One of the lessons I learned on this trip was about photography.

I have owned mainly point&shoot cameras all my life until I decided to get the Canon Powershot G9. The G9 is not a DSLR, the photos really do come very close though in quality and its still somewhat compact. I like to carry my camera around and would feel a little uncomfortable carrying the larger DSLR in a foreign country.

I have always liked how Canon's reproduce color. Even the lower-end Canon models seem to take great pictures.

I paired the G9 with the Canon speedlite 220EX flash. The 220EX I found is not good for our purposes. It doesnt have bounce-flash capability and not as powerful.

I looked into the matter and have since purchased a 430EX speedlite which seems to have more power and bounce flash capability.

In order to get good pictures of the ladies, I believe a bounce-flash with a difuser is probably the only way to go. I saw on amazon a gold difuser which is supposed to bring out good skin tones.

Im wondering if others could share what equipment they use. The lighting situation appears to be taken care of with the more powerful speedlites.

By the way, I have placed the 220ex on EBAY;) On the way is a 430ex with two difusers.

My next trip is the first time I'll use a Fuji F20 - the best part about it is that it takes very good photos in low light conditions, something that other cameras don't do so well.

It's also small and light...but takes a custom battery and XD cards. Well, can't win em all

I think you'll find that flash power (at the distances we're talking about) isn't a real issue - it's the ability to use that indirect flash that'll make the difference. You can play around with diffusers if you like, but personally I couldn't tell much (ok - any) difference between photos I took with and without a simple one, as long as I was using indirect flash.

I just received the 430EX and sold the other flash unit on EBAY. Wow! If this doesnt solve my lighting problems, Im not certain what will. Its twice the size of the old unit. There is one flash that is higher, the 580ex II, but I think this one will have plenty of power and is a little bit smaller. This flash is as big as the camera by the way.

In the background, you will also see the Indian made cialis that arrived untimely after the conclusion of the trip.

I took one of the TadaCip pills and it was definately stronger then the TadaRich variety that I am so used to. During a recent encounter with a SoCal filipina, she was amazed at how big it got right off the bat. Im telling you the Indians dont make bad knockoffs;)