Spitzbergen/Svalbard - June, July, or August?

[stever]

Any recommendations on boats?  Experiences? So far have found the Geographic Explorer - very pricey, and the M/S Quest which looks reasonable and is less expensive even at current Euro/Dollar exchange rates.

[Lisa Nikodym]

An alternative to cruise ships is just to fly to Longyearbyen yourself, stay in town (there's a nice Radisson hotel), and use one of the couple of local tour agencies that do day hikes and multi-day tours (hiking, kayaks, or small ships) with their guides.  Not as posh as most cruise ships, but also much cheaper I'd imagine, and you're seeing the place with much less of a crowd.  I haven't done it myself, but my spouse did once; I think the one he used was Svalbard Wildlife Service.

Lisa

[kirmo]

An alternative to cruise ships is just to fly to Longyearbyen yourself, stay in town (there's a nice Radisson hotel), and use one of the couple of local tour agencies that do day hikes and multi-day tours (hiking, kayaks, or small ships) with their guides.  Not as posh as most cruise ships, but also much cheaper I'd imagine, and you're seeing the place with much less of a crowd.  I haven't done it myself, but my spouse did once; I think the one he used was Svalbard Wildlife Service.

Lisa

Hi,

I've been twice on M/S Origo in june around the western coast of Svalbard. For polar bears maybe august is better. June is better birding.
Search for M/S Origo and check who are offering and what. Very nice small boat and excellent crew.

Kirmo

[erick.boileau]

I thing this period of the year is not the best one, I was there in March many years ago , really a great place for trekking and shooting

[stever]

a few belated tips from my trip last year for those who haven't packed up yet

- take a macro lens, July is prime time for wildflowers in the Lofotens and Svalbard (at least it was last year) - my major omission
- take a waterproof bag, the zodiac and some landings can be wet, my Dakine backpack worked very well (for my gear - you might need a second bag for long lens)
- i used 5D2, 7D, 24-105, 100-400, 400 5.6, and 1.4x with Feisol 3441 (took but didn't really use 50 1.4 and Voigtlander 20 - plenty of light and 24mm was wide enough).  the 400 5.6 was useable because there's usually enough light (to handhold with the 7D) and the boat is a stable tripod platform moving thru the pack ice looking for pola bears.  using the 400 + 1.4x requires liveview with CD focusing on a tripod with cable release - about the only time that worked for me was in a colony of little auks as they tended to take off and return to the same rock.  no question that the 500 and suitable tripod would be better if you're used to the weight and bulk.  i considered renting a 400 DO, but my experience is that it doesn't like the 1.4x.  the relatively fast focusing of the 7D worked well with the 100-400 for birds in flight.  the 5D2 and 100-400 worked well for landcscapes and closer bears in the ice
- if you're planning a trip, i recommend the Antarctic Dream - nice boats, good crew, excellent guides, and complete itenerary

[Johnphoto]

I you want to explore Svalbard you should go on a small boat like M.S. Origo. It takes only 12 passengers and you will have zodiaks avalible when you want to get ashore. I have made the trip once and it was the best photo trip I have ever made. The later half of August is a very good also for landscapes, since the midnight sun during the June and July is way to high on the sky to give any warm light. Don´t just go to Longyearbyn. It is a dreadful place and wont give you any real Svalbard images. The most scenic places are Liefte Fjord and Monaco Glacier on the northern tip of Spetsbergen, Austfonna Glacier and Lilliehöök Fjord. I found some amazing images from there on the website of Hans Strand:
http://www.hansstrand.com/Hans_Strand/Sunrise_Lieftefjord.html
http://www.hansstrand.com/Hans_Strand/Polar_Bear_%26_Monaco_Glacier.html
http://www.hansstrand.com/Hans_Strand/Austfonna_Waterfall.html
http://www.hansstrand.com/Hans_Strand/Austfonna_Glacier.html
http://www.hansstrand.com/Hans_Strand/Lilliehoek_Fjord_1.html
http://www.hansstrand.com/Hans_Strand/Lilliehook_5.html

[Tim Gray]

Thank you John!  My wife and I are going last 2 weeks of July with Aurora - I've been browsing web images and was getting depressed since most of what I was seeing was, politely, less than inspirational.  These are some of the best I've seen.

[eleanorbrown]

Hi Tim, I returned from a Svalbard area expedition a week ago and have put some of my shots on my web site.  Will add more later as I have more time to edit.  We had sun for 24 hours and it never got low so we really had none of that magical light which I missed.  I also shot everything with my digital leica M9 so didn't concentrate on wildlife...mainly water abstracts, landscape, etc etc.  We went with National Geographic and their concentration was looking for polar bears tho we did see some spectacular landscapes, tho I wish we'd spent more time looking for landscape rather than wildlife.  you can see some of what I've posted so far here:
http://web.mac.com/eleanorbrown/ELEANOR_BROWN_PHOTOGRAPHY/Arctic_2011.html
I actually enjoyed Longyearbyen and found the brightly painted buildings enjoyable to photograph.  Let me know if I can answer any questions! Eleanor

Thank you John!  My wife and I are going last 2 weeks of July with Aurora - I've been browsing web images and was getting depressed since most of what I was seeing was, politely, less than inspirational.  These are some of the best I've seen.

[Tim Gray]

Thanks, I enjoyed the portfolio - I'll watch for some more.  One question - I imagine all the groups would be different, but how much on land walking did you do?  I've done the zodiac thing in Antarctica, so I know the routine with the rubber boots and all, but I'm wondering if it makes any sense to bring hiking boots?  I suspect the guides will ride herd pretty closely given the polar bear risk, but I don't know how much land vs water shooting I'd be doing. 

[eleanorbrown]

Tim, it depends on what your expedition  leaders do...we had choices of three hike groups...a fast, long hike, with few stops for photo taking, a middle hike with stops for photos and a slow, don't go much of anywhere hike.  We choose the middle hike but were disappointed because they stopped so much and would spend too much time on naturalists "talk" which got really boring.  I wanted to wander around and photograph but the groups were tightly controlled ...the leader with a rifle, and an "end person" so we were limited in where we could go.  In antarctica we had much more freedom in where we could hike on our own.  Polar bears are a real danger I know and I know the guides have to be overly careful but we felt too restrained on land. Some of the people on the long (several miles and altitude gain) hike brought their hiking boots.  For the middle hike we just walked in our rubber boots.  We also had a barbecue on a large ice sheet one afternoon (zodiac photo) and the guides set up limits where we could hike around...on this we also wore just the rubber boots.  One day we had a choice of shore hiking again, or zodiac and we choose the zodiac just because we were so constrained on shore. eleanor

Thanks, I enjoyed the portfolio - I'll watch for some more.  One question - I imagine all the groups would be different, but how much on land walking did you do?  I've done the zodiac thing in Antarctica, so I know the routine with the rubber boots and all, but I'm wondering if it makes any sense to bring hiking boots?  I suspect the guides will ride herd pretty closely given the polar bear risk, but I don't know how much land vs water shooting I'd be doing.  

[stever]

we went on the medium hikes and had time for photography - guides were not over-controlling.  everyone used rubber boots for all hikes as you don't know when you're going to encounter something sloshy

good idea to put some insoles in the rubber boots or consider overboots with hiking boots -- we never found pace on medium hikes to be a problem with our Baffin boots

[eleanorbrown]

I did put  the green "SuperFeet" insoles in my boots and that worked out well. Eleanor

we went on the medium hikes and had time for photography - guides were not over-controlling.  everyone used rubber boots for all hikes as you don't know when you're going to encounter something sloshy

good idea to put some insoles in the rubber boots or consider overboots with hiking boots -- we never found pace on medium hikes to be a problem with our Baffin boots

[Tim Gray]

Off to Oslo tomorrow.  Longyearbyen on Thursday!!

[eleanorbrown]

Have a great trip and look forward seeing what photos you get and let us know how the Lumix gh2 does for you! eleanor

Off to Oslo tomorrow.  Longyearbyen on Thursday!!