Any experience with Antarctic photos

[PocketBear]

Have booked the Princess cruise in Dec 2010 to the Falklands and Antarctica. Does anyone know how close you are able to get to the penguins on theFaulkands? Would a 200mm lense be big enough. I could shoot at a very high megapixel rate and zoom in to some extent. But I will only be able to make this trip once in my lifetime and need to know if I need to start saving for a 500 mm Nikon lense. The thought does not warm my heart, but if I have to- I guess I will.

The Bear

[pilotdane]

You can never have a long enough telephoto. Even on a crop body 200mm is very short for most wildlife. If you want to economize I would look at a tele converter if the quality of your lens will support it. Otherwise I'd go for right for a proper telephoto. A f2.8 telephoto is the Holly Grail of lenses but packing one for a commercial airline flight will really test your devotion and I won't even bring up the price. I would strongly consider one of the telephoto zooms.

 

I shoot Canon so the lenses are not exactly the same as Nikon models but they are very similar. My "go to" wildlife traveling lens is a stabilized 100-400mm, probably very similar to the Nikkor 80-400 f4.5-5.6. It is small and light enough to take on a commercial airline flight and lug through the jungle or when climbing in/out of a Zodiac.

[c-to-sea]

Most of the tours on the Falklands get you right up close to the penguins, so long zooms

are not usually necessary. Some of these were taken with my Fujifilm Finepix S700 with

10x zoom capability which was not always fully needed. That said, you might get opportunities near the Antarctic Peninsula for longer shots - penguins and other wildlife

on icebergs, whales, birds, etc. where a longer zoom would be nice. Extreme zooms would

probably need at least a monopod from the moving ship, though.

 

http://ctosea.shawwebspace.ca/photos/view/antarctic/

[Keith1010]

When we were on the Falkland Islands the penguins were literally at our feet. You can get that close. I didn't need a camera with a long lens.

 

Keith

[dileep]

A wide angle would be more useful in the Falklands!

[framer]

Nikon make a 300mm AFs f4 that rocks. The optics are 1st rate but the older ones have a tripod mount that need to be updated if you put in on a tripod. This is better than the 70 -200 f2.8 vr zoom. Then add a tc14 and the new tc2 III teleconverters and you have power. If used with the tc2 III only the center focus indicator is usable but it works. Check that on your body but it works on mine. So for less than 2 grand you can get a 600mm reach and it works wonderful. It also doesn't weigh that much. IMHO the old 80-400 VR AFs is a dog. You can not use a converter with it at all. I have the 70 - 200 VR AFs also and it does work fully with both converters but your reach is 400mm with the tc2. The 70-200 cost as much as the 300 with the converters.

 

You can also rent a 600/4 for about 10 - 15% of the cost new. If you never need it again it could be worth it.

 

Wish I was going.

 

pictureframer

[chipmaster]

For wilderness/wildlife one can never have too much reach and if photography of the highest quality is a must you really don't want to be cropping to much. I was recently in Alaska shot a 70-200 VRII with 1.4 TCE. Thought hard about buying or borrowing a 1.7 or the newer 2.0 but alas did not. We got bear, two of them actually and although I did get decent pictures of them and whales/eagles nothing can substitute for native magnification from a big, expensive and heavy superzoom.

 

If photography is a priority go look here: http://www.lensrentals.com/category/supertelephoto/for-all

 

You can easily rent a superzoom for a very small percentage of the cost of your trip and come back with the best pictures your skills can do.

 

happy shooting

 

Have booked the Princess cruise in Dec 2010 to the Falklands and Antarctica. Does anyone know how close you are able to get to the penguins on theFaulkands? Would a 200mm lense be big enough. I could shoot at a very high megapixel rate and zoom in to some extent. But I will only be able to make this trip once in my lifetime and need to know if I need to start saving for a 500 mm Nikon lense. The thought does not warm my heart, but if I have to- I guess I will.

The Bear