From the Montehabana hotel in Havana …
Fueled by Peter’s Cuban BBQ, Nancy’s incredible chocolate cake, and some potent martinis, we were up early to head to the airport. We left Melrose at 4 AM for Logan. And after our 6 AM departure we arrived in Atlanta by 8:30 AM.
Over D.C. enroute to Atlanta
During the two hour layover in Atlanta, we confirmed our general license to travel to Cuba, received our visas, and stopped for Caribou Coffee – a rare treat for me since I live in Caribou-deprived D.C. Departure for Cuba was about 11:30 AM.
Over the Florida Keys in the way to Cuba
We arrived in Cuba at about 1:30 PM, passed through customs, and had a late lunch at Area +53 in Havana. After a short bus ride we checked into the Montehabana hotel and took a quick break to unpack.
Then we went to the hotel next door for mojitos by the pool while listening to Ana Marie, our tour guide, talked about life in Cuba.
After a late dinner I’m back in the Montehabana lobby paying for Wi-Fi for today’s update.
Tomorrow we explore Old Havana.
Onboard United 641 to Boston
Leaving the unseasonably warm temps of D.C. and flying to New England where there is still some snow on the ground. I’m on the first leg of the trip to Cuba! It’s good to be in the road again. And while the flight is smooth it seems I am functioning as a human coatrack for some of my fellow travelers.
Flying over New York City on the way to Boston.
When I signed up for this trip a couple of years ago the only option was a departure from Boston on a charter flight to Havana. But, as it turns out, tomorrow we’re flying commercial, so things have really changed.
Mickey and Donna are already in Boston, so we all get to spend the day together at Shannon and Peter’s with plans to take the T to explore downtown Boston, the Greenway, Quincy Market, and Boston Public Market. Planning on taking it easy tonight before our early 6 AM departure.
Making twice-baked potatoes – in timelapse! Savory goodness for the holidays!
Shot with an iPhone 6s and edited using Final Cut Pro X.
Some end of summer and early fall aerial shots from the 2016 flying season shot using the DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter.
Technical details …
I’ve been back from Peru for a couple of weeks now and all the photo and video files are downloaded to my desktop computer and backed up onsite and offsite. As I did for Galapagos and South Africa, here is a review of the photo, video, and timelapse workflow for Peru. With a couple of exceptions, I brought along the same gear for Peru that I used in South Africa:
For the Peru trip I brought along two 64 GB Lexar Professional SDXC Class 10 cards and two 32 GB Lexar Professional SDHC Class 10 cards.
Nikon D750 with SD cards
Each 64 GB card holds about 1,500 12-bit NEF files. (See 14-bit vs 12-bit RAW – Can You Tell The Difference at Photography Life.) I used a 64 GB card in slot 1 of the D750 to store raw photo files. In slot 2 I used a 32 GB card with the D750 set to store Large size JPEG normal quality backups at about 6.7 MB per image.
About halfway into the trip, I swapped out the initial set of cards for the second set. At the end of the trip I ended up with 753 picture files. That’s a shooting rate of 75 per day – less than my average of 100 photos per day on international trips, and a direct reflection of my focus on shooting more efficiently. In addition to JPEG backups, I used the slot 2 card for movie files and ended up with 350 files totaling 1 hour and 21 minutes, about the same as the 1 hour and 28 minutes I recorded in the South Africa. The picture and movie file count also includes iPhone 6S picture and movies files for must-have Machu Picchu selfies and some additional timelapse sequences.
For the daily trip blog updates I used the D750’s built-in Wi-Fi to connect via the Nikon Wireless Mobile Utility installed on my phone. Once connected it was easy to select pictures to transfer to the phone, and then incorporate those photos in the daily trip blog updates using the WordPress Mobile App.
Machu Picchu photos in Lightroom
My standard workflow for photos and video remains the same. I’m still working with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for photo management and editing – using the Creative Cloud Photography plan. The simplified version of the workflow is:
Machu Picchu video clips in Final Cut Pro X
Video files are digitized using Apple Final Cut Pro X to events named by date and location. After import files are renamed by date and time. All movie clips on this trip were shot at 1080p 60.
Before going to Peru I saw some timelapse sequences at Machu Picchu and I knew I wanted to capture some timelapse while I was there. On our first day at Machu Picchu I used the Ricoh GR Digital II to shoot a sequence of about 240 images. On our second day at Machu Picchu I captured 2 sequences each of similar length with the D750 and the Ricoh. Back home I used LRTimelapse and Lightroom to process the sequences into video clips for importing into FCPX and editing into the short video above.
With all trip photo and video files transferred I confirm onsite and offsite backups are complete (using CrashPlan to manage both backups) and then reformat the SDXC cards for use on the next project. Now it’s time to get to work on the photo gallery, book, and the trip video!
View from the balcony ...
Michael S. Liberman