Patagonia, Fitz Roy Valley- The way in

[leeonmaui]

...

[BernardLanguillier]

Very nice, looks like you had some luck with the weather.  

How strong was the wind?

May I ask also what equipment you shot with?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Bernard

[leeonmaui]

Aloha,
thank you.
Yes. with the exception of one day, I felt I was pretty lucky.
From everything I have researched and read,
Its 33 percent poor, 33 percent mixed to fair, 33 percent excellent, I suppose that's a pretty good assessment for the time of the year.
And I was very lucky in regards, to wind!

Also there is enough to shoot, even when the weather is bad, so its OK...

[leeonmaui]

Aloha,

The wind was not too bad. conditions varied but the range I experienced while working was from calm to 7-10kts
Mostly it was ok and not an issue.
At night, overhead, I could hear the wind roaring, but luckily during the day it was OK.
I have heard the wind in the summer is legendary!

I took a 654D
35mm FA
75mm A
120mm A macro
400mm FA
All the lenses have cp filters
I took a set of grads, and used only the soft grads.
A crap load of 32 gig of cards, and seven batteries
tripod, arca monoball, and a wimberly sidekick
I used a lowpro h20 bag, (which I dearly love, until this trip when the waterproof zipper started to act up!)
There is a complete picture of the carry in load, in one of the posts, its disgustingly a large amount of gear!
I had a Nikon D90 with a 18-200 VRII as a back up, but honestly don't know what i would have done if the 645 gave me any problems, it never has before.
I'm sure the little nikon is a capable camera but, it would be a dramatic difference in IQ and my goal is always shooting for big prints...

[andaremos]

Wow - 7 to 10 knots?
I was in Torres del Paine in November which is their Spring and the wind was blowing hard at ~60 Km/hr we were told. You had to brace yourself or it would knock you down.
I have never seen a plane land and come to a full stop so quickly. I guess that landing against that wind makes it easy to brake and stop.
It was windy but we had 3 perfect days of sunny conditions. We were told we were lucky and that many people who visit never even get to see Las Torres.
I have not seen Fitz Roy but Torres del Paine is my favorite national or nature park in the world.

Great images, I wish I had taken better gear on my trip.

[Iluvmycam]

Fantastic!

[leeonmaui]

Aloha,

The wind is legendary...
I got lucky...

[leeonmaui]

Thank you,

Its a photographers heaven.

[Kevin Gallagher]

 Great shots, #2 just calls to me!

[tsjanik]

Wonderful images.  I really like #1, #2 and the 5th posted separately. Nice choice of lenses; did you use the 75mm very often?  I was surprised to see you took a sidekick since the 400mm is so light, did you feel it was worthwhile?

Tom

[leeonmaui]

thanks kenvin

[leeonmaui]

Its funny, I use the sidekick a lot, even when I am shooting wide, its fluid movement lets me move so easily, it encourages me to look and try different compositions. its super light and small.

I did not use the 75mm or 400mm at all.
I have a 80-160mm that I should have brought instead, but its a bit soft in some spots and real heavy. but I think it would have been really nice where the 400mm was just too much.

I might get the 150-300mm or the 300mm FA I have a 300mm manual focus.
I'm planning my next trip to Africa so need to work more with my telephotos, but then I might get a Nikon D800 with a 200-400mm vr2
if the tracking and speed of the AF on the pentax wont keep up.

I am really happy with the long exposure waterfall shoot, I think the vertical is best, I used stacked grads. There is some wind blur, but overall it should be a pretty good shot, I'll see the proofs tomorrow...