What to take to Alaska

[lactmom4sons]

i am going on a 2025 28 day alaska cruise.  i am learning how to better use my canon rebel t7 camera.  would like advice on lower cost lenses to become familiar with for this cruise.  need lens recommendations.  i am an amateur and therefore need to be practical since interested in travel photos.  will also cruise to panama canal in 2024.

[Mequon]

Sadly I JUST found this great topic!

i head to Vancouver tomorrow for the 9/20 Vancouver to Tokyo sailing on Regent. 
 

I’m taking the Sony A7r5, and these native lenses: 12-24, 24-70, 200-600, and the 1.4x TC. 

 

I’m leaving the 70-200 behind. If I need reach between the 70-200 area, I can merely crop the 70mm RAW image. 
 

And to those who question the need for a 60MP sensor, I’m using it for its amazing crop ability. And I also print 60” wall art. 
 

 

[gottagoacruzn]

Hey Crew News, went on the skagway photo tour, you were right when they didn't see much in the way of interest, think I wasted my money. On the Aluetian Ballard tour, there was only one eagle to be seen, I asked one of the guys, where all the eagles were, an they were someplace else. What month did you go, when all the eagles were there? Thanks.

 

Virginia

[Crew News]

25 minutes ago, gottagoacruzn said:

Hey Crew News, went on the skagway photo tour, you were right when they didn't see much in the way of interest, think I wasted my money. On the Aleutian Ballard tour, there was only one eagle to be seen, I asked one of the guys, where all the eagles were, an they were someplace else. What month did you go, when all the eagles were there? Thanks.

 

Virginia

The big question on the photo tour is what you learned other than how to slow down waterfall pictures.

 

My five Aleutian Ballad tours have been in May and June before the salmon runs start.  Lots of eagle youngsters need feeding before then.  I have never seen less than 15 eagles on any Aleutian Ballad eagle feeding.  There is also an eagle feeding (5 - 11 eagles) on the Ketchikan SilverKing Lodge excursion.

 

Hopefully you sat above the life preserver on the boat to get a good photo view of the feeding.

 

 

 

 

[KYBOB]

Well our experience on the Skagway photo tour was great, our guide was Dale Cunning he was very good and a wildlife photographer, he took us to some great spots where he knew there was some animals and good shots. He helped others with camera settings angles, etc. The only time he did anything with a phone or even mention it was when he offered to take our photo next to a water fall. Here he taught me a cool trick with my iPhone, the photo of my wife and I, hey I was impressed the phone could that. I am over 60 and I know you push a button and it takes a picture or movie, it rings and you talk on it. Beyond that...you might say I looked down on ...camera phones..... I was quite pleased with this tour. Photos below. 

 

Now we did another photo tour in Ketchikan that was bad and I was very disappointed in, it was called Ketchikan Photo Safari - "off the beaten path". The lady that was the guide was not very knowledgeable about photography at all and it was solely based on how to take photos with your iPhone camera and she did not even have that down to well. What was really bad was it was just my wife and I on the tour, yes just us and the guide. She tried but kind of was "phoning" it in, get it...bad joke. It was advertised as "off the beaten path" and while some stops were 'off the beaten path' some places were and some were not. It was not complete loss I did manage to get some good shots of Creek Street. I have taken other photo tours and they have all been very good and came away very satisfied. This one would get a hard pass from me.     

[gottagoacruzn]

55 minutes ago, Crew News said:

The big question on the photo tour is what you learned other than how to slow down waterfall pictures.

 

My five Aleutian Ballad tours have been in May and June before the salmon runs start.  Lots of eagle youngsters need feeding before then.  I have never seen less than 15 eagles on any Aleutian Ballad eagle feeding.  There is also an eagle feeding (5 - 11 eagles) on the Ketchikan SilverKing Lodge excursion.

 

Hopefully you sat above the life preserver on the boat to get a good photo view of the feeding.

 

 

 

 

was on automatic scene

[eileeshb]

My Alaska trip is fast approaching.. I'll be in Seattle this time 2 weeks. 

At the moment I've opted to bring the following kit

Canon Eos 7D & 7D markII

Canon EF L 100-400/f4.5-5.6 with a set of filters

Canon EFS 10-18/F4.5-5.6

Canon EF 50/f1.8 ii

 

I decided against bringing the sigma 70-200/f2.8 as I figure my phone will cover most of that range (new Samsung S23 ultra). I do also have the original Canon kit lens EFS 17-85/F4.5-5.6 but again I think the phone will cover that range.

But please tell me if I'm daft to leave the 70-200mm at home. 

[KYBOB]

1 hour ago, eileeshb said:

My Alaska trip is fast approaching.. I'll be in Seattle this time 2 weeks. 

At the moment I've opted to bring the following kit

Canon Eos 7D & 7D markII

Canon EF L 100-400/f4.5-5.6 with a set of filters

Canon EFS 10-18/F4.5-5.6

Canon EF 50/f1.8 ii

 

I decided against bringing the sigma 70-200/f2.8 as I figure my phone will cover most of that range (new Samsung S23 ultra). I do also have the original Canon kit lens EFS 17-85/F4.5-5.6 but again I think the phone will cover that range.

But please tell me if I'm daft to leave the 70-200mm at home. 

With the lens you have I would take it because the only 'low light' lens in the list above is the 50/f1.8. I love the focal range of the 70-200 plus the Sony version II is a lot lighter than the 100-400 (do not know how your 70-200 compares to your 100-400) and the 2.8 gives the nice blurry background when you need it. Alaska weather is very unpredictable and rainy and overcast sky's were a wider aperture will come in handy.  The bear was shot with 70-200. I also use it for landscapes shooting pano's and then stich the shots together. 

Edited September 28, 2023 by KYBOB
Part was deleted some how.

[eileeshb]

1 hour ago, KYBOB said:

With the lens you have I would take it because the only 'low light' lens in the list above is the 50/f1.8. I love the focal range of the 70-200 plus the Sony version II is a lot lighter than the 100-400 (do not know how your 70-200 compares to your 100-400) and the 2.8 gives the nice blurry background when you need it. Alaska weather is very unpredictable and rainy and overcast sky's were a wider aperture will come in handy.  The bear was shot with 70-200. I also use it for landscapes shooting pano's and then stich the shots together. 

Hmm.. I’m trying to avoid bringing both the 100-400 and the 70-200 just for the sake of the weight and space. Thankfully the same filters will work on both, the 100-400 one is the old push/pull zoom design so it actually fits into the 70-200mm case. I do know I don’t want to add the teleconverter(also sigma) to the sigma because it just doesn’t focus quickly enough for moving objects like whales and it will downgrade it to an effective f4. But it might work for catching roosting eagles or relatively stationery seals… hmm.. I’ll see what the weather forecast looks like for Skagway and Ketchikan.. Juneau will be the whale watching on a small boat. 

 

[KYBOB]

1 minute ago, eileeshb said:

Hmm.. I’m trying to avoid bringing both the 100-400 and the 70-200 just for the sake of the weight and space. Thankfully the same filters will work on both, the 100-400 one is the old push/pull zoom design so it actually fits into the 70-200mm case. I do know I don’t want to add the teleconverter(also sigma) to the sigma because it just doesn’t focus quickly enough for moving objects like whales and it will downgrade it to an effective f4. But it might work for catching roosting eagles or relatively stationery seals… hmm.. I’ll see what the weather forecast looks like for Skagway and Ketchikan.. Juneau will be the whale watching on a small boat. 

 

I did the whale watch on a small boat, go as early as possible we were the first out of the bay that morning. Water was calmer and the whales more active. I knew a guy on the boat right after ours they barley saw a few tails. It could be the luck of the draw but I went the last time and it was the mid morning group and saw only one. 

 

Now what did I shoot? I used the 100-400 and 70-200 (early morning) In using the 100-400 it worked great on the tails and when they were slapping the water with their fin. (this is kind of slow and you can kind of get when it is going to happen. But jumping out of the water, happens with out warning. So when zoomed all the way out to 400 I had a hard time finding them. (bouncing boat, etc) so I would zoom out to 100 to find them then zoom in but old fingers (mine is a rotating zoom, not push pull) by the time I zoomed back in to 300/400 it was over and all I go was the splash, great splash just no whale. So next time I pulled it back to 100/175 to find them and just left it there letting the mega pixels on the camera do the work. I think next time I will take the 70-200 it is much shaper lens and faster focusing than the 100-400. Now for birds the 100-400 will work great or from the ship sometime there are some great opportunities going into Glacier Bay or Hubbard.

[eileeshb]

9 minutes ago, KYBOB said:

did the whale watch on a small boat, go as early as possible we were the first out of the bay that morning. Water was calmer and the whales more active. I knew a guy on the boat right after ours they barley saw a few tails. It could be the luck of the draw but I went the last time and it was the mid morning group and saw only one. 

Unfortunately my itinerary has us in Juneau in the afternoon so the excursion is at 2.30pm. But you’ve just reminded me to reach out to the excursion provider, it’s Gastineau guiding who run a photo safari excursion earlier in the season. The daylight hours for my trip will be limited so they don’t have that excursion running. 

[KYBOB]

3 minutes ago, eileeshb said:

Unfortunately my itinerary has us in Juneau in the afternoon so the excursion is at 2.30pm. But you’ve just reminded me to reach out to the excursion provider, it’s Gastineau guiding who run a photo safari excursion earlier in the season. The daylight hours for my trip will be limited so they don’t have that excursion running. 

This is who we went with both times. They have the small boats that the windows swing up out of the way on the sides as well as a front and rear outside viewing areas that are small but work. With the windows swing up a lot of the phone users will stay in there.  In the afternoon you will have the issue of the sun being somewhat directly over head and casting bad shadows (been there done that). Might think of using a polarizer to cut some of the glare on the water, just another reason to bring that 70-200.  

[eileeshb]

13 minutes ago, KYBOB said:

This is who we went with both times. They have the small boats that the windows swing up out of the way on the sides as well as a front and rear outside viewing areas that are small but work. With the windows swing up a lot of the phone users will stay in there.  In the afternoon you will have the issue of the sun being somewhat directly over head and casting bad shadows (been there done that). Might think of using a polarizer to cut some of the glare on the water, just another reason to bring that 70-200.  

I picked up a set of filters including a CP and an ND which thankfully will fit either the 70-200 or the 100-400 as they both take the same filter size. 

[Glaciers]

On 9/28/2023 at 1:03 PM, eileeshb said:

Unfortunately my itinerary has us in Juneau in the afternoon so the excursion is at 2.30pm. But you’ve just reminded me to reach out to the excursion provider, it’s Gastineau guiding who run a photo safari excursion earlier in the season. The daylight hours for my trip will be limited so they don’t have that excursion running. 

It really makes no difference when you go out on a whale watch. The whales are active all day long. It can be calmer in the morning though. The first trips out are looking for whales while the later tours have an idea of where they are, usually north of Shelter Island or west of Douglas Island, or anywhere in between. Gastineau guiding gets good reviews. There have been storms and several ships have missed ports due to high winds this month. Several small boat whale watch operators have also been forced to cancel trips. Small boats can be good but during a storm can be miserable.

[eileeshb]

3 hours ago, Glaciers said:

It really makes no difference when you go out on a whale watch. The whales are active all day long. It can be calmer in the morning though. The first trips out are looking for whales while the later tours have an idea of where they are, usually north of Shelter Island or west of Douglas Island, or anywhere in between. Gastineau guiding gets good reviews. There have been storms and several ships have missed ports due to high winds this month. Several small boat whale watch operators have also been forced to cancel trips. Small boats can be good but during a storm can be miserable.

I spent quite a while deciding which whale watching tour to do, Gastineau reassured me that the whale watching area is pretty sheltered so even if it’s rough on our route from Seattle to Juneau the conditions inshore may be ok. I’m more used to completely exposed coasts with waves hitting buildings. 
I did ping Gastineau about the lens questions and their FAQ recommends the longer lens for whale watching.. looks like I’ll have to bring both big lenses and use the phone for wide angle on the excursion. 

[Glaciers]

@eileeshb 

Yes, the longer the better for a whale watch. Actually, there are several areas that you’ll be sailing through that deserves it as well. If your ship has a naturalist, worth-their-weight, they will be able to tell you potential wildlife hotspots along the way. I always took a 600mm for years but just got rid of it for lighter equipment. I believe I saw a post from @pierces a while back that indicated he used a 200mm. The photos were very nice, even at 200mm.

[gottagoacruzn]

Hey guys, maybe somebody could help me. Got a Kodak pixpro digital camera, took pictures of Alaska, they came out beautiful on the camera, then took the camera to cvs, an had them developed. Got the pictures back, an noticed that the pictures didn't look all that beautiful, as they did on the camera. Whats wrong, any suggestions? Thanks. Oh, I do ask when I'm in the store, how often do they calibrate the machine. 

[Hezu]

On 10/28/2023 at 2:29 AM, gottagoacruzn said:

Hey guys, maybe somebody could help me. Got a Kodak pixpro digital camera, took pictures of Alaska, they came out beautiful on the camera, then took the camera to cvs, an had them developed. Got the pictures back, an noticed that the pictures didn't look all that beautiful, as they did on the camera. Whats wrong, any suggestions? Thanks. Oh, I do ask when I'm in the store, how often do they calibrate the machine. 

I'm afraid that without seeing the pictures it is quite hard to comment what is wrong with them. But I know the camera screens may not always show colours and details the same way as what comes out of printers. For optimal digital photo prints one should post process images on a computer with a calibrated monitor and preferably colour profile for the printer to assure that colours come out the way you like them. Another potential pitfall could be issues with image sizes, resolution and aspect ratios. Low resolution image files cannot be printed in large print sizes and aspect ratio problems may result in worst case would result images being stretched unusually or at least empty space on paper if the actual image is smaller than the paper size.

[Heidi13]

On 10/27/2023 at 4:29 PM, gottagoacruzn said:

Hey guys, maybe somebody could help me. Got a Kodak pixpro digital camera, took pictures of Alaska, they came out beautiful on the camera, then took the camera to cvs, an had them developed. Got the pictures back, an noticed that the pictures didn't look all that beautiful, as they did on the camera. Whats wrong, any suggestions? Thanks. Oh, I do ask when I'm in the store, how often do they calibrate the machine. 

 

Without further details it is impossible to make a reasonable guess; however, you will often find they look good on the camera's small screen, but not so good when blown up larger.

 

What are the issues, focus, depth of field, resolution, colours, etc.

[gottagoacruzn]

Hi Heidi, thats about the size of it. They look better on the camera!!

[Crew News]

1 minute ago, gottagoacruzn said:

Hi Heidi, thats about the size of it. They look better on the camera!!

Topaz Labs has software to make photos more acceptable if blurry or a bit out of focus.  If you email me one of your pics (use my website contact form), I will try to make it better. 

[gottagoacruzn]

Ok, might be in a day or two. Thanks.

[KYBOB]

Well I am headed off to Australia Ito get on a New Zealand cruise in a couple of weeks (leave Dec 25th). It seems I am taking trips where there is some restriction on what I can take lately. Going to Australia and the cruise portion we have no restrictions on carry on luggage other than one carry on and one personal item. But we are doing a land tour of Australia and the flights we are limited on weight. Well the kit it took to Alaska weighs too much and once again the size is an issue. Much to my wife's aggravation I need a new bag!! She now says I have more camera bags than she has hand bags. The bag I have found is amazing and which if I had for the Alaska trip would have been so much better. It is Gura Gear Chobe, and I am going to wear a photo vest to get some of the lens on the plane.  

For this trip it is going to be 

A1 and A7RV 

70-200 f/4

24-70 f/2.8

14mm f/1.4

16-35mm /2.8

 

And yes for this trip a tripod! We are going to Uluru for Sunrise and sun set. I also will do some astro photography either before sun rise or sun set. 

 

[Georgia_Peaches]

I am not a photographer AT ALL. The filters on my phone and the Slim and Skinny app make up the extent of my camera know-how. I came here looking for guidance on what a novice photographer such as myself can get by with while in Alaska. Will the most recent iPhone camera give me decent pics?  I am currently using an iPhone 8 Plus. State of the art 8 years ago…opinions and suggestions are much appreciated. 

[pierces]

I recently upgraded my phone to a Pixel 8 Pro, mostly for the camera. I have a well-stocked camera bag, but the quality of the images from the latest generation of high-end phones has become way more than "acceptable" for travel photography. Upgrading to the latest iPhone would provide you with a simple and effective way to get great photos from your trip. The only big gap in depending on a phone for an Alaska trip is the lack of a long zoom for wildlife. The longer zooms on the latest phones are better than before, but still no equal to what is possible with a interchangeable lens camera. Other than that, for scenery, walkabout photos and pictures of the ship, you will not be disappointed.

 

Here is a link to a short cruise we took where I only took the older Pixel 6 Pro phone for photos (an unforgivable sin only a few years ago). 

 

https://pptphoto.com/galleries/Travel/Cruising/2022-4 Navigator/index.html

 

Dave