Going to Guam

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wacky941

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Like the title says, I might be going to Guam. I have looked into it and see that apparently it is the rainy season there so, I am wondering if I should take my camera, most likely digital and I'll leave film cameras at home.

Any suggestions? I'm wondering if I should take the camera, I'm worried about the rain. I'm also worried about the salt air and the damage it might cause to my camera and/or lenses. Am I being too cautious? What precautions should I take?

Has anyone here been to Guam?
Any pointers, tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
I have never been to Guam, but certainly to worse places in terms of humitity, sand and salty air.
Any camera will survive without damage as long as you will take basic precautions like venting the camera on occasion, cleaning it with a wet cloth and drying it as it should.
 
Been to Guam this year; brought a Nikonos for water sports shooting and an M4 with Summicron 35; I couldn't find my Olympus XA in time to take with me but I wish I had it; the humidity and rain made the Nikonos very nice. I cleaned all gear when i came back no problems.
 
Buy a sealable click top plastic container (the type used for food storage) of appropriate size. Also buy a couple of bags or packs of silica gel desiccant to suck up any moisture from air in the box. Place the camera in it when not in use and over night. This is the routine followed by many photographers in tropical climes. No need to worry then. Also when you are out and about in rainy and humid conditions and need something more easily portable you can instead use zip lock plastic bags in the same manner with smaller silica gel packs.
 
Lots of really good advice here.
I really do like the idea of the desiccant packs, I never thought of that before. I ordered some silica gel packets from Amazon, I think they will work great with some zip lock bags.

The link to wikipedia guam is quite good too, thank you for that.

For the good of my camera, I will probably have everything cleaned after I return.

Thank you to all for the info, I appreciate it greatly.
 
I was deployed to Guam back in 2003 through the summer and into the fall. It rains on schedule there in the morning as well as the afternoon. Cooler evenings and weak frontal systems will cause some intense rain but it doesn't last long.
Buy a Nikonos V with the 35mm lens for torrential shooting. These days they are almost free. Otherwise, just treat your camera as you would wherever you live. Make sure your camera bag has some sort of waterproofing. I took a Lowepro Stealth Reporter 500AW. it lasted through daily downpours, a tropical storm and one typhoon. Cameras always stayed dry when I intended them to.
When I was there, I had a Nikon F4 and a Nikon D100, both survived just fine, and I wasn't treating them with kid gloves. I was a working military photographer, out in all the weather at all hours, shooting the infrastructure projects that the US Navy Seabees were doing. On my days off, I was exploring.

If there is a tropical storm or typhoon, just don't go outside.

Don't slip and scrape yourself with coral. The wound will have to be debrided just like in a burn wound but the coral can grow inside your skin or blood vessels.

Buy as much fresh fruit as you can. You will get spoiled by coconut in Guam.

If you eat pork, find a fiesta and enjoy. Also, don't turn your nose up at grilled Spam with fresh pineapple.

Get a snorkel and some fins then go explore the lagoon. Take that Nikonos with. Don't set foot on the barrier reef or you could be washed out by a wave and never seen again like so many have.

Don't worry about the sharks, they probably won't eat you.

Hike to the top of the mountain.

Explore some caves. Take in the history there. If you have a chance, try to meet Debbie Peredo and ask her about her mother.

Enjoy Guam! It's one of those places that most people in the world will never dream of, let alone have the opportunity to visit.

Phil Forrest
 
I've been here in Guam for two weeks now and it is great, I've still got two weeks to go. I want to thank everyone for the excellent advice, it helped me greatly. I especially want to thank peterm1 for the advice of the containers and desiccant packs, I had never even thought of that before. I ended up buying some desiccant packs from Amazon and used zip lock bags to hold them and as it turns out, that was definitely excellent advice seeing as the humidity level here is constantly in the nineties. Being from the Houston area, I'm somewhat used to humidity but never this extreme.
When I get home, I'll post a couple pictures from here.

Thanks again for everything.
 
I made it back a couple weeks ago and am just now getting a chance to come back to this thread. Here are a couple pictures I took while there.






It rained almost every day while there and the humidity was always 96-98%
 
OMG! That first shot is gaw-jus! :)

Care to share what camera/film/whatever you used?
 
I took my DSLR, Canon 60D with me to Guam. I can't remember which lens I used for those particular shots but, I do use Tiffen polarizers on all my lenses because in my mind it draws out as much color as possible. The top picture was taken from the balcony of my hotel room, the bottom picture was at a place called "Two Lovers Point", it was probably about two miles from the hotel I was staying at.
 
Wacky, I am glad the silica gel routine worked. I knew it would though, as I have done it myself. I have only spent a few days in Guam but mainly on the way to elsewhere - Palau and Truk mainly, for the purpose of scuba diving. Palau is also particularly beautiful for photography both above and below water. Well done with your photos. Very nice indeed.
 
Dramatic shots for sure! Glad to hear you had a good time, and I think fortunate that you had a month or so there.
 
wacky941 said:
I made it back a couple weeks ago and am just now getting a chance to come back to this thread. Here are a couple pictures I took while there.






It rained almost every day while there and the humidity was always 96-98%
Click to expand...


Grand views- but the processing is as subtle as a 1980's gif.
 
I was in Guam for one day last winter. I took my M6 with a 35mm and got the shots below. It kinda rained off and on, with good weather in between...









 
FrozenInTime said:
Grand views- but the processing is as subtle as a 1980's gif.
Click to expand...

True, those two pictures in my mind were actually two of the worst I had taken. They had been underexposed but, the colors were there however subdued and the fore ground was nothing more than silhouette.
I decided to play with them using an HDR program that I have and loaded the single RAW files for each and brightened them up a little in order to see the foliage of the Two Lovers Point photo and the sailboat in the bay picture. The colors were enhanced but not as much as you want to believe.


This is a picture I took on the same trip during a couple day stop over in Hawaii.

 
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