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The decidedly ” not-so friendly skies”

16 April 2017 by Harold Glit

By now, most people living in America have seen the video of the forceful removal of doctor dao from United airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville,KY last Sunday. As someone who has extensively traveled by commercial flights over three continents over the last decade, i have long been of the opinion that for the last 10 years or so, flying on most large airlines in America or in Europe offers more and more similarities to “cattle transportation”.
Overbooking incidents are frequent in the USA but this specific incident will , I think set a precedent because it has FOUR characteristics probably never combined before in a single occurrence : [Read more…]

Filed Under: Rants & raves, Travel

Best wishes for 2017

5 January 2017 by Harold Glit

Dear reader & fellow traveler/photographer

The blog has been silent for a while but this January will feature several new articles. First, I would like to extend to all of you my best wishes for 2017. May this year 2017 bring you health, happiness… and lots of Photographic opportunities !!

Filed Under: Photo, Travel, Unclassified

Traveler ‘s alert on car rental

5 September 2016 by Harold Glit

For domestic and overseas travel alike, some of your journeys are likely to include renting a vehicle at some point. Nowadays , the choice is plentiful. You can book through your travel agent, directly from the car rental company(online or not) or through third-party sellers on the internet. This last method is becoming popular because it seems to offer some savings over the other methods. But one has to be careful for the kind of companies you are dealing with.
I am now able to advise you against one of these companies : Arguscarhire.com ( also doing business as car trawler.com). First a foreword: when I rent a car, I use all these THREE methods for car rentals depending on several factors ( Is there a rental company that I trust in the car pick-up area, have I dealt with this location before, do I need a specific vehicle,..)
Over the last 2 years, I had rented vehicles from this company several times before I found the issue. On first sight, the choice seems to make sense : the site is easy to navigate, allows you to pick the rental car company  (a MUST, in my opinion, when renting a vehicle), the pricing is competitive and clear BUT there is a catch, and a big one in my opinion !
Very often, when you rent car online, you have TWO different prices for one given rental  depending if you want a cancellable and refundable contract or not. It is the same as when booking hotels room online on many sites. As for me I generally prefer to pay a slightly higher price for the added flexibility, especially if the car rental is taking place during the middle of the trip. No problem since arguscarhire has a option with a 24 hour prior notice policy, you think : well yes EXCEPT Argus carhire does not honor its policy and will try every dirty trick in the book to prevent you from cancelling your reservation.
In July I had made three reservations with Argus carhire one in the USA and two in France. As it happened I needed to cancel two of them and was dumbfounded about the response from the company. For the US reservation, I tried to cancel online 36hours before but when logged in  got a message saying that this could not be canceled online as it was supposed to be. The “contact” button was strangely unresponsive. The company is based in the UK so calling from somewhere with a 8 hour time difference is both an expensive and unpractical option. I tried and got nowhere.I finally was able to get an email address and the got an answer THREE days later saying that the car cannot be cancelled AFTER the pick-up deadline. In other words, they just sit on the email until AFTER the deadline to inform you that this too late to cancel. What they tried to do for the French reservation was even worse and the emails I got were almost insulting with their content.
BOTTOM LINE is if you are a smart traveler and do not want to get screwed by a company which is dedicated of giving you phony excuses when you try to change or cancel the reservation when you are within the time frame to do so, do NOT use this company. I know I won’t . Not worth the hassle.

Filed Under: Rants & raves, Travel

My Top 5 “best bang for your buck” micro 4/3 lenses

24 August 2016 by Harold Glit

When choosing a camera system, one must pay attention to the lens line-up. It is not wise to select a camera if most of the focal lengths you need are not in the line up. Without a doubt the micro 4/3 system has the largest lens line-up among any digital mirrorless system. It offers over 40 different AF lenses from Olympus and Panasonic with a few Sigma additions (I am not even counting the manual focus lenses available for the m4/3 mount for this ranking). Recently olympus added some highly professional lenses with the 4/40-150mm and the 4/300mm. Other highly regarded lenses from their build and performance include the Panasonic 1.2/42.5mm or the Olympus Zuiko 1.8/75mm.

However lots of m4/3 users  chose the system for its diminutive size and weight. The light traveler is also going to pay a close look at small lenses for the systems. Most of these very light lenses bring about a lighter build and smaller maximum apertures . But what you lose in DOF control and build does not necessarily means you have to compromise too much on performance. Early on Olympus and Panasonic proved that they could offer useful lenses being very small and light while providing very good to excellent performance and at a very reasonable cost. I voluntarily excluded ANY m4/3 lenses which retail at $400 or more. the Olympus 1.8/45mm and the Panasonic 1.7/20mm were among the first to establish this trend in the m4/3 system years ago but we got more little gems over the last few years.
I would like to add that I own ( and have tested) ALL the lenses included in this article.
The Sigma 2.8/60mm DN (here in black and here in silver) is both a useful focal length of 120mm (in 35mm equivalent) and a lens getting  great reviews. It is currently priced at $209 and $239 for the black and silver versions respectively and includes both a pouch and the hood which is really amazing at that price-point.Therefore probably deserves to be on this list but since I never tried it, I decided not to include it for the time being.
Now,without further ado, here is  MY TOP 5 selection for small and lightweight m4/3lenses which offer great value for the price : [Read more…]

Filed Under: Photo, Photo equipment review, Rants & raves, Travel gear

Hotel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

22 April 2016 by Harold Glit

Planning to spend a week-end in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.If you do,I have an hotel recommendation that you may enjoy :The Lloyd hotel and Cultural Embassy
I stayed at this hotel for 4 nights in April 2016.Despite what a cursory look at a citymap may suggest, this hotel offers a great location because it has both quick and direct access to most important locations with two lines of tramway and allow you to stay away from the cheesy and noisy parts of town.The staff at the front desk is both very friendly & very professional. Rooms are original (shower in the closet) but well designed. My room was #201 and was about €160/night all inclusive. There is a very nice and big breakfast/lobby space. Free wifi and optional free safe option downstairs (not in the room). There is no fridge in the room. There is a supermarket one block behind the hotel which is open until 10pm during the week.

Filed Under: Hotel & Accommodation, Travel

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