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Author Topic: What worked.  (Read 39746 times)

Ben Rubinstein

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What worked.
« on: March 05, 2007, 06:21:09 pm »

Fascinating review of what worked and what didn't on the trip. (Though not as fascinating as the penguin pool shot, which I keep coming back to!) A few interesting points that are worrying, firstly the weather proofing of the 1 series bodies which should have coped with that amount of rain, and secondly the amount of card failures which again is worrying.

When I shot with a 1Ds I always used a Kata rain cover, not wanting to gamble my investment, I use it now with my 5D which admittedly can still take a pretty good soaking though I get a heart attack every time it happens. It's not easy to use given that it's clumsy in operation and changing lenses and taking the camera of the tripod, etc is a pain in the neck, but it's worth the bother when your camera isn't water proof!
« Last Edit: March 05, 2007, 06:21:43 pm by pom »
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madmanchan

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What worked.
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2007, 07:59:18 pm »

Not to nit-pick, but did you not also have a 24-105 lens with you during this trip, Michael? Or did you borrow one for some of those images in your online portfolio page here?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/aa07-portfolio.shtml
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Eric Chan

theophilus

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« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2007, 08:08:24 pm »

I got my 5D pretty wet the other day and it never stopped working, but I think I'll buy some sort of rain cover the next time I go backpacking with it.  This should also be a reminder to all non-pro's that you can put your camera equipment on your homeowner's insurance for very little cost (at least in the US).
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michael

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« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2007, 08:17:11 pm »

Yup, I had the 24-105mm. I forgot to list it.

Michael
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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What worked.
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2007, 08:49:52 pm »

Now I begin to understand the advantages of Canon's "non-pro" bodies (5D and below) over the "pro", 1-series bodies. With my 10d and now my 5D I have never expected to be able to shoot in the rain, so I do use a Kata rain cover (as awkward as it is) whenever the weather is seriously threatening. If I had a 1D of some sort, I wouldn't expect to need the extra weather protection -- and I'd be wrong.
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-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

billh

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« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2007, 09:20:02 pm »

Michael,

That is a very interesting report you wrote about the equipment and failures you have on this journey. I am amazed the Canon’s failed. My 1Ds2 and 1D2 are regularly immersed, and I have never had a lens or camera failure - I even left a 135 f2.0 out all night in a monsoon, and it still worked like a champ.

http://homepage.mac.com/billh96007/.Pictur...ff-500,5860.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/billh96007/.Pictur...a,f1.2,0429.jpg

Did you make a high def video of this trip?

Thanks,

Bill
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michael

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« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2007, 09:35:46 pm »

Yes, Chris filmed both last year's and this year's trips in HD. There'll be a major video some time soon.

Michael
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jwhee0615

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« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2007, 10:47:16 pm »

Michael, I wonder if you may comment at some point on other gear such as clothing to keep you warm and dry in that harsh environment? Also were there any issues with batteries operating properly in the cold as well as real world solutions for keeping condensation and salt water from damaging the equipment. I would also like to hear about how the Vid equipment was carried around on the trip.

Thanks for any additional info.

Jeff
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jwhee0615

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« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2007, 10:50:46 pm »

Quote
Yes, Chris filmed both last year's and this year's trips in HD. There'll be a major video some time soon.

Michael
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=104927\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Please allow me to get down on my knees and beg for some of that HD content. I'm sure the files are huge to download but for those of us that have a big pipe we would love to at least have a small sample of some of that footage. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!
« Last Edit: March 05, 2007, 10:51:12 pm by jwhee0615 »
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DiaAzul

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What worked.
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2007, 01:49:23 am »

Quote
firstly the weather proofing of the 1 series bodies which should have coped with that amount of rain, and secondly the amount of card failures which again is worrying.

When I shot with a 1Ds I always used a Kata rain cover, not wanting to gamble my investment, I use it now with my 5D which admittedly can still take a pretty good soaking though I get a heart attack every time it happens. It's not easy to use given that it's clumsy in operation and changing lenses and taking the camera of the tripod, etc is a pain in the neck, but it's worth the bother when your camera isn't water proof!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=104890\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

There's rain and then there is rain...being English there are any number of different types of precipitation. So far I haven't experienced any problems with my canon equipment provided I don't leave it out in heavy rain.

What Michael didn't talk about what what precautions people took moving from an outdor cold dry/wet environment to an indoor warm and moist environment and how people dealt with condensation on their equipment. Whilst Canon equipment is weather sealed it doesn't take too kindly to continual heating cooling cycles which generate moisture within the camera. Normally on a trip in weather conditions such as those expected in Antartic and where there is wet weather you need something like silica gel bags to soak up any excess moisture - otherwise you end up with dead equipment.
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David Plummer    http://photo.tanzo.org/

BernardLanguillier

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What worked.
« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2007, 05:36:07 am »

Interesting report Michael, thanks for the write up.

I feel really sorry for all the folks who suffered equipment failures.

I had my 4x5 camera fall from a small cliff 2 years ago during a WS with Alain in Utah, not a fun experience at all.

What I learned from that experience though is the importance of a back up, and also that it is key not to take too much risk during the early days of a key assignment.  Rain might not have looked like a risky situation, but that judgement call can in fact only be made based on previous personnal experience in similar conditions. Besides, rain and wind are different from just rain, etc...

This being said, isn't the image quality of a working D200 significantly better than that of a dead 5D? Statistics I guess.... just kidding of course.

Cheers,
Bernard

francois

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« Reply #11 on: March 06, 2007, 06:45:11 am »

I usually don't care about rain or snow but after shooting for more than 3 days under continuous and heavy rain last spring, I managed to get water droplets behind the rear LCD on my 1D2 body. The camera continued to work but this was surprising. Later, I found the the LCD cover is glued to the body using a simple thin adhesive tape.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2007, 06:46:18 am by francois »
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Francois

michael

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« Reply #12 on: March 06, 2007, 09:22:18 am »

Temperature and condensations weren't issues on this trip. The average temp was around the freezing point. Pretty mild.

Also the ship isn't overheated, so I never saw any condensation.

Clothing was straightforward. A parka, jeans, waterproof pants, sweater, rubber boots, gloves, hats; just normal winter wear.

It was colder in Toronto in February than it was on the Antarctic Penninsula.

Michael
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ndevlin

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« Reply #13 on: March 06, 2007, 10:00:50 am »

It was amusing to realize that we had brought over $1 million worth of gear on the trip but only 3 people thought to bring a $75 camera rain-coat! Since Antarctica is a desert, I suspect none of us thought of rain. Of course, the Falklands and South Georgia are not deserts, and that's where we got rained-on.

In fairness, I was astonished to watch a lot of my tripmates blithely wander around shooting in moderately heavy rain for a couple of hours with cameras pretty-much completely exposed and water dripping off them.  Given the levels of soaking the gear endured, the attrition rate was not that unreasonable in my mind.  All this gear is so reliable that it engenders a really high level of confidence.

A lot of people also got sea-spray on their gear during Zodiak rides.  While this would seem to be a greater hazard tan rain-water, no gear appeared to go down as a result, which is a real testament to the quality of the weather-sealing to protect against incidental splashing.
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Nick Devlin   @onelittlecamera        ww

wtlloyd

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« Reply #14 on: March 06, 2007, 10:49:15 am »

Quote
In fairness, I was astonished to watch a lot of my tripmates blithely wander around shooting in moderately heavy rain for a couple of hours with cameras pretty-much completely exposed and water dripping off them.  Given the levels of soaking the gear endured, the attrition rate was not that unreasonable in my mind.  All this gear is so reliable that it engenders a really high level of confidence.

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=104995\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well, thank you for that - as you can imagine, this gear report is starting to be discussed rather heavily on various forums, and of course, there is a bit of a ruckus brewing...:-)

I was looking to ask, before reading this last post, what could account for the failures - a sense of invulnerability begging disaster, or perhaps multiple lens/card changes - any way to characterize the failures towards user neglect rather than pure equipment fault?
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CatOne

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What worked.
« Reply #15 on: March 06, 2007, 12:26:32 pm »

Quote
Well, thank you for that - as you can imagine, this gear report is starting to be discussed rather heavily on various forums, and of course, there is a bit of a ruckus brewing...:-)

I was looking to ask, before reading this last post, what could account for the failures - a sense of invulnerability begging disaster, or perhaps multiple lens/card changes - any way to characterize the failures towards user neglect rather than pure equipment fault?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=105005\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well, it was pretty wet.  I had a towel over the camera the whole time; I was okay with the 1D mark II.  Rain gear for the camera would have been a good idea ;-)




Oh, and the rainy day was on South Georgia, not in the Falklands.  The Falklands were sand showers.  30% chance of sand blasting lens and body, with partial clearing expected for later in the week.



;-)
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Rob C

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« Reply #16 on: March 06, 2007, 01:42:27 pm »

Interesting to see what worked and what didn't; even more interesting to see what peoples' expectations can be regarding the use of equipment in hostile conditions.

Hundreds of years ago, when I travelled the nicer parts of the world on shoots, I would take out extra insurance for professional indemnity, film and the cost of doing a re-shoot in case that old Murphy guy had seen me coming. I remember very clearly that there were exclusions for equipment being used in hostile conditions, one of those being the seashore, which was exactly where I spent most of my time working. It therefore surprises me to see the suggestion made that someone's insurance company might be willing to pay for an owner's madness...

I also seem to recall that even in the days of film cameras one took great care to keep them out of the rain; it was rumoured that only the Leica M series were capable of being weather-proofed to the degree necessary for work in the climatic conditions of the far north or south.

Frankly, when you consider the unfortunate combination of  different metals, salt water etc. it's amazing nobody on the trip managed to produce their own LeclanchĂ© cell or, at least, with Michael's boat experience, see fit to install some form of cathodic protection... (joke).

Ciao - Rob C

Rob C

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What worked.
« Reply #17 on: March 06, 2007, 01:51:18 pm »

Quote
Well, it was pretty wet.  I had a towel over the camera the whole time; I was okay with the 1D mark II.  Rain gear for the camera would have been a good idea ;-)


Oh, and the rainy day was on South Georgia, not in the Falklands.  The Falklands were sand showers.  30% chance of sand blasting lens and body, with partial clearing expected for later in the week.



;-)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=105024\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I think these two shots are rather nice and they prove something (to me) which I've always believed, though possibly as a minority of one or maybe, now, two:  sharpness from front to back is NOT always the way to go for a pleasing picture in the landscape idiom, though I suppose some will say these are not landscapes at all but figures within the landscape. Every shot has a principal area of interest - why mask/confuse it by making everything look equally crisp?

Ciao - Rob C

Ben Rubinstein

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What worked.
« Reply #18 on: March 06, 2007, 01:52:23 pm »

What is perhaps more worrying, far more worrying than the 1 series bodies not coping, is the M8 having so many problems. Hell it used to be that the Leica was the one camera you could count on working come what may even after everything else had given up the ghost. The camera you could take to warzones and into the jungle. These problems together with the IR issue at the beginning are exactly what Leica did not need to happen...
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howiesmith

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What worked.
« Reply #19 on: March 06, 2007, 02:19:53 pm »

Quote
I think these two shots are rather nice and they prove something (to me) which I've always believed, though possibly as a minority of one or maybe, now, two:  sharpness from front to back is NOT always the way to go for a pleasing picture in the landscape idiom, though I suppose some will say these are not landscapes at all but figures within the landscape. Every shot has a principal area of interest - why mask/confuse it by making everything look equally crisp?

Ciao - Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=105042\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I too agree.  I thought that is what DoF, and knowing how to determine and control it, was all about.  I especially like the second image.
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