of the toughest choices. Most prime lenses will give you a much better image than the equivalent zoom lens, but you lose the versatility.

When I was debating whether I should go L lenses, which I really can't afford, or go less expensive, I was reminded that:

A great photographer can take a good photograph with a crappy lens;

A good photographer might get a great photograph with a good lens; but

A crappy photographer will still take a crappy photograph with a great lens

I know I can't afford the best lenses out there, but I can learn how to take a good photograph and that will help me more than the L glass.

I can manage the Bigma but the Sigmonster is way too much for me - I'd need to bring a friend just to carry the thing. But I do love the Bigma.
For travelling if you don't want or can't lug different lenses then the Tamron 18-250 is a good compromise.
Oh and there is a Pentax K100D Special out with more goodies on it now, should anyone be looking.
toedtoes what you say about great good and crappy photographers is so true! However with practice and perserverence you can move up a level if you are prepared to work at it and learn. Sadly many people aren't.

If you're willing to learn and practice and accept critiques of your work, you can improve. One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome was my friends. They would tell me how great my photos were, how much better than "those professional photographers", etc. While they sort of meant it, it wasn't helpful in that they would pooh pooh any attempt I made at looking for ways to improve.

Once I realized I couldn't look to friends for honest critiques, my photos started improving a lot!

Definitely take it - you bought it for a reason - but also take your P&S too. There will be times you want to be an "artiste" and times you just want to carry the light one. If your P&S is decent you'll take good photos with it too of course. I took 3 cameras (Mom had exclusive use of one of them) and in the end took about 25% with the DSLR and 75% with my P&S - but was glad to have both. The P&S took great shots, too.

toed, heitmisji,rk, andrys & others - I so appreciate your expert advise
So how precisely does one move up from the "crappy photographer" to the "not-so-crappy photographer" category?
Also, I have been spending my time trying to get to know my K10 but confess that most of the time I leave it on fully automatic with very little adjustment - it is almost overwhelming.

Robjame - a few things that may help:

Turn off the flash.
Use your auto-timer (set on two seconds) to take photos, especially when the light is a little low. This will reduce camera shake. (it's not critical to do in broad daylight).
Buy a small tripod. It's easy to carry around, so you will actually use it. This helps immensely for low-light photos.
Get closer to your subject.

Robjame, also look before you shoot. See where the light is coming from. Move in close, don't always rely on the zoom. Apply the rule of thirds (don't always plonk the subject slap bang in the middle, same with horizons, either one third or two thirds down from the top.
Make sure you are in focus! Learn your camera, so you can do things intuitively.
Soon you will be looking at things differently - thinking wow that will make a good photo!

There are two main aspects of photography that you have to learn: composition and exposure. The former harder for some people, especially with super-automatic cameras like your K10 which really have to be mishandled to get a bad exposure.

For composition, I would suggest spending a LOT of time looking through the viewfinder -- not just taking snaps but hunting for them. You will be trying to develop your eye to be able to see them without the camera, but to get there use the camera. Look for angles; think of the frame as a geometric field. Think of buildings as diagonal lines, and try them in different parts of the frame.

Try moving your subject around in the frame. Up, down, left, right. Try to look for shots where things are coming into the frame from the edges, rather than isolating everything in the center.

Take your camera somewhere where you can sit and relax and experiment. Take it off P mode and put it in aperture priority mode, and take a series of shots with super wide depth -- not wide angle, but front and back, maybe a bottle in front of a medium scene, at different apertures, until you get a feeling for how aperture affects depth of field (f/2 or whatever is your widest is much shallower than f/32).

Do the same with shutter priority (T mode) and see the difference in speed. Try to find some motion for that.

Try full manual to train yourself to be able to judge the light. You guess, then look at your result -- find out how to get the histogram up on your LCD -- and adjust from there.

Practice manual focusing. This is the thing you're most likely to actually use in daily shooting on a regular basis, as there are all sorts of shots that will defeat autofocus. With a wide aperture and the right focus you can make a wire hanging in front of you disappear, for instance.

All you're doing is doing what the camera does automatically, but if you have an idea of WHY it's doing these things, you'll ask it to do better things, and you'll be able to compensate when you need to -- when there's really strong backlighting, for instance. Yes, you can shoot into the sun sometimes!

Get in the habit of taking every picture 3-5 times, with different settings. The advice about turning your flash off is good, but you should also practice turning it ON in places you wouldn't expect -- like outdoors in full sun. On a bright day experiment with using flash to fill in the shady places, like in a tree's shade. I wouldn't worry about using the autotimer to avoid shake unless you're really trying to get away with shooting in the dark; your Pentax has excellent anti-shake built in. If you need more, get a tripod (or at least learn how to brace on a tree or a phone pole or a rock or a car or a balled-up coat).

Above all, take a ton of pictures and go through them afterwards. Take a ton more. Go to places in your town that are photogenic -- tourist spots are perfect, you'll blend right in, but your own neighborhood might be photogenic in ways you haven't grasped yet. I strongly recommend getting an instructional book, but you need to get out and shoot.

I agree 100% with the getting off the auto (or P) mode. Use the Av (aperture) and Tv (shutter speed) modes to learn how they affect each other and how the ISO affects both.

Don't worry if you don't get the connection right away. At some point, you will be out taking photos and all of a sudden... AH HA!!!! It will all become clear.

Look at different angles, including from above and below. Think about the rule of thirds, and about the "when you think you're close enough, move in even closer" rule.

Practice on anything. Flowers in the garden, etc. Go out each day for 1/2 hour and just take pictures using different settings, etc. to see how they change things.

Find an online site where you can post your photos for critiques - make sure to read the TOS before joining.

Look for other photographers that you admire on the site and ask them for suggestions on improvement.

If they only tell you what's wrong with the photo, but don't tell you how to correct it for the next time, ASK them. If they say "it's too ordinary", ASK them how you could have made it more exciting.

Once you get the basics down, try to focus on one type of photo at a time. Maybe start with landscapes and just spend all your time trying for the perfect shot. At first, you'll have maybe 10% that are OK. As you continue, and start to understand how it all connects, you'll get that one great shot and about 40% that are OK. That's improvement.

Continue and you'll find that only 10% are crappy. You'll get maybe 5% that are really good. That's improvement.

And so it goes.

And never forget that those photos on National Geographic etc. are in the 5% range. Those photographers don't get a 100% success rate. They use a TON of film. They spend weeks and months scouting the area for that perfect sunset shot.