Airline restrictions have made the task of paring your carry-on gear into rocket science. It used to be that if you had the strength, you could bring the kitchen sink along if you could lift it. No more.

Read more… http://www.wildlifeadventures.com/blog/lens-considerations-for-a-digital-camera/

But, with only 30 minutes before my flight, my insecurity rose as I watched my laptop bag being run and re-run through the x-ray. While the attendants were scratching their heads over this, I was asked to step into one of the nudeoscans that have received so much outcry in the US. I had determined beforehand that I would refuse one of the backscatter x-ray machines because of the unknown effects of radiation, so I was relieved to be assured that this was a microwave model.

Read more: http://www.theboomerpost.com/blog/entry/boomer-lifestyle/insecure-about-airport-security.html#ixzz19uZ7EDQb

Ten or so years ago, I used to kid my fellow pro friends that we were just making movies as we’d finish a staccato, rapid-fire session of photographing a sequence of polar bears sparring or eagles swooping to catch a fish on the sea surface. By that time, even though we were all still using film, motor drives had advanced to where frame rates of 10 or so frames per second were not uncommon. Gone were the days of anticipating action and squeezing off that perfect, single shot.

What we had, I told them, were basically movie cameras. Though movie cameras took 24 frames in a second, I could see the day wasn’t far off when successors to these very cameras would sport frame rates that fast, enabling you to just keep your finger on the shutter, let the action complete itself, and then select the best one or two photos from the sequence.

Well that time has come, driven by the convergence of still and video media enabled by the Web.  I think it’s generally accepted that people are reading less and watching video more. Stock photographers see an opportunity in selling stock video clips to bolster the disastrous decline in the stock industry in still images. Newspapers are even expecting their photographers to come back with video as well as stills on the same assignment.

So it’s a huge leap forward to have hybrid cameras that can take high-quality HD video along with superlative still photos. There is no question that it keeps the amount of equipment down that has to be carried into the field.

But these cameras, good as they are, are not a substitute for a well-designed dedicated video camera for news gathering, serious documentary work or anything that requires a quick, on-the-hoof type of shooting. To sum up the main reasons:

• You still need a tripod for many shots, especially establishing shots. And it needs to have a fluid head for steadiness. Which means that until someone comes up with a hybrid tripod to shoot both stills and film, you’ll have to carry two tripods with you. This obviously counterbalances the advantage of ‘one camera – two modes’.
• No variable-speed, motorized zoom means you will have to plan your shot so that it doesn’t require any such technique. This is fine if you want a ‘retro’ look — an echo of the days before zoom lenses in the movies where the only camera movements were ones like pans, tilts and dolly shots.
• The fact that there is no effective autofocus either (remember, these units DO autofocus, they just do it very sluggishly and only when the light is bright enough) also reduces the effectiveness of use for documentary/news productions.
• The viewfinders, while bright and high resolution, are deficient in bright sunlight or for critical focusing. They also get tedious after long periods of use, especially for those with glasses. There is an evolving cottage industry of add-ons to help overcome this, but most make the camera much more cumbersome (and expensive).
• Having good control over the sound recording requires separate level controls, mixers, microphone jacks or a completely separate sound recording device whose recording is later synced with the video in post-production.

But there are advantages. Some are obvious and others not so obvious:

• State-of-the-art still images are possible, the quality limited only by the skill of the photographer.
• Extremely high-quality video can be shot in a small, lightweight, familiar form-factor.
• The lenses you’ve hocked your IRA to get can be used quite well for either still or video.
• Using one camera for both stills and film open new possibilities to increase your productiveness in the field.
• Using the same flash card for either media type is a great convenience. And flash cards are far better than tape, convenience-wise. Being able to speedily download each clip as a separate file, allowing you to quickly find the scene you need is a real time-saver. Downloading an hour’s tape to your computer takes, well, an hour. With a card, it’s just minutes.

I’ve not dealt with a lot of the minutia of either of these cameras: no pixel-peeping or discussions about the evolution of the Custom Functions, etc. My intent is just to give a broad overview of what these cameras are and what they are not.

If you are needing an extremely high-quality addition to your camera bag, either of these units are worth the investment. They are worth the price as still cameras alone; the video is a freebie. If you want a unit that enables you to get video footage that you otherwise wouldn’t be getting because you’re unlikely to drag around a dedicated video camera on a shoot, either of these are your answer.

Neither of these cameras will replace a pro-quality, dedicated video camera for all types of video shooting. So if serious video production is needed, I’d advise you to keep your trusty video camera close by and use the 5D MKII and 7D to supplement it.

Otherwise, these are excellent, pro-quality cameras that will extend your capabilities as a photographer.

For a slightly contrarian conclusion, see PF Bentley’s recent article over at the excellent Digital Journalist. He swears he’ll never use a small-sensor video camera again, despite the shortcomings (and more) that I’ve listed here. By the way, check out their Platypus Workshops if you’re interested in honing your skills in video production.

Video has been fast developing in both quality and scope of usage in the last decade. Consumer all-in-one hybrid cameras have been available for years. Video cameras have gotten smaller and more compact and at the same time, quality of output has soared. But until recently, both pro or amateur alike had to carry two separate pieces of equipment in order to shoot professional-quality stills and video.

While there are some minor differences in the layout of the video controls between the 5D MKII and the 7D, the two essentially shoot in the same manner and with similar results. Despite the differences in their sensor size and resolution, the image quality is very similar in my experience — ie., excellent. Much has been written about the [motion picture] filmic quality of the image, and in fact the image is superb.

Because of the large sensors (24 x 36mm in the 5D MKII and 22.3 x 14.9 mm (APS-C size) in the 7D), depth of field is very shallow compared to even the best-quality professional dedicated video cameras, which sport 1/4 to 1/3-inch sensors. With the smaller sensor sizes, more of a scene is in focus at a given aperture than with a larger sensor. Unlike 35mm Hollywood-style film cameras, dedicated video cameras have had a difficult time using shallow, selective focus unless a long telephoto lens was used. You couldn’t easily use shallow focus to emphasize a subject when shooting video (or for that matter, using 16mm film) as you could with a larger format movie camera.

Zooming and Focusing

Unlike most dedicated video cameras, these two hybrids do not have motorized or variable zoom. Not surprising since they rely on the same lenses used in Canon’s still photography lineup. This is a bit of a throwback to an earlier era when almost no professional movie cameras had motorized zooms. If you’re a cameraman who shot movies back in the old days, it’s one bit of nostalgia you can do without! It takes agonizing practice to keep even the most modest manual zoom movements smooth and accurate — at least with video, you’re not racking up huge film costs as you shoot and re-shoot many times to get it right!

Although the 5DMKII and 7D do have autofocus capability (since Canon puts the autofocus mechanisms in the lens), it’s not practical to use it to follow-focus a moving object. To actuate autofocus, one must press either the shutter release or one of the buttons at the top right of the rear of the camera (which can be remapped from the shutter release [highly recommended] using one of the Custom Functions in the menu system). Unfortunately, both cameras take a few seconds to change and confirm focus, something that becomes very distracting when it’s part of a movie scene.

You CAN use the 10X mode which zooms the viewfinder magnification, but try that in the middle of a scene! This is only good for setting up a static shot.

Given this, it’s far better to attempt a manual change of focus when needed. But this leads to another set of problems.

The Video Viewfinder

Viewing the video as it’s being shot is accomplished in Live View mode, which displays the image on the large LCD at the rear of the camera. Because it’s necessary for the camera’s mirror to flip up to expose the sensor during shooting, the regular optical viewfinder (used for shooting stills) is blacked out and can’t be used. While the LCD screen on both cameras is relatively large, bright and high resolution, seeing enough detail to accurately focus is difficult even for those whose eyes have relatively good vision. If you’re shooting in full daylight, it’s all but impossible to see the image well enough to do critical focusing. Sometimes it’s even hard to compose the shot accurately.

There is a small cottage industry developing around fixing these, and other shortcomings. A few companies have developed shaded optical magnifiers that attach to the viewfinder screen, much as you would use a loupe to view a 35mm transparency. Such magnifiers are almost required for any serious video shooting with these cameras. Of course, they add bulk, weight and expense to the camera and also require that the camera be held at eye-level to shoot, as they are not rotatable in viewing angle like most viewfinders on pro dedicated video cameras.

HoodLoupe 3.0

 

Z-Finder

A number of manufacturers offer LCD magnifiers, but here are a couple:

HoodLoupe 3.0 : An inexpensive option – a 2X magnifier with diopter correction that straps to the camera body, enabling it to easily work with a number of brands and models.

Zacuto Z-Finder: More expensive, but uses Schneider optics. Attaches to a frame which uses double-sided tape to stick to the camera body.

Exposing the Image

Exposure with these cameras poses a challenge similar to the focus issues. While it is possible to have the camera on one or more auto-exposure modes where the camera varies the aperture or the ISO according to conditions, it does so with fairly unpredictable results. The camera will expose for whatever is in the central part of the frame, which may or may not be what you would prefer it to expose on, and if the camera pans or tilts to another part of the scene, the auto-exposure will often change abruptly, providing another distraction in your video scene.

The only really practical way around this is to switch to manual exposure, determine ahead of time the optimum exposure for the scene (and subsequent movements you’ll be making during the shot). That way, as you pan or tilt the camera, viewers won’t have to sit through a scene that jarringly switches from light to dark and back again.

If you are using one of these cameras for any fluid, or rapidly changing subject, like wildlife or photojournalism, keeping the scene properly focused (manually) and exposed (manually) can require almost superhuman effort. Ie., most of us mortals aren’t sufficiently skilled to control it all.

Sound

Of course, what is video without sound? Although many excellent videos can be made without original sound — using instead dubbed effects, narrative or music — at some point one needs to shoot a scene with synchronous sound — an interview, actors or a documentary with real-time sound. The good news is that both of these cameras are capable of recording excellent quality sound. The bad news is, like some of the video issues above, you’ll have to buy additional equipment and do creative work arounds.

First off, the cameras come with only the most rudimentary of microphones. Unlike most dedicated video cameras which often have professional-quality microphones included, these two cameras’ mikes are tiny and monaural, and mounted in the body on the front of the camera. Not only is the sound quality meager, but the mikes are prone to picking up every extraneous noise possible: your fingers working the camera controls, the lens focusing motors and more.

A stereo mini-plug is provided so that you can use any quality external mike you want. A number of high-quality mikes are made that fit into the hot shoe at the top of the vewfinder housing, making for a self-contained unit not unlike a standard dedicated video camera. I use the Rode stereo mike which produces excellent audio.

A final obstacle to good sound is that there is no way to adjust the sound level. The camera auto-adjusts the level. This works in limited situations, but for good cinema, you need good sound. Again, several companies have come to the rescue with mixers and jack-packs to handle multiple inputs.

BeachTek DXA-5Da

One such, the BeachTek DXA-5Da, installs on the bottom of the camera and has a tripod mount to mount the whole (now growing!) apparatus on a tripod. It accepts multiple mike inputs and a basic set of level controls and meter.

Image Stabilization

Still photographers are no strangers to tripods, though in recent years, improved electronic image stabilization has become so good that many are foregoing tripods except for all but the slowest shutter speeds. Video and movie making more often than not needs a rock-steady support most of the time. And because video means a viewer sees all of your camera movements, not just the 1/500 of a second when you took that award-winning still shot, it requires a tripod that smooths out the pans and tilts that are part of any movie or video.

Enter the fluid head tripod. In this piece of technological art, the tripod head’s internal mechanism is filled with a viscous fluid that dampens most of the naturally jerky movements that usually occur when one pans or tilts the camera on a standard tripod. The result is an expensive, large, ungainly and heavy tripod that you will curse roundly when you have to carry it for several miles across an Antarctic island, but praise it when you’re watching the final product.

But since most lenses now come with the option of image stabilization, what role does that play in shooting video with these cameras? The answer depends on your subject matter and what you intend as a final look of your production.

Image stabilization has been around for years on dedicated video cameras, though inexplicably is still absent on some portable news and professional cameras. Usually the stabilization is quite good, and with practice and proper bracing can be used for documentaries and dramatic productions where a documentary-type feel is needed. However, because high definition video is so, well, high definition, the viewer sees almost every little shake or wobble. If at all possible, use a tripod for those expansive establishing shot scenes and dramatic pans across a landscape, or following a moving subject.

Even where off-the-tripod shots are called for, it really helps to use a shoulder brace of some sort that uses your body to smooth out the bumps. And, given the terrible ergonomics of shooting with these cameras, it will drastically reduce the fatigue so that you don’t have to hold the entire contraption out in front of you unsupported while videoing.

Next: Final thoughts and where this technology is headed

I wanted to add my experiences and opinions to the already exploding body of reviews and dissections on the net, hopefully to help others who are trying to decide on a new addition to their photo arsenal. I won’t go into the minutia of tech specs here, as this is available all over the web. Nor is this intended as an opinion of the merits of Canon vs Nikon or any other brand.

I bought the 5D MKII in early 2009 and the 7D in the early fall of that year, shortly after it came out. Since then, I’ve shot the 5D MKII around my home state of Washington, in the humid tropical environment of Belize in Central America, and both models just recently in Antarctica.

I’ve been photographing as a professional for more than 40 years (!), starting with a Leica M2 rangefinder and have used a fairly broad slice of Nikon and Canon film SLRs in previous years, and more recently a Canon 1Ds and 1Ds MKII. How I see the 5D and 7D fitting into this lineup will be covered later.

One thing that has bugged me in recent times in the 35mm/DSLR professional market is size-creep. Sort of like Detroit’s famous and now much-maligned bloated car trend of the 70s and 80s, this class of camera kept getting bigger and heavier with each new model, albeit with new features and capabilities. By the time the 1D/s series debuted, one had to take up weight training in order to put more than one body and lens around your neck! These puppies were heavy!

And, the camera motor drives and shutters sounded like small, personal machine guns when fired. Listen to any politician’s news conference on TV and sometimes it’s hard to hear the speaker for all of the staccato shutters firing! Gone were the days when you could effectively do candid street photography or photojournalism undetected. If you were trying to work relatively close to wildlife, your presence was instantly telegraphed to the subject and if it didn’t bolt and run, it was sure difficult to get it to resume its normal behavior.

In contrast, the beauty of the now-retro Leica rangefinder design was that the unit was small, lightweight, quick and precise — the opposite of the direction modern professional cameras were evolving.

The Canon 5D MKII was the first of Canon’s hybrid DSLRs intended for the professional market. It is much smaller and lighter weight than its professional big brothers/sisters, more reminiscent of Canon’s A2 35mm film camera in size and feel. The shutter is an order of magnitude quieter than the bigger cameras. Once I had it in my hands, I realized that the days of my 1Ds series were numbered. At least for me. So… off they went to eBay.

A couple of features that stood out early on: the much larger rear LCD screen was a pleasure to review your shots on. And Canon finally added what approached a 21st Century menu system for choosing various camera functions. Anyone who tried to navigate the earlier 1D series menu options without a manual handy was quickly driven to the edge. At least now one could figure out most of the options without resorting to more than a passing reference to the manual.

Canon also employs a very effective anti-dust, sensor-cleaning function that so far has worked flawlessly in both the 5D MKII and 7D — the sensor vibrates ultrasonically for a few seconds on power up and power down, shaking grains of dust off the sensor surface. For anyone who has tried to keep the sensor clean on any camera that does not have some sort of auto-cleaning routine, or has spent countless hours dust spotting images, this is a major breakthrough. I’ve yet to find any serious dust spots on any of my images, and when I have seen some, it usually doesn’t stay long, as the sensor cleaning routine usually takes care of it.

Images from the 5D’s 21 megapixel sensor are stunning, especially at ISO’s below about 800. While noise is prominent at ISO’s above this, it isn’t objectionable until you get above about 1600 – 3200 ISO. Even at those ranges, the sensor’s sensitivity enables one to do handheld photojournalistic work that just a few years ago was considered impossible.

The current generation of uber-sensors like in the 5 and 7D bring up a point that I had been growing aware of when I had the Canon 1Ds MKII (17 megapixels). I am beginning to see these sensors outpacing lens development — that is the increasing ability of the sensor to resolve is not being matched by the current family of lenses, particularly zoom lenses. At least with the L-series zoom lenses I have been using with these cameras, the degree of enlargement that is possible now is beginning to reveal any shortcomings in the lenses you might use.

Years ago (like 30 or 40), pro photogs and serious amateurs alike disdained using zoom lenses for mission-critical work because of their notorious flaws: lack of sharpness and contrast, distortion, etc. Fixed-focal, or prime, lenses were the genre of choice. This prejudice has flipped around in more recent decades as zoom lens technology has improved markedly. Now if you see a pro in the field, he or she likely has few if any non-zooms around the neck or on the tripod.

If I can hazard a prediction, I forecast camera manufacturers coming out with a next generation of “ultra-pro” lenses that have higher resolving power and contrast. So keep your piggy banks well-fed, you’ll need the cash!

Next: The video experience with the Canon 5D MKII and 7D

Our plans were to do a 6 AM landing in Andvord Bay, but at 5 AM Expedition Leader Susan Adie’s voice came over the ship PA system to announce that the wind had picked up to more than 45 knots (almost 50 mph), so back to bed…

We continued to sail south through the Neumeyer Channel. On each side of the ship, the scenery continued to get more and more stark and rugged – jagged black rock peaks capped with massively thick snowfields, and in the valleys, huge tidewater glaciers.

By late morning we arrived at Weinke Island near Dorian Bay, where the both the Argentines and the British Antarctic Survey had built small huts for the resupply of their respective area research stations. Peter Hillary and some of the other guides took those looking for a hike up a long, snowy hill for a better view of the other side of the island, while most of the rest of us explored a large gentoo penguin colony.

This gentoo colony was being beset by a pair of skuas who were intent on stealing eggs. One of the pair would wander into the thick of the gentoos and draw their ire and pecks, while the other would attack from the other side of the nest, more often that not making off with an egg.

It’s tough being a penguin.

We continued our southward journey, entering the narrow (only 1600 meters across at its narrowest!) but spectacular Lemaire Channel in the early afternoon. At one point we were accompanied by several dwarf minke whales, a subsepcies found in the southern waters.

Our target, and last landing in the Antarctic was Petermann Island, with healthy nesting colonies of blue-eyed shags (cormorants), adelie and gentoo penguins. The late afternoon light was stunning on Mount Scott and the other mountains above the Lemaire. On the west side of the island was a small cove with an iceberg graveyard, where grounded icebergs awaited their inevitable fate.

It was late evening when we headed back north through the Lemaire, retracing our route, and accompanied at a distance by our sister ship, the Corinthian II, who was also on a trip to the Antarctic Peninsula. The skies had cleared a bit and the late evening sun shone on the icebergs and peaks until almost 11 PM. It was hard to stay off the deck and fill up our cameras’ memory cards!

By early morning of December 27, our ship began to pitch and roll heavily as we entered the legendary unprotected waters of the Drake Passage, named for the 16th Century English privateer Sir Francis Drake. The seas boomed against the ship and some washed completely over the bow. Those who hadn’t succumbed to seasickness before in the voyage were now reaching for medication! But by the second day, the waves subsided to a modest couple meters high and we were blessed with an easy passage all the way back into Ushuaia, Argentina.

Our days were filled with more fascinating lectures, including a moving personal account from Peter Hillary about his tragic attempt on the summit of infamous K2.

*        *        *        *        *        *        *

Upon arriving in Ushuaia, we had completed 18 days and some 3504 nautical miles of one of the most treacherous, stormy, isolated, beautiful and biologically unique areas on the planet. The Antarctic and sub-Antarctic region has claimed staggering numbers of ships, lives and dreams over the centuries.

We were so very fortunate to have a modern, comfortable ship in the Clelia II to explore this remarkable region. We relied upon satellites and modern charts for navigation, not astrolabes, sextants or dead reckoning. We had radio and even satellite internet for communications, instead rock cairns with messages inside.

Yet travel in this unforgiving region is not without peril; only a couple of years ago another ship of our size, the M/V Explorer, struck an iceberg and sunk to the sea floor, amazingly sparing all aboard. I had been fortunate some 21 years ago to make my first voyage to Antarctica (on this same itinerary) aboard the Explorer, and some of our crew aboard the Clelia II had actually been aboard the Explorer on her last, ill-fated cruise.

But it’s been characteristic of those who have ventured into this southern realm to return time and again, and I’m glad I’ve been one of them. There are so few places left that are so unchanged, so isolated and so beautiful; in fact, fewer with each passing year.

If you can, go.

–Randy Green–

As we head south, as one might expect, the temperatures are dropping. The snow on the sharp, rugged mountains and on the expanses of tidewater glaciers has gotten thicker. Great tabular icebergs are more numerous, as is the sea ice.

The question arises: what’s the difference between icebergs and sea ice? Icebergs are derived from pieces of glaciers which calve into the sea. It is, in essence, fossil ice — it can be many thousands of years old, sometimes tens of thousands, depending on the length of distance and time it has traveled on its course t the sea. On the other hand, sea ice is ice that has formed during the winter from the freezing of the sea surface. In both polar regions it can be anywhere from one to several years old, the latter if it did not completely thaw during a summer season and re-froze the following winter. In that case, it often accumulates a layer of snow too, making it thicker.

Sea ice can be crunched through to a limited extent by an ice-strengthened polar expedition vessel, but icebergs are thicker, harder and more massive. They are avoided by all vessels at all costs: hitting one is like hitting a rock. And we all know at least one great example of an encounter of a ship with an iceberg!

Today is Christmas Day. It’s spectacularly clear with a brisk wind, and we take a zodiac excursion of Cierva Cove, site of the Argentine Primavera Station, inhabited only in the spring and summer. On our way to the cove, we are treated to a pod of humpback whales swimming under our zodiacs and showing off just yards away!

In the afternoon we attempted a landing in Mikkelsen Harbor on Trinity Island, but our old nemesis, the wind, sprung up and we had to abandon our plans. The sea was simply too rough to risk it in our little zodiacs.

So, we headed further south along the Antarctic Peninsula, and enjoyed a superb Christmas dinner. Late at night our Filipino crew treated us to a wonderful Christmas show which provided a sample of the amazing diversity of the staff.

During the night, we sailed south from Elephant Island to some of the outer islands of the Antarctic Peninsula. This is the point of land closest to the South American continent.

Our first landing was at Brown Bluff, where a large gentoo and adelie colony thrived at the foot of vertical cliffs several hundred feet high, the island’s namesake. A short climb up a slippery snowfield allowed us a peek into a rock crevice where two snow petrels were nesting.

Thick sea ice prevented us from making a landing at Paulet Island, unfortunately. Paulet Island was where members of Otto Nordenskiöld’s 1902 Swedish Antarctic Expedition overwintered in a small hut, which I visited on my first voyage a couple of decades ago.

So we headed northwest through a narrow passageway choked with great tabular icebergs, gleaming in the stormy late afternoon light and turned south along the Danko Coast.

Elephant Island is where 22 of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s men were stranded upon reaching the island after escaping their shipwreck in the Weddell Sea. As I mentioned on the South Georgia entry, Shackleton left the men on the island at Point Wild while he and other crew members left to get help at South Georgia in their little lifeboat, the James Caird. Point Wild is nothing more than a tiny spit of land (bottom center, in photo below) between the main island and a smaller, triangular-shaped island, barely big enough for their overturned lifeboats which they used as shelter.

Elephant Island almost always presents a difficult landing, and this time was no exception. Our way was blocked by an abundance of last winter’s sea ice as well as heavy surf. so we didn’t attempt a landing, instead maneuvering our ship to less than a mile from Point Wild

On my first expedition here, some 21 years ago, we were able to make a rare landing on the rocky spit. A small colony of chinstraps greeted us, most of them nesting on the very spot the Endurance crew spent the winter. Nearby, a small monument stood to commemorate the Chilean captain whose ship Shackleton used to finally rescue the stranded crew.

Today, we only looked, humbled by what the Endurance crew had to endure. Then we sailed south.

Peter Hillary gave a great talk about his ascent of Mt. Vinson on the Antarctic mainland.

Trevor, our indomitable Scottish expedition guide, gave a jaw-dropping account and slide show of his retracement of Shackleton’s 800-mile lifeboat voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia. He had an exact replica of the James Caird built in Scotland and then brought to Elephant Island on the Kapitan Klebnikov. From there, he and three others sailed to South Georgia in the tiny wooden craft, enduring two gales and freezing temperatures.

On the afternoon of the 22nd of December, we gained sight of Coronation Island, one of the islands in the South Orkney group. Sculpted icebergs dotted the waters around the snow-capped island.

As we approached a chinstrap penguin colony, we began to see leopard seals cruising just off shore. These large seals are an efficient predator of penguins, with their huge jaws giving them a snake-like appearance. We were only about 50 yards from shore when the water exploded near us – a leopard seal had caught a chinstrap and was flinging it back and forth, trying to tear its skin off. Seabirds like petrels and shearwaters flocked past, dipping into the water and sharing bits of the feast. Grim, but leopard seals have to eat too.

We landed on the pebbled beach amid large chunks of ice that had broken off a nearby glacier and floated to shore. Chinstraps on their nests were everywhere and the shore was a penguin highway. A leopard seal slid stealthily among the ice blocks a couple of yards from shore and just a few yards from us, probably hoping to catch penguins as they swam back to their nests.

Small groups of penguins would suddenly burst out of the water, skitter over the ice blocks and race up on the shore, doing their best to avoid the seal. It was poignant to see their panicked frenzy gradually calm down as they realized they had made it safely to shore.

Next: A pilgrimage to Elephant Island

A young elephant seal promptly adopted our landing party, inching over to lay on the legs of anyone who sat on the beach long enough.

At midday, we repositioned the Clelia II to Grytviken, one of the busiest whaling stations in its heyday in the world. It was founded in 1902 and finally shut down in the 1960s. On my first visit here more than 20 years ago, you could stand on the flensing dock and still smell the rancid whale oil impregnated in the timbers.

Now many of the station’s docks and buildings have rotten and been cleared away for safety’s sake. A small foundation dedicated to preserving the heritage of the site maintains the remaining structures and even has a small gift shop to take in revenue to support the operation.

We landed near the little cemetery containing Sir Ernest’s grave, brought out the scotch and orange juice for a toast to “The Boss” (his moniker given him by his admiring men, long before Springsteen, I might add). Trevor, one of our expedition staff from Scotland, gave a reading from one of The Boss’s journals.

We took the rest of the afternoon to poke around the station and photograph more of the seals round the beach, including one endearing little fur seal pup who nosed around several of us, hoping one of us was its mum. The Petrel, one of the original whaling chase craft was still in its last resting place, harpoon still afixed to the bow, never to be fired again. It had been sabotaged at the dock just before my first visit by some anti-whaling activists.

Our evening departure from this historic and stunningly beautiful island was graced by one of the most vivid, weird sunsets I’ve ever seen. Enormous lenticular clouds brought about by the interaction of the upper level storm winds and the island’s mountain range produced fantastic shapes reminiscent of a Steven Spielberg movie.

Next: the South Orkney Islands (coming soon — we’re on our way!)

Despite the terrible reputation of the stretch between the Falklands and South Georgia, our passage was easy – smooth seas and light winds.

Dawn found us anchored off the shore of Salisbury Plain, one of the best king penguin rookeries anywhere. Read more…

Mist and clouds surrounded the tall craggy mountains above the beach at Salisbury. Along the distant strip of beach you could just make out the harems of fur seals. But what was above the beach drew most of the attention. Large patches or fingers could be seen extending up the green lower slopes of the foothills. Once we landed on the beach it became clear these were staggeringly huge colonies of king penguins, the second largest of the penguins.

A few clutches of kings wandered about on the beach, some just having tumbled in from the waves hitting the shore. But as we moved inland, past the aggressive and quarrelsome fur seals defending their harems, the colony grew and grew until it was solid penguin, beak to beak, flipper to flipper. Most were adults with their beautiful orange throats, but there were many ‘bearcoats’, young chicks still wearing the brown, fluffy down they would soon shed.

South Georgia’s place in history is pivotal in the southern seas. Claimed by the British in the 18th Century, it served as a whaling and sealing center right up until the 1960s. In fact the whaling station at Grytviken was one of the most productive in the world. The island provided a jumping off point for many well-known Antarctic exploration parties, one of the most famous being the ill-fated Shackleton expedition.

In what has become one of history’s most amazing tales of heroism and survival, the Shackleton Expedition continues to astound and inspire. Ernest Shackleton and a small band of explorers set sail on December 5, 1914 aboard the Endurance, an ice-strengthened wooden hull, three-masted sailing ship for the Weddell Sea, hoping to beat explorer Roald Amundsen to the South Pole.

Within a short distance of the continent, the Endurance was stuck in sea ice and Shackleton and his men were stranded on the ice as the ship was crushed and sank. Dragging supplies and their lifeboats across the ice northward, they then rowed hundreds of miles to Elephant Island, landing on a rocky finger of land. Shackleton left most of the crew at Elephant Island and took four men, re-boarded one of the boats, and rowed and partially sailed another 800 miles back to South Georgia Island.

Their ordeal was hardly over, however. In order to get help at one of the whaling stations they had to cross a mountain range with peaks up to 7,000 feet. So Shackleton left two men with the boat and provisions, and set out with two others on a harrowing three day journey, eventually arriving at the whaling station of Stromness.

In a final unbelievable act of heroism, they obtained a Chilean vessel and returned to Elephant Island and rescued the stranded explorers. It had been a year and a half since they left South Georgia on the Endurance and not a man was lost.

Shackleton returned to South Georgia several years later (h
e was knighted by the Queen of England) for another attempt on the pole, but suffered a heart attack at the age of just 45. Sir Ernest Shackleton was buried in the little whalers’ cemetery at Grytviken, per his wife’s wishes, with his grave pointed south to Antarctica. All of the others’ graves point east.

If you’d like to read more about this incredible journey, pick up a copy of Endurance at your library or bookstore.

In the afternoon, our own landing at Stromness was less about survival and more about discovery. The little whaling station is of course long abandoned and falling apart. We weren’t able to poke around the ruins, as the high winds made the danger of blowing sheet metal dangerous and the facility is full of asbestos, posing another risk of a different kind. Instead we photographed the many fur and elephant seals on the beach, as well as a number of gentoo penguins.

One of our expedition staff is Sir Peter Hillary, son of Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two men to climb Mount Everest. Peter has climbed Everest twice himself as well as leading the first expedition to the South Pole on skis. Peter took a small group of us a couple of miles up a beautiful braided river valley to the waterfall that Shackleton and his men were forced to descend in their wintertime trek across the mountains.

Next: Grytviken

The Convergence marks the edge of colder water and a change in direction of the current circulating the continent of Antarctica. The drop from 4 – 5 degrees Celsius to around one degree is enough to produce mist or fog as well as spawn strong winds and storms. It also produces an upwelling of oceanic nutrients and is a often a great area for concentrating seabirds and whales — something we’re really looking forward to.

The exact location of the Convergence varies, so we’re not really sure when we cross it until we do. But it will be sometime before we make South Georgia later tonight. Satellite indicates some strong cold fronts doing their own form of converging on the island over the next day or so, giving us a bit or worry about our planned landings.

In the meantime, we’ve been photographing the multitude of seabirds circling the ship, including the first wandering albatross (below), one of the world’s large birds with a wingspan of up to 11.5 feet. A real modern pterodactyl.

Next, South Georgia!

A night and a day of sailing rolling seas brought us to the Falkland Islands. The first islands appeared on the northeastern horizon in the early light: relatively low and devoid of any trees. The climate is too harsh for them.

The Falklands, or Islas Malvinas as the Argentinians call them, are an archipelago of more than 700 separate islands lying east-southeast of the southern tip of South America. They are an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, which is responsible for their defense, a fact that became very real for Falklanders in 1982, when Argentina, which had also claimed the islands for over 150 years, invaded.

The resulting two month war brought casualties to both sides, British and Argentine. The Brits prevailed and the whole affair is still a sore point between everyone involved. Many parts of the islands still have land mines buried by the Argentines, though the more populated areas and sheep ranches have been cleared.

We made an early departure in our Zodiac landing craft into a protected cove to a small dock at a remote sheep ranch on West Point Island, owned by the Napier family. Their tidy little homestead is typical of other ranch operations in the islands — a small, white, wood-framed farmhouse, surrounded by a meticulous yard and white picket fence, and various out-buildings. Their only electric power is from a small wind turbine. Wind is a cheap commodity here.

But our main target was at the end of a mile and a half hike to the other side of the island: a large colony of nesting rockhopper penguins and black-browed albatross on a steep slope above the sea. The two species nest together among the tussock grass clumps, getting only mildly irritated when the other tries to pick its way through the maze of nests. We watched and photographed here for several hours before trudging back to the Napiers’ homestead where they had put up a great tea with all sorts of baked goods for us.

On the return, our zodiac was surrounded by playful and curious Comerson’s dolphins, small black and white dolphins with tiny, rounded dorsal fins.

Back on the ship, while eating lunch (not that we needed it after the Napiers!), the ship was repositioned a couple of hours away to Saunders Island. This is the largest of the Falkland Islands and the site of the first British settlement in 1765. Here in a narrow neck of land between two large hills we found colonies of Magellanic, gentoo, rockhopper and king penguins.

The beautiful king penguins are the second-largest of the penguins and we found a few here, along with their hilarious ‘little’ chicks. These young appear larger and fatter than the parents, mainly due to their thick, brown downy coats, making them look like they are dressed in oversized fur coats. With any luck, we’ll find thousands on South Georgia island, which we visit in a few days.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

We cruised all night through rolling seas and anchored shortly after dawn in the bay at Port Stanley, the only city in the islands. Stanley was a major supply point for whalers, fishermen, and sealers over the last 200+ years.

I had been in Port Stanley more than 20 years ago and wasn’t prepared for the changes. With the popularity of Antarctic and southern ocean cruises, it has become a favored stopover for ships large and small. On the morning we arrived, we shared the town with 3,000 other passengers from a single cruise ship that was too large to anchor in the main harbor. The ship’s tenders took hours to shuttle the passengers into town. It effectively doubled the size of the town for the day!

While the main part of town was pretty much the same as when I was last here (except for the bulging crowds on the narrow sidewalks), the gold rush of money into town had fueled many new houses and apartments on the edges of town.

On my last visit, I was struck by the number of large 19th Century sailing vessels that lay stranded in the shallow bay, preserved by the cold air and water. Some with hulls of wood and some of iron, many with masts and rigging still intact, it was a veritable maritime museum. The wood ships that were too far gone had been converted into warehouses along the town’s shoreline.

Now most were gone, either rotted or refloated and taken to maritime museums in Britain and Maine, with the notable exception of the Lady Elizabeth at the far end of the bay. This large, three-masted schooner, some 250-300 feet in length was beached in a shallow inlet. She had suffered damage in rounding the Horn and limped into Port Stanley. Locals informed the crew that they didn’t have the resources to fix her, so she suffered the usual fate of end-of-the-line ships in Stanley — she became a warehouse. But in the 1930s a storm blew her to her current location.

A group of us took a very long walk along the far shore of the harbor, past a colony of nesting burrows of Magellanic penguins and pinnacles with nesting black-crowned night herons. We also skirted a gorgeous white-sand beach replete with warning signs about mines. It seemed that the Argentines thought this would be a great beach for the Brits to mount one of their assaults from the sea,

After lunch and a pint at the old Globe Pub on the waterfront, we wandered town a bit more and headed back to the ship. We weighed anchor around 5PM, cruised past the mega-ship in the outer harbor and into the heaving swell of the open ocean, bound for South Georgia Island, the whaling capital of the universe only 50 years ago, some two days and nights away.

As I write this, the waves are booming and crashing over the bow of our “tiny” 300-foot ship, while the 1500-foot long megaship can be seen in the late light on the northwestern horizon, headed back for the South American mainland.

We’re headed southeast, for more adventurous spots.

No need to whine about modern long-distance air travel. If you’ve done it recently, you know the routine. Survival is the key.

Fifteen hours of flying put us in Buenos Aires Argentina around 9 AM local time. We met up with several of our fellow shipmates and headed off for a short tour of the city and lunch at a local restaurant.

IWA’s Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica voyage includes a couple of days in Buenos Aires, one of South America’s gems that is more European in flavor than almost anything else. It was established in the early 1500s and reflects that old world heritage.

Buenos Aires is the birthplace of the tango and the city doesn’t let you overlook that. Tango shows are everywhere, including at outdoor cafes (above) in the old La boca neighborhood, established by Italian immigrants years ago.

Most Antarctic trips these days begin in the far southern city of Ushuaia at the tip of South America in the archipelago called Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire), so-named by Magellan for the fires along the shore lit by the indigenous people. After another flight of several hours, we arrived in this growing little outpost of 2500 inhabitants.

The Clelia II was docked at the city pier along with her sister ship, the Corinthian II, which was also loading for her voyage down the Antarctic Peninsula. Around 8:30 PM we cast off and headed east through the Beagle Channel, a fiery sunset bathing the rugged peaks above Ushuaia. A fierce west wind had picked up, a reminder of the harsh weather in this remote outpost.