Going to Vegas

[danpeikes]

I am planning a trip to Vegas at the end of the summer. When I took photo 101 in college one of the things I loved was taking pictures in neon signs. Vegas will be great for that. Any suggestions on what film I should use for it? In school they had us use Tri-X 400 but I would like to shoot color for this trip. Any suggestions on what lens to use? I have a 50mm, 28mm, 80-200mm, and 28-135mm. I am shooting a Cannon AE-1 program, that is new to me. In school all I had was TLB and a 50mm so this stuff is all more complicated than I am used to. I really want to capture the beauty of the neon signs and king of do a "tour around the world" in vegas. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[danpeikes]

help

 

[LuckySo-n-So]

If you have never been to Las Vegas "at the end of the summer," you are in for a shock. I am from a sub-tropical climate in S. Louisiana. Summer weather is like this for 3 months: 95 degrees, 95-100% humidity, afternoon showers (ten minute torrential downpours) which make it feel even hotter. If you take ten steps, your clothes are drenched in sweat. Your energy is zapped from you as if there was a giant energy magnet following you.

Las Vegas in Summer: 115+ degrees, no humidity. If you want to know what it feels like, put your head in the oven for about 5 minutes. OR, around the middle of July, make sure your house is cooled to a nice 70 degrees--feels good, huh?--next, climb into your attic. It's like walking into an oven. You don't sweat at all in Las Vegas, but you lose all will to live once you leave the hotel and hit the streets.

Why did I tell you all of this? Because the point I'm trying to get across is that your best time to photograph will probably be between 3-6 am. The reason for that is twofold: 1.) because the temps will "only" be 95-100 degrees; 2.) Less crowds.

And by all means, save up about $400 and take one of those all inclusive day tours to the Grand Canyon. You get picked up at your hotel, taken to a small airport, flown to GC, bus to a few sight seeing points, then a helicopter trip to the bottom, there, you get on a boat for about a 30-45 minute ride upstream, and then reverse the process. Awesome.

Good luck!

I don't know the first thing about film, so I can't help you there. It looks like you have a nice collection of fast lenses, so you should be ok there.