Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: Sphinxa on March 12, 2021, 07:36:33 pm
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I’ve booked a trip to Antarctica in January 2022. Given all the new camera gear out since 2019, like the Sony A1 and Fuji Gfx100s, what would you ideally take on an Antarctica trip? I currently own Sony A9 and Sony A7-3 bodies. I thought I’d take the 100-400, 24-105 lenses 16-35f4 lenses. I also have a Mamiya 7 that I’ve been using occasionally. Should I upgrade any of my gear as I’m Looking for some epic nature and landscape shots?
Amin
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Since you seem to have a good set of Sony glass and bodies that give you speed, I would consider one of the higher resolution bodies (an "R" III/IV or the new Alpha 1).
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Agreed with MDL_SD on a higher resolution body. I'd stick with Sony instead of chasing the GFX (and I say this as an owner of the GFX100.) I'd probably think about redundancy -- if my 24-105 dies, what will I shoot with? Same with the other lenses. It's an expensive trip, and I'd want some backups. Not duplicates, necessarily, but lens choices that can cover each other, like the Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 and a 70-200 f/4, which along with the 16-35 can cover the loss of a 24-105 (and a 1.4x or 2x converter with the 70-200 covers your long lens, too.)
I might also think about a filter system, something that uses 100mm filters and has a good polarizer, assuming you'll be able to shoot some on shore. Good tripod, then, too.
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I would certainly take 2 bodies.
If money allows I would replace the a73 by either a new a1 or a second hand a7rIV, knowing that you will find the AF of the a7rIV disappointing compared to the a9.
Bringing 2 systems is not a good idea and the AF of the 100s will be frustrating for wildlife.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I would add the 1.4x TC as you may well find many opportunities for long land/seascapes and/or wildlife that is distant
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Thanks for all the great recommendations and I'll be debating acquiring the A7Riv vs the A1, obviously price is an issue. I was also wondering for birds if it was worth investing in the 200-600 vs 100-400 w 1.4tc?
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Thanks for all the great recommendations and I'll be debating acquiring the A7Riv vs the A1, obviously price is an issue. I was also wondering for birds if it was worth investing in the 200-600 vs 100-400 w 1.4tc?
Not with the A7R4. The 200-600 does not play well with that body. A9 series or the A1 is OK (a bit early but suggestion is the A1 is OK).
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Thanks for all the great recommendations and I'll be debating acquiring the A7Riv vs the A1, obviously price is an issue. I was also wondering for birds if it was worth investing in the 200-600 vs 100-400 w 1.4tc?
I have the 200-600 and an A9 - my only Sony gear. (Otherwise all-Fuji.) It's an excellent lens for birds and general long-lens landscape work. I did have an A7R3 and the A9 blew it away for autofocus with this lens.
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I would prioritize taking one system and emphasize batteries, the cold will kill them quickly. I would also use the largest cards owned so you don't open the camera and then possibly drop in the elements. Enjoy your adventure and watch out for those polar bears.
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Not with the A7R4. The 200-600 does not play well with that body. A9 series or the A1 is OK (a bit early but suggestion is the A1 is OK).
Huh? I rented the 200-600 for a week to try on my A7 R3 and it worked beautifully. I was particularly impressed with the autofocus. I ended up not buying the lens due to its weight, but unless the R4 is significantly different in some way I don't get your comment.
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Thank you for all your comments, I really appreciate it!
So the current plan sounds like I put the 100-400 and 1.4tc on the A9 and the 24-105 or 16-35 lens on the to be acquired A7 iv (unless I spring for the A1). My question then is the 200-600 a better alternative to the 100-400? Or is the flexibility of the 100-400 preferred while riding on Zodiaks etc.?
I will only have the weight capacity to take one of the two.
Thanks, Amin
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About 4.6 lbs for the 200-600 and about 3.3 + .4 lbs for the 100-400 + T/C. If you have never slogged about with a 5 lb lens + 1-2 lb of camera, i would suggest renting it for a week and putting your arms through the workout.
Do you already shoot wildlife or birds ?
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I mainly shoot birds, for a while my go to was a Canon 1Dx with the original 500 f4. I do also shoot a little of everything else; family, portraits, landscapes. It's been hobby of mine since my teens and I've recently graduated to the social security club ;)
Amin
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Then you already know what you are up against.🙂 I still have my old FDn 500 and use it once in a while.
The only other major difference i saw in the spec was internal focus for the 200-600 if that makes any difference to you.
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Huh? I rented the 200-600 for a week to try on my A7 R3 and it worked beautifully. I was particularly impressed with the autofocus. I ended up not buying the lens due to its weight, but unless the R4 is significantly different in some way I don't get your comment.
There have been several threads about this combo on Fred Miranda, and even Mark Galer (Sony Ambassador) has questions pending with Sony and has also mentioned recently that the A1/200-600 combo works well. Interestingly the lens does seem to work a little better with the A7R3 in some cases.
I ordered the lens, planning to use with the R4 but decided it was too large and cancelled so I never got the chance to test it myself.
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watch out for those polar bears.
You'd need a bloody long lens to shoot those in Antarctica.
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You'd need a bloody long lens to shoot those in Antarctica.
Yes, but the same lens can be used to take pictures of penguins in the Arctic.
(I was going to write exactly the same comment verbatim but then scrolled down to the end...)
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You have lots and lots of time to better invest time, effort, $$ in your self and to practice using the fine equipment you currently have. I speak from experience.
At one time, I would try to think ahead to my travels and what new piece of gear would make my work more unique or better. One year, I had overflowing pockets and indulged myself... Much became dead weight that I now had to schlepp along in my journey and a burden physically that when I had another issue, had to deal with the bulk/weight that would have been better left at home. Though I did use some of this specialized equipment along the way, it really wasn't necessary...
As I get older, it's going to be that much more impractical to bring the closet with me and so I think what will be reliable, smaller/lighter and get me the best quality overall. What I finally did to help analyze my shooting style is to dig into the metadata and see what lenses/focal length lenses and bodies that created my favorite/best work. By mining the data, I was able to focus on the tools that got me my best work and it wasn't necessarily the longest or exotic lenses. FWIW, your results will mostly be quite different than my work and my style. Also, since this sounds like you may be traveling with a photo-centric group, considered the pool of lenses, etc., that may be in common supply with the rest of the group and your hosts/instructors.
The down and dirty way, of course, is to ask your trip leaders their recommendations and give them a ring/send email and see what may be the best basics to bring along.
As always, with a journey of this magnitude, it's tempting to bring along a companion to be a pack mule for you and bring it all along under the guise of the FOMO, but in reality after decades of shooting all over the west and many trips to eastern Europe, simple and svelte and ready for action without the burden of bringing too much along.
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Larry,
I appreciate your advice. I plan to take two bodies and three lenses to keep light. As for practice, fifty years of it so far, but yes more is better. I'm just trying to figure out if purchasing a high mp camera is worthwhile for landscapes and which longer lens to take for birds and general photography.
Amin
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Congratulations. Antartica is certainly on the bucket list.
I would be much more confident taking a camera that I had been using for a year than one I bought this morning.
Certainly take two cameras if you have them or can buy, borrow or hire another one that takes the same lenses.
Camera bodies are usually reliable. The things that usually stop you are cards and batteries.
Always have a camera shooting raw to two cards and never delete as you go.
Have the manual on pdf.
As for cards a 64GB card will take a massive amount of photos, usually way more than enough for a day.
Just carry lots of cards.
If you have a big card and it fails then you lose a lot more than a small card failing.
You will probably be on a ship rather than wandering the lands and so have access to power each night.
Find out the availability and plug type etc
If you take a computer then each night copy your cards to a hard disk and then back up the hard disk using Time Machine to another disk.
Otherwise just carry enough cards put in new cards each night.
Have lots of batteries. They don't last long at the best of times. In cold weather they last a lot less.
There are battery warmers or keep them inside a jacket.
Take a Go Pro on an extending handle also.
Enjoy.
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If you buy an R IV or an Alpha 1 remember that the uncompressed RAW files are huge (particularly on the R IV where I save uncompressed because lossless compression is not available). I use nothing smaller than a 64 GB card and generally use 128 GB cards in my R IV (1039 images on a 128 GB card).
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I've not been to Antarctica but have been to Africa and to the Galapagos where two bodies are an absolute must (not many camera stores in these places). In addition to the basic reliability issue, you can put different lenses on each and not change lenses as often. Sea water is evil stuff when it gets near a camera or lens. I'd not want to get into a Zodiac with both my camera bodies. The A9 will certainly be good for wildlife (penguins, seals, ? whales-probably not polar bears :-)) and an RIV or A1 will easily take care of the rest. You may want to read Lloyd Chambers take on the A1. He says, "Sony A1 image quality overall seems to be the best ever seen in a Sony camera. My impression is that of improved tonal and color rendering over the Sony A7R IV." If you don't need the speed, or if you don't plan on making the A1 your primary camera later, the RIV is hard to beat for image quality. I suspect I'd not be able to tell the difference, especially when the price difference is factored in, eg almost 2 A7RIV's for the price of an A1.
Whatever you do don't take more than one system; it will make you crazy. I did that on a southwest workshop years ago and spent way too much time deciding which to use and my photography suffered. The A1 apparently has lossless compression, a wonderful sounding thing to me whose RIV landscape files, when all done, are usually over 1GB. Bring an extra battery charger as well as additional batteries and lots of cards. Even with uncompressed RAW, I get about 1,000 images on a 128GB card. If you take more than that in a day, I don't want to be your editor :-) While it's likely someone will have a Sony camera and its charger, any digital camera is a doorstop without a battery. Larry's idea of checking in with the tour operators about what to bring is a good one. Clearly you need somplace to download and backup your files each day, a laptop or equivalent with a few backup drives is great. I use Samsung T5 SSD's 1 and 2TB when I travel.
I'm envious of most of your trip except for the Drake Passage. I get seasick easily. But goods luck, have fun, be safe and share upon your return.
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Looking back to when I went to Antarctica in 2005, the three most valuable tools which I used the most were: (1) The Canon 400mm f4 DO (2) A peripheral battery pack (3) gyro stabilizer. The reason each was important: (1) telephoto lens allows up close images while still maintaining the required distance from wildlife (2) at the usual antarctic temperatures, battery capacity is severely depressed. Canon made a battery insert (fake battery) to which you could attach a peripheral battery pack. By using that and keeping the battery pack under my clothing and at body temperature I could keep shooting long after many other's batteries had quit (passed the wires out to the camera through my sleeve). (3) stabilizer (Kenyon Gyro in those days) allowed photos from boats and the ship on days that otherwise would have been almost impossible (heavy overcast but dramatic weather in rough seas ... hand held 400mm for unique photos of icebergs and iceberg wildlife). Although the equipment has dramatically improved, Antarctica hasn't hasn't. A pitching boat in rough seas is more than a typical in body stabilization can handle. The combination of external stabilizer, IBS and lens stabilization will yield a markedly improved percentage of unique photos. That's my 2 cents.
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Out of curiosity what kind of temperatures did you experiment when you went?
Cheers,
Bernard
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The high we ever had was about 30 degrees F. Most days started at about 0 degrees F or below, but a storm occurred which dropped the temperature to high of about -20 degrees F (not sure of what the low was as my thermometer didn't go lower). The challenge is that the stormy weather produces the most dramatic skies but is also when the temperature drops dramatically. We never experienced a full katabatic storm because it was start of Summer (they usually occur in the Fall ... actually best called start of Winter as Antarctica functionally only has 2 seasons ... Summer and Winter). Remember the average temperature on the coast of Antarctica is about 15 degrees F (~ -10 degrees C). At those temperatures battery life is considerably shorter. In the days of fully mechanical shutters we used to have the lubrication removed from the shutter for photography at such temperatures. If headed to Antarctica it's worth reading about the weather and how quickly it can change. Multiple layers of clothing seem to work best so they can be altered as temperature and activity change rapidly. The worst experience is to develop a full sweat from climbing a slope and having to open a coat with little beneath ... the sweat evaporates quickly as the air is very dry ... dropping your body temperature even faster. Yes, the camera equipment is important but without proper clothing you'll never get a chance to take the picture.
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Thanks, interesting.
Yes, I am quite used to shooting in low temperatures in the Japanese mountains and indeed battery life can be problematic.
I found that full size DSLRs, such as the D3x back in the days, were much better in such cases that more compact designs, including most mirrorless cameras recently, thanks to their much larger battery and, possibly, more rugged design that may isolate the battery better from the outside (but this last part is hypothetical).
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I found that full size DSLRs, such as the D3x back in the days, were much better in such cases that more compact designs, including most mirrorless cameras recently, thanks to their much larger battery and, possibly, more rugged design that may isolate the battery better from the outside (but this last part is hypothetical).
Big reason for short battery life now is the electronic viewfinder in mirrorless cameras, which eats quite a lot of electricity. Older mirror bodies used hardly any power when on standby, and we could still look thorough the viewfinder, compose etc. even when the camera was turned off.
Also newer mirrorless bodies are smaller = smaller batteries.
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Thanks to all for their recommendations!
I have ordered the Sony A1 along with the 200-600 (for birding) and will pair it with my A7-3; selling the A9. Lenses will include the Sony 100-400 w 1.4 tc, 24-105 and either take the 16-35f4 or sell it and buy the f2.8. I will bring many cards and batteries along, still debating if I need a GoPro for the shore excursions. I think this setup will be flexible enough without be too onerous for flying.
Amin