What’s Up?
It was 9:02am local time on Friday, January 9, 2015 when I began this blog post. After 25 days at sea on what turned out (as expected) to be a great Cheesemans’ Southern Oceans expedition, I am in an internet cafe in Ushuaia, Argentina. I fly this afternoon to Buenos Aires and then grab a red eye flight to Atlanta. From there it will be on to Orlando. I am scheduled to arrive at MCO at 9:21am on Saturday morning where I am hoping that my older daughter Jennifer will pick me up.
Thanks to those who continued to visit the blog during my extended absence. There will be a slew of great new images and lessons coming soon. Sunday will be just my fourth full day at home since 12 NOV. I can’t wait to get back into the pool.
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This image was created on a zodiac cruise at Danco Harbor on the afternoon of Monday, January 5, 2015 with the hand held Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, the Canon Extender EF 1.4X III (at 280mm), and the Canon EOS 7D Mark II. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +2 stops off the ice: 1/4000 sec. at f/4 in Manual mode. Central sensor/AI Servo (Single Point-Manually Selected) Rear Focus AF on bird’s back (as originally framed) was active at the moment of exposure. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Click on the image to see a larger version. Your browser does not support iFrame. |
Yes, I Said Flying Penguin!
After a nice hike up a pretty good snow-covered hill I spend an hour photographing several quite scenic Gentoo Penguin colonies. After I made my way back to the landing I began hearing fantastical tales of a huge feeding/bathing aggregation of Gentoos with dozens of birds jumping in and out of the water. I hustled to get on a Zodiac with only 4 other photographers.
Note that the set-up that I used to create the image above gave me an equivalent focal length of 448mm (280mm X 1.6). The image that opened this blog post is about a 20% crop. The action was so frantic that just before I created this image I remember thinking that with the severe lactic acid pain in both shoulder blades I could not possibly keep holding the lens up to photograph. Fortunately I persisted. As I have said here often my persistence often plays a huge part of any success that I might enjoy.
It turned out to be the last of the many incredible and memorable experiences of the trip as we were blown out of landing at the beyond-spectacular Bailey head the next morning. Can you say “Force 11 Gale (with winds in excess of 60 knots)”? As a nice tradeoff, the feared Drake Passage was pretty much a lake cruise; we enjoyed calm seas and some good flight photography from the stern of the Ortelius on DAY 1 of our crossing.
This image was created with the hand held Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM lens (at 23mm) and the Canon EOS 7D Mark II . ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2 1/3 stops off the white sky: 1/400 sec at f/9. Your browser does not support iFrame. |
The 7D II Wide Angle Lens
The image above gives you just a taste of the wondrous penguin events of 5 January. All set in an incredibly beautiful Antarctic landscape.
The Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS turned out to be the prefect running mate for the 7D II with its 1.6X crop factor. I was often way too tight with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II. The math for the 16-35 works out to 25.6 to 56mm of coverage. For the image above, it was just wide enough. I will be publishing lots more wide angle images created with the 7D II/16-35mm IS combo in the near future. If you were inspired to add this lens to your gear bag because of what you read here on the blog please remember to make your purchase with one of our B&H affiliate links. And please remember: web orders only/no phone orders.
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Typos
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No trouble being able to view a larger image on your blog. That is one hell of a no.1 image!!!!
Welcome back.
Thanks Melvin. Peter Kes fixed the problem early this morning while we Skyped Atlanta to Switzerland.
Welcome back Artie I’m looking forward to your tales of derring do and your shots. I’m hoping in won’t be too long a wait for your 7Dii manual (yes I was tempted)
Thanks Gordon. I did make some progress on the 7D II Guide. More news soon. artie
Looking forward to your shots and tales from the trip. Welcome back!
Hay Art, Many tanks. artie
Safe travels home. Looking forward to your photos, a much anticipated respite from all the crap going on around the world.
Ken
🙂 Don;t let it get you down. After a stop at Publix I should be home before noon on SAT (with one lost bag).
artie
Welcome back Artie. I can’t wait to see more of what you created on this trip! I also could not see a larger version of the photos in this post.
Thanks. The problem has been fixed. artie
Welcome back! Love them both but that first one-wow! When I click on the images I can’t see the larger version. Not sure if it is on my end or yours??
Many thanks and welcome home to you. Our end/problem solved. a
Welcome back. Missed my daily read of your blog. Can’t wait to see more of your spectacular shots and hear how you accomplished them.
🙂 Many tanks. Lots more good stuff coming.
artie
Your penguin image is outstanding! Thanks very much for posting it. I am glad your trip was so good. Sorry about the shoulder pain. Best wishes.
Thanks. Shoulder is doing great. artie