Antarctica - Input on Camera System / Focal Lengths

Thanks for coming back to this thread and reporting your experience. For sure it was great journey. Love the photos.
robert
 
I can see a preference to having internal AF on a weather sealed lens over a MF Leica in some situations; specifically in very cold and windy environments. While every trip is different, I'm not sure I'd worry too much about using whatever camera system you would like to for "tourist trips" like what I did on the peninsula. Doing a month long expedition in the interior....totally different story.

That PDF has generally good advice. Bring good sunglasses too that not only protect for sun & UV but also for cold & wind. It's really bright down there and I'm used to backcountry skiing in sunny Colorado. For ref, ISO200/320, f5.6, and 1/4000 was sometimes still a tad over-exposed down there for me. Definitely nice to have a ~3 stop ND for more DOF control.
 
Great shots. Very sporting of you to acknowledge the DSLR and long lens advice. But with Frank Hurley managing with a plate camera the advice that anything would do might have been correct. One big issue at the limits of comfort and pressed for time in unrepeatable adventures is to be very experienced with the gear you have, which might be superior to better gear. How did you meter the light? I agree binoculars are wonderful to have. How quickly did you need to change the battery?

MF on a tripod, pre-releasing the mirror and attaching a cable release, both with gloves off: would that be feasible? I suppose with 1/500 f16 at ISO 320 you wouldn’t need to.
 
Thanks, Richard. Completely agree about using the familiar gear vs better gear.

For metering it really depended on how much snow vs volcanic rock were in the pictures. The majority of the time I perma-set the meter to ~-.3 and shot away. Realistically, that left me with pictures that were all a tad under-exposed and grey snow (because most of my shots were predominantly snow filled). But I can count the number of shots with clipped highlights on one or two hands and the latitude on these files is so great I dont think I really missed all that much in the end result.

Regarding batteries, I never once had to change a battery outside of the boat. If there's one thing, the M24X series battery is just incredible. I'd go out and shoot a few hundred pictures, with both cameras being exposed to ~30-40F weather (not too cold) and really only lose ~20% battery on the camera I was using most. Coming from Colorado I was used to shooting in the cold (below freezing regularly in the winter) and knew what to expect, so I was never concerned with battery to be honest.

Unless one really wants to get some long exposures or shoot IR, I'd leave a tripod at home for Antarctica. There's also little need to worry about removing gloves for a little bit in most cases. If the weather's really terrible, chances are you wont be allowed to leave the boat on a zodiac anyway. We had that happen once with 40kn winds, 10ft seas, horizontal snow, and fog.

I'll also say i was a bit concerned about condensation but that proved to be a non issue with how dry it is down there and on the boat I was on.
 
Great looking images and a wonderful trip. I twice crossed the Arctic Circle in Norway, but that was as much North as I ever reached.
 
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