DSLRUsers.com

Hi,

My name is Jodi and I just joined the forum. Got my first DSLR, a Canon 350D with Tamron 28-300mm and Tamron 11-18mm lenses just before I left to come to Macquarie Island in March last year.

Have had endless amounts of fun trying to learn the art of photography in a place that I think is a wildlife and landscape photographic heaven.

Will be leaving this little Island in a few of weeks and plan on doing a camera and lens upgrade on return, as I have thoroughly enjoyed taking the photos I have down here.

A friend suggested this forum to me when I was asking advice on new Camera gear.

Looking forward to a couple of months off, visiting some spots in Aus to practice and improve my photography skills on return before heading south to the Antarctic later in the year. Hence the camera and lens upgrade on return.

Thanks for some of the great advice offered on this forum by other users.

Hi Jodi,

Welcome to the forum. Macquarie Island and soon Antarctica, wow. I thought Hobart was as far south as our membership went. I reckon you must have heaps of excellent shots from your stay on Macquarie for a year. I'm really looking forward to seeing some.

I'm not a canon person myself so can't offer any advice except to change to Nikon but I'm sure some of the canon people from around here can help.

Cheers
John

Jodi, it’s really nice to have you join us on a photographic adventure through the internet. Would love to see some pics of the island and in due course, Antarctica

Hi Joey, good place to start to gain valuable information.

I started with a Canon 350D and a Tamron 18-200mm just over a year ago and I have not looked back.

Great camera and set up you have, I just hope you don't have lens lust like I did....

Thanks for the replies.

Will post some pics when I get them on a web page to link to. I have what I think are some great pics from my time here. (Others may think differently) But I am still learning and have a whole lot more to learn.

Still tend to depend too much on the automatic functions of the camera. Hope to improve on that with more practice and time to play.

I have created a photobook with the momento software for myself of my trip down here. Feel free to view it. The pictures are really small, but will give some idea of pics until I can get some onto a web page to link.

http://www.momento.com.au/preview.asp?b=9897-4000-2564

Will look forward to some ideas on improving my pictures when I get hang of how to do things on this site a bit more.

Trieu wrote:I started with a Canon 350D and a Tamron 18-200mm just over a year ago and I have not looked back.

Great camera and set up you have, I just hope you don't have lens lust like I did....

Yep - too late have lens lust, planning on getting a couple of Canon L series lenses on return, with the plan of hopefully getting a full frame DSLR (Canon 5D) before I head south. I have been told it is a good idea to get the best you can possibly afford before heading south as its not like you can just pop into the shops and get more half way through your year.

Just lucky down here that I can't spend any money, so will have some to buy new toys when I get back

You also can't easily fix it if you stuff it up - http://luminous-landscape.com/essays/aa-07-worked.shtml is a bit of a cautionary tale. My take is that weatherproofing only works if you don't open the camera up (apparently some people need to be told this).

I assume you're going down next summer, so it will mostly be sunny and fine down there (no, really, it will be sunny and fine... minus 40 but sunny and fine "and todays burn time is ... 25 seconds" ). Main thing I've heard is to be really, really careful when you bring stuff inside. The outside is dry, so getting stuff wet is unlikely. But bringing it into the nice warm, wet air means covering it in condensation. So bag it outside, wait until it has warmed up before you open the bag. You may even want a PoS for the "inside the tent" photos if you go camping, just to reduce the amount of hassle. And as a backup.

I would include both decent CP filters and a set of NDs, and duplicate both as they're easy to break and hard to fix. Even Mcmurdo doesn't stock 82mm filters A small tripod, and a tripod clamp (just ask before you clamp it onto things, y'all.

I'd also have lots of batteries, and not buy the battery grip just to reduce the vulnerable area of the camera. But you will be changing batteries outside I expect, and probably memory cards (but FFS, buy the biggest cards you can afford to reduce the number of times you're trying to do that with big bulky gloves on)

Have fun, and try not to die. Say hi to Ken Wilson for me if you see him down there (he's an MD and a hippy).

Joey, I went L glass and now I can't go back

And the bad thing about that is that I probaly don't even need L glass yet.

No reported Nikon failures.. that said much smaller sample lenght.. but I'd be damn cheesed off it my camera be it backup or main died on the first day.

moz wrote:
You may even want a PoS for the "inside the tent" photos if you go camping, just to reduce the amount of hassle. And as a backup.

Yep - have an Olympus 720SW for that here at Macca which should do the trick. Nice and small and fits in my pocket easily.

Climate here at Macca is very similar to Sth Georgia, but have managed to keep my Canon 350D going all year. It survived long hikes through the snow in the top of my pack and never failed. I suppose I have the advantage of time, a whole year here you can go out when the weather is a bit more desirable. Have a year down on the ice as well and will have the 350D as my backup camera, hopefully a 5D as my main camera. I found the 350D was pretty good to operate with reasonable sized gloves on, does anyone know if the 5D is similar?

moz wrote:I would include both decent CP filters and a set of NDs, and duplicate both as they're easy to break and hard to fix. Even Mcmurdo doesn't stock 82mm filters A small tripod, and a tripod clamp (just ask before you clamp it onto things, y'all.

Good advice, hadn't thought of that, have been told to have a tripod you can hook something on to weigh down, but the clamp sounds like a great idea, another things to add to my shopping list.

Because travel on the ice is mostly done via quad bike for us, a larger sturdy tripod has been advised by previous expeditioners.

moz wrote:
(but FFS, buy the biggest cards you can afford to reduce the number of times you're trying to do that with big bulky gloves on)

Thanks - again hadn't thought of that one, I was more thinking of the opinion that 2 x 2GB cards would be better than 1x4GB card due to the fact if a card fails you are not left with no card at all. But also added to the shopping list.

Thanks heaps for the advice, will be good to get back to Australia and start putting it all together.

JoeyW wrote:(maybe) 2 x 2GB cards would be better than 1x4GB card due to the fact if a card fails you are not left with no card at all.

In that case only take 1 set of ND filters, and buy yourself a second 4GB CF card. Or even just get 2 2-stop filters and leave it at that, so you can afford more storage. My initial assumption was that you'd be tossing up 4x8GB vs 2x16GB cards or something along those lines. Compared to the cost of a 5D that sort of storage is quite reasonable, and it means you're not left hoping that your PHD can survive hours and hours of bumping over the ice. It probably will. Probably.

If you haven't already sorted it out, borrow some of the gloves+mittens you'll be using and practice using the camera while wearing them. You may find that the other reason to upgrade from the 350D is that you can't use it with mittens on. I couldn't when I just tried. Shutter is fine, the 4-way controller buttons you use to operate the menu are just a waste of time.

moz wrote:In that case only take 1 set of ND filters, and buy yourself a second 4GB CF card. Or even just get 2 2-stop filters and leave it at that, so you can afford more storage. My initial assumption was that you'd be tossing up 4x8GB vs 2x16GB cards or something along those lines.

Thanks Moz - the 2x2GB was just an example, but I probably wasn't reckoning on needing quite as much memory as you mentioned. But thinking of it I have 4GB of memory here at the moment for my 350D and could easily do with double that. Tend to run out of memory very quickly.

4x8GB sounds like a much better idea. While cost is some issue, I plan to make myself afford what I need within reason. I'd rather get what I need, than not and get down there and wish I had. It is not that often that I will have the opportunity to spend a year in Antarctica.

When I came to Macca I got the best I could afford at the time, (also not knowing what I know now) and plan to do the same for Antarctica.

Have a fair bit of shopping to do when I get back. The camera's etc have changed significantly since I left last year and it will be good to get into a few shops and have a look at the new stuff available.

Welcome Joey. I thought Kempsey was a long way south!! Looking forward to seeing some images from way down south.

I have just invested in some Canon gear, the 70-200 F4 L lens is not a lens, it's a piece of art in itself. The images under low light are sensational, and it's quite affordable.

Cheers,

Ozi.

Hi Jodi,

Welcome to the forums Hope you are enjoying your time here

Hi,

Got a couple of images from Macquarie Island. Taken with a Canon 350D.

The Giant Petrel and King penguin were using a Tamron 28-300mm and the Island Photo is using the Tamron 11-18mm

Still learning on the photography front so happy to take any suggestions on improvements. I don't have photoshop down here at the moment, so have done no post processing.







Have so many images taken in a whole year here, it is hard to pick a couple when I am still really learning what a good image really entails. Looking forward to seeing them in print when I get back.

Those are nice. The first one does look like a snapshot but somehow it works despite the lack of obvious composition.

With that last one, I find the slight out of focus on the background birds distracting. So if you could have used a wider aperture you'd get better blurring/softness on the background birds so the front one would stand out more. Or alternatively, stop down a little so that they're all sharp.

Thanks Moz - good to get some other opinions and feedback.

I think I really have to work on aperture and shutter speeds, using different combinations and practice using different settings to find out what works and what doesn't in different situations.

I find reading up to be helpful, so I know the theory behind what I'm trying to do. That works with the technical side, anyway. The arty bits... not so much.

You should probably start posting stuff to the C&C forum, rather than here in Canon-specific land. I could definitely stand looking at photos of penguins and other near-antarctic stuff in larger quantities.