I am climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and am bringing my A1 with me. I want to make sure I have tapes that can hold up to the weather, or are just generally goods tapes to use with the A1.

Any reccomendations?

Also, what would be a good hot shoe light to buy for the camera for night shots?

Any other suggestions of good accessories (stablization, mic, etc.) would be appreciated. This biggest issues with accessories is that I have to keep it on the light side, or it becomes to much of a hassle carrying up the mountain.

Thanks,

Jason

Well, since you'll probably only be climbing Kilimanjaro once, you may as well use best tapes you can,. the Sony HDV ones like DVM63HD tapes. There's no resaon really why they'll be less susceptible to cold than others,. but they are intended to have a higher MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) than ordinary MiniDv tapes.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=352232&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

Bound to be windy so you need to do something to eliminate windnoise. Use an external mic with a windshield. you could just use the ext.mic that comes with A1, but DO buy a Rycote windshield for it or simialr. www.rycote.com and they have a product selector on the left.
I would carry the camera on a monopod and use that at all times. It will massively increase stability, is lightweight, very quickly deployable.

I'd worry about cold. The A1U is a fine camera, I just got one, but if I were climbing, I'd have a jacket around the whole camera, not just the mike.

I agree, if you're shooting HDV-- while my tests show DVCAM cassettes are working fine-- go with the finest available, the Digital Master stuff.

Then when you get home-- get everything the hell out of HDV!! Transfer it to HDCAM or DVCPro 100. Looks great. Keep the originals as backup.

Of course, yu could capture directly into Avid or FCP... but on slower machines it's a pain.

I like the Manfrotto monopods-- I own the cheapest. But look at this too, it's aimed toward outdoorspeople--

http://www.trek-tech.com/

- Loren