{"id":29565,"date":"2019-06-25T07:45:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T23:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=29565"},"modified":"2026-03-15T13:42:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:42:21","slug":"10-days-in-maldives-2019-equipment-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2019\/06\/25\/10-days-in-maldives-2019-equipment-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Days in Maldives 2019 – Equipment Comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Equipment-wise, the Maldives trip turned out to be quite a varied experience: I bought just two lenses for the Sony A73 \u2014 the FE 24-105mm and Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 \u2014 and not unexpectedly, used the former far more than I did the latter. But there was a large number of smaller-sized items that accompanied my Sony A73, and these included the ever trustworthy Canon G7X II, the new GoPro Hero 7<\/em> Black<\/span>, Olympus TG-5, and the Insta360 One X. The latter three pieces of equipment were for specific use-cases: 4K 60fps underwater footage on the GoPro 7, still shots with the TG-5, and 360 videos with the Insta360.<\/p>\n

Numbers-wise, I simply didn’t take as many photos as I could have, and only on account that I was knocked out of commission for most of the second half of the trip. So:<\/p>\n

Sony A73<\/strong>: 1,096 photos in .ARW RAW format<\/p>\n

Samsung Note 9<\/strong>: 300 photos in a mix of .JPG and .DNG RAW format + 39 videos in 4K 60fps video using the H.265 codec<\/p>\n

Canon G7X II<\/strong>: 239 photos in .CR2 RAW format<\/p>\n

Olympus TG-5<\/strong>: 685 photos in .ORF RAW format + 10 videos in 4K 60 fps<\/p>\n

GoPro 7<\/strong> Hero 7 Black<\/strong>: 75 videos in 4K 60 fps<\/p>\n

Insta360 One X<\/strong>: 13 360 videos<\/p>\n

Of the 2,320 photos I took this trip, I\u2019m keeping 1,518 of them and most of the videos \u2014 making up about 82.4GB of data: 29.5GB of images and 31.3GB of 4K video, alongside another 21.6GB of 360 videos. That\u2019s a keeper rate of 65.4%, better than the 56.5% and 57% I hit during the Taiwan and Western Australia trips respectively. Though that’s also because of more deliberate shooting discipline this trip, and that I was off drive mode for most of the trip too haha.<\/p>\n

Further-on comments for each toy that came along for the trip:<\/p>\n

The Sony A73<\/strong> was on its third major trip out of the country \u2014 the previous two being Bali and Taiwan in Jun and Dec respectively last year \u2014 and continued to shine. Quick, responsive, reliable, and producing versatile RAW files that I could squeeze that bit more dynamic range from each time. I opted not to bring along a backup battery this trip too, reasoning that the 800+ shot longevity per charge is easily more than sufficient for each day, and I could use a powerbank on days where I expected to take more than that or chimp my photos. As it turned out, I didn’t take more than a few hundred shots each day this trip on the A73, so battery life turned out to be a real non-issue.<\/p>\n

Of the two lenses \u2014 the FE 24-105mm f4.0<\/strong> and Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 + Sigma MC-11<\/strong> \u2014 the former, not surprisingly, saw really heavy use as a versatile all-rounder lens, while the Tamron came out to play only on Day 03’s visit to the local private beach<\/a> @ Huraa Island and also Day 04’s trip to the sand bank<\/a>. No complaints on either, but for the next trip(s) to Japan later this year I’m almost for certain gonna bring along the FE 16-35mm f4.0 as well.<\/p>\n

The GoPro 7 Hero Black<\/strong> is the manufacturer’s top-line model, and I equipped it also with a cheapo underwater case just so I could mount a light red filter on top of the lens to remove some of the tint that would otherwise be present in the underwater footage. The footage could have been corrected in Adobe Premiere either way, but the filter at least removed a significant step that would have been necessary in post-processing. Oddly, the GoPro occasionally froze while operating underwater, and it seems a problem also faced by other users<\/a> of the model. It could be fixed by forcing a hard restart of the unit, but it sure was annoying \u2014 especially when we were underwater already.<\/p>\n