Been to China, but never Japan. What's the transit system like in Tokyo?

Just wanted to share one of the things we found particularly useful during our visits to France.

Instead of buying a pack of metro tickets to travel within Paris, we used the Paris Navigo Decouverte card. Obtaining one is simple. Bring a photo of yourself a little smaller than a passport size and you can buy the card at the airport (other venues sell them also). I recommend doing that because you can use the pass on the RER train to Paris proper.

The beauty of this card is unlimited usage on local RER trains, Metros and buses. We also used it to travel to Versailles on one visit. There are 2 types of Navigo cards, but the Decouverte is available to anyone. The other is only for Paris residents.

We recharged our cards once a week for around 30 euros at any ticket kiosk and used it constantly. Last trip on a particularly rainy day, we used it to do a tour of all the Metro stations to see the different architecture and art. My wife and girlfriend were staying with Paris friends for 2 weeks while I stayed in an abnb near Parc De Sceaux. (the chateau there was used as a before stand-in when they filmed the series Versailles) Used the pass every day 15 minutes into Paris via the RER. The next 2 weeks, my wife and I spent traveling around.

Save your card, it can be used again, it only needs to be recharged when you are there.

This is a great sling strap and I use it a lot. Of course, I really prefer a sling strap anyway and never use a standard camera strap. One of the beautiful things about this sling version is the adjustable length strap end and buckle to bring it tight to your body or looser for shooting. Adjusting is fast and smooth.

I use my Wacom tablet for photo processing. I find it quite easy to use after initial learning investment. Being left handed, I work the Wacom pen with it and my right to speed through some navigation using the mouse or speed controls on the tablet.

It's a medium which for me is the perfect size. I do have a small Intuos for times I need to do quick edits on location with a laptop.

Easy, simple and imnexpensive are OpTech rain sleeves. Used them in winter and on beaches, works well for me.

https://www.optechusa.com/products/rainsleeve?_pos=1&_sid=bfbd5ea1a&_ss=r

My main walking lenses when I was in France for a month, was the 16-35 IIL 2.8 and the 24-105 IIL 4. The 16-35 was primarily used for shooting indoors in low light and the 24-105 most everywhere else. I did bring a 24TSE lens for shooting shifted bracket landscapes. I shot 3 frame brackets indoors handheld with the 16-35 and processed them when I got back. I also brought a 50mm 1.4, but never used it.

Have fun on your trip, I think these 2 would be all you need. I shot all the interiors at 2.8 and high iso.

Our friends took us to many places north of Toulouse when we visited. I believe this church was in Montpezat-de-Quercy. The bracketed shot made it possible to capture the sun illumination through the rose window


This was at 16mm bracketed at St Cecille in Albi


And of course, Paris' St Chapelle is notoriously dark with bright stained glass

OpTech has an adjustable sling strap with cable wiring running inside the length of the webbing. I have one and it is easy to use. It can be attached to their padded stretchy shoulder pad which alleviates the jarring of a bouncing camera weight on your neck or shoulder.

I use the OpTech sling straps also, but even though I put connectors on both strap lugs, I usually only connect to one while shooting. I do love the OpTech system. Have many assorted straps and slings that serve me well. Plus made in USA.

That is the first time I've ever heard of this payment restriction. I always pay this card online electronically and show payment receipt confirmation immediately. If they were to say it's a late payment and charge late fees, I could prove payment before due date, regardless of the banking rigamorale. Besides, the debit on my bank statements are always dated within a working day of my payment date.

Is it possible your bank was set up to do your payouts via hard check? I have clients that have bank checks mailed to me for invoices, sometimes different clients, same bank with checks from each in the same envelope.

Absolutely correct. Sales tax is still charged and paid by you. The credit is against the price of the product purchased to offset taxes incurred. There is another option though. You cna elect for special 6 or 12 month financing on larger purchases, but there is no sales tax offset credit.

I don't look at downloading cards as a way to free up cards for continued use. I download my cards to have viable backups of what I shoot.

In your post, you aren't too concerned with losing a few pictures should a card go bad. So that's why you use multiples and don't fill your cards. If that strategy works for you, then having a lot of cards is what you should continue to do. Using a card reader to free up cards and using one to make backups are really 2 different strategies.

I agree that cards do not fail often, but after many years of digital shooting I have had only one CF card go belly up. Unfortunately, it was a single slot camera in 2005 and on my first family trip to China. Now, my cameras use CF/SD card slots and I shoot raw to both. Personally, I am paranoid about losing my files when I cannot easily recreate a trip or a photoshoot. So I download all my cards to hard drives because I would rather come home with more copies than I ultimately need than be missing a set altogether.

The directly connected HD to the RavPower/NewQ via USB is fairly fast, under 5 or 10 minutes depending on card size. The beauty is the hub is also a power bank, so it powers the portable hard drive as it downloads the card. The hub is also only a little larger than a deck of playing cards, so it doesn't take up much space nor would a small portable drive.

The WD My Passport Wireless Pro is also an elegant solution, sized about the same as a hub and portable drive side by side. Too bad they were discontinued.

Both are good solutions and work well for paranoid shooters like me.

While I don't use my Synology for photo editing, we do have our Autocad files on the NAS that we access and work on via our network. There isn't a slowdown from any PC we may use to access and revise drawings from. We do not have programs loaded on the NAS, only working files that I backup weekly to a separate external drive. Like others, I would think that having the program on the NAS would create a bottleneck moving command info back and forth, creating extra delay and impediment.

Contact Synology and see how they view the subject.

I purchased a couple of extension cords with USB charge outlets. I made sure they were 120v 240v compatible and had a European plug to fit wherever we would be. With that, the longer cord made access easier and no need to have individual plug adapters for all my electronics.

RavPower used to make a wireless router/power bank/sd card reader backup for under $100. I have one of them along with a WD My Passport wireless pro. Both work great for transferring SD card contents to a portable HD. The WD has an HD as part of the build, the other requires an external USB drive.

Amazon has the newest iteration of the RavPower, exact same build but different name and a higher mAh.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09T9QKQH7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

On extended trips, I download the SD card and reuse them. I keep the CF cards as an original backup (I shoot raw to both SD and CF cards normally) The SD cards I use a reformatted one daily and the CF card until it's full before changing out.

Editing is a different story and i personally don't do it while on the road unless required for some reason. When that happens, I use either a tablet or laptop using PSCC, DXO and Topaz products.