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Moderators note:
This thread has been split out of another thread (HERE) so the discussion on travelling with images is separate from any image critique. So this makes sense here in isolation, the comments below relate to the fact Stubbsy (that's me ) took 13,000 images on his 4 week trip to Antarctica and South America.

Hmmm. 13,000 images. That's a useful figure to conjure with.

My NEFs seem to range from about 10MB to 17MB; say at 14MB that makes 180GB. We're away for double the time so perhaps 360GB which will be more than the spare space on my laptop. Perhaps I'll shoot more, worst case perhaps 40,000 images or 560GB which is bigger than my laptop hard drive and that's without post-processing.

So I'll probably need to cull at least 75% of images on the laptop as I go to allow space for when I have time to process. And I'll need more backup capacity than I was expecting, such as 2x 1TB portable disks.

Murray Foote wrote: And I'll need more backup capacity than I was expecting, such as 2x 1TB portable disks.

I've been eyeing off these ones:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go. Available in Firewire, USB2 & USB3.
But I did buy a couple of these from HT as the price seemed good. Last years model I suspect. I also bought neoprene cases for them. Still given the volume of storage you calculated, they may be underspecced.

Murray Foote wrote:Hmmm. 13,000 images. That's a useful figure to conjure with.

My NEFs seem to range from about 10MB to 17MB; say at 14MB that makes 180GB. We're away for double the time so perhaps 360GB which will be more than the spare space on my laptop. Perhaps I'll shoot more, worst case perhaps 40,000 images or 560GB which is bigger than my laptop hard drive and that's without post-processing.

So I'll probably need to cull at least 75% of images on the laptop as I go to allow space for when I have time to process. And I'll need more backup capacity than I was expecting, such as 2x 1TB portable disks.

Murray - I shoot more, and bar probably 3 occasions where I went out and Peter chose not too (he like's his sleep in) we visited ALL the same places as we were travelling together, I did however shoot with 2 bodies more frequently then Peter. I'm still in the culling process but my overall shutter count over 3 cameras was 39,000 + which over my D700, D200 and G9 resulted in 480 gig of images and 8 Gig of video footage.
If u can avoid using USB2 it would be a good idea, as Lightroom and my PC didn't like having my image archive on USB2, so Mr Darcy's suggested HDs could be a good option.

To add to Craig's comments:

I had 2 x 500Gb HDs in my laptop and my primary image store and Lightroom catalogs resided there. I also backed up my full image set to a 1Tb USB2 connected drive and the culled set to a second identical drive as I completed each days culling. My lappy is new (I5 430 processor) and image import and preview generation was fast as you'd expect. Craig's lappy lacked HD space for the images and LR catalog and was incredibly slower. I'd say my image import took half the time Craig's did using his USB 2 drive for storage. My LR 1:1 preview generation was very quick - I had previews to work with pretty much straight after import. In Craig's case he had to leave his lappy running 24/7 to get previews rendered and never really caught up. This hampered his culling process noticably and I know was a major frustration for him.

Bottom line: for travel with lots of pics your image store and LR catalog need to reside on a HD with a fast data pipe. USB 2 won't cut it except for backup.

When I have a chance (probably in the New Year) I'll write up a trip journal post, but first I have to get more images processed and make chocolates, cake and relish for Christmas presents.

... and for the nerds amongst us here is a statistical breakdown of the images I took (the 14-24, 24-70 and 90 lenses were borrowed from Craig on 2 occasions when I didn't have my similar lens with me otherwise I'd have used my equivalent lenses):

stubbsy wrote: My LR 1:1 preview generation was very quick - I had previews to work with pretty much straight after import. In Craig's case he had to leave his lappy running 24/7 to get previews rendered and never really caught up. This hampered his culling process noticably and I know was a major frustration for him.

I'm still generating previews so my advice, learn from my mistake and don't do it like this when you go. Also sometimes Peter's Import was easily 4 times as fast as mine thanks to USB2 and the fact, lightroom was sucking it off one USB device onto another USB device.

Murray Foote wrote:And I'll need more backup capacity than I was expecting, such as 2x 1TB portable disks.

2TB external drives are now quite inexpensive. Why not grab a couple of those, and use them as your primary image storage.

gstark wrote:

Murray Foote wrote:And I'll need more backup capacity than I was expecting, such as 2x 1TB portable disks.

2TB external drives are now quite inexpensive. Why not grab a couple of those, and use them as your primary image storage.

The issue that Craig & Peter highlight with that is the speed of transfering from one USB2 device to another USB2 device via the computer.
It is probably not an issue with USB3 and possibly not with Firewire 800, but the latter limits you to a Macbook Pro, and I have yet to see the former built into a notebook.

This has me concerned about my storage options for my trip - although it probably can't be any worse than I have now. My images and Lightroom catalog are on an external USB2 drive. Maybe I need to think about using the internal drive on the Mac or even get something like this or even this although I'm not sure if 7200 over 5400rpm makes much difference when the pipe is slow.

I just checked out my laptop. It is a Sony with a 1.6GHz Intel i7-720QM Quad-Core CPU and 6GB RAM and it is about 9 months old. I have used it for preliminary processing at Blues Festivals and the speed is satisfactory.

It has Firewire 400 as well as USB 2.0 but Firewire 400's of little use. However it does have one port which is dual eSATA/ USB 2.0 and eSATA is potentially 5x faster than USB 2.0. From what I can see, the choice for portable drives is between Oyen Digital which has a 750GB 7200rpm drive or a 1TG 5400rpm drive and Seagate which has 1TG and 1.5TG 5400rpm drives.

I currently have 420GB free on the laptop HDD if I delete (surplus) images so even if I load a bit more software I should have about 350MB available for image storage. My initial thought is to go for two 750GB 7200rpm drives and cull images according to quotas by day and region where necessary.

Peter

Thanks very much for those statistics. They are very interesting and useful.

When I am taking photographs during a 12-hr day at a Blues Festival, I wouldn't take more than 500 or 600 images at most in a day. I imagine that something similar would apply for landscape and wildlife (ie for individually taken images). Would your daily figures for more than that amount probably be due to HDR, panoramas and focus stacking?

Murray Foote wrote: and Seagate which has 1TG and 1.5TG 5400rpm drives.

Seagate have the FreeAgent range of drives, up to 3TB capacity, and with an eSata interface. Also available with Firewire, USB 2 or USB 3. eSata will give you bus speeds, and should look to the system as if they're an internal drive.

Alternatively, you can buy a small eSata external adapter for about $30, and that will let you use a raw internal HDD, which is very inexpensive. Or for about the same investment, there are external docks that will let you sit your external drive in it, connect via eSata or USB, and also give you a card reader.

Wow this is about as comprehensive a thread jacking as I've seen in a long time. Still not surprising given that two of us are doing a very similar trip in a few months, and Andrew has similar concerns with his trip.
Still, Gary, it might be an idea to move this discussion to its own thread. If you do, can you auto subscribe me, and probably the other participants.

Now back to the thread jacking.
Murray, the firewire400 in your Sony almost certainly isn't, despite Sony's claims. I had a HP with similar. It is actually Sony's video camera adapter which is based on Firewire, but leaves out the power connectors. Fine for their cameras which have their own power supply, but not for anything that assumes a full firewire implementation. Which is almost everything else.

Andrew, This issue is pushing me towards the MacbookPro15 which has a firewire800 port. As far as I know, none of the portable macs has an eSata port. Another thought might be NAS drives on an ethernet hub, but this is beginning to sound less than portable. None of the portable Macs has a USB3 implementation, though it can be added as an option to the 17"MacbookPro. But I don't fancy lugging one of those around South America, let alone paying for it.

Oh and Murray, 500 photos a day x 60 days = 30,000 photos!

Mr Darcy wrote:Andrew, This issue is pushing me towards the MacbookPro15 which has a firewire800 port.

The 13" MacBookPro has FW800, too. I checked after it was raised in this thread.

I also found this, which I might buy (or even 2) when I get my memory upgrade. I already have SATA drives to put in it.

Murray might find this of value.

This is always interesting to look at after a trip as it should really help cull equipment lists down to the real essentials.
Based on your usage then your could have just about gotten away with taking a 24-70 and 70-200 and the fisheye for the architecture. So you think you got value from the 500mm siggie?

Michael.

stubbsy wrote:... and for the nerds amongst us here is a statistical breakdown of the images I took (the 14-24, 24-70 and 90 lenses were borrowed from Craig on 2 occasions when I didn't have my similar lens with me otherwise I'd have used my equivalent lenses):

Mr Darcy wrote:Oh and Murray, 500 photos a day x 60 days = 30,000 photos!

A little bit less than that. You'll notice from Peter's stats that there were no images in travel days which in our context is not hire car travel days (though in some cases these might be less) but full-day air travel and open sea travel. I estimate the equivalent of 47 days which is a mere 23,5000 photos (or 330GB NEF for me). I would think I might shoot at that rate for wildlife but less for landscape, though I may be wrong. The unknowable is how much I may shoot for HDR, panorama and focus bracketing (or all three combined). So maybe my worst-case estimate of 40,000 images is realistic. On the other hand, Craig shot that many in half the days.

Looking at it the other way round, how many images do we want to end up with? If some one came round after the trip and wanted to see all the images I took, I could knock up a quick slide show at 5 seconds per image but if 40,000 images, it would take over 2 days to show, day and night, even with 2 kilos of caffeine. So there must be a lot to be said for culling as we go, when we can or on travel days. After all, if I were taking only a 6x17 camera, I might take perhaps 250 rolls of film and get just 1,000 images for the trip.

Greg,

Mr Darcy wrote::ot: Wow this is about as comprehensive a thread jacking as I've seen in a long time. Still not surprising given that two of us are doing a very similar trip in a few months, and Andrew has similar concerns with his trip.
Still, Gary, it might be an idea to move this discussion to its own thread. If you do, can you auto subscribe me, and probably the other participants.

Good suggestion. It probably won't be until tomorrow evening for me; if one of the other mods beats me to it, then fine.

Murray,

Murray Foote wrote: at it the other way round, how many images do we want to end up with?

I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but surely, looking at a nominal target of x photos by the end of the trip is not the way to go? Just let it happen.

FWIW, the Seagate drive that I have is a FreeAgent GoFlex. It has a removable connector block, and with replaceable adapters supports USB2, USB3, FireWire, Firewire 800, and eSata. And it's neat and compact.

Obviously, your computer needs to support the chosen communication method.

Another option that I've not seen canvassed here as yet is that of storing to optical media. Your laptops should have at minimum a DVD burner built in, so why not grab a pack of blank disks, and burn your images to DVD?

gstark wrote:

Murray Foote wrote: at it the other way round, how many images do we want to end up with?

I'm not sure if you meant it that way, but surely, looking at a nominal target of x photos by the end of the trip is not the way to go? Just let it happen.

FWIW, the Seagate drive that I have is a FreeAgent GoFlex. It has a removable connector block, and with replaceable adapters supports USB2, USB3, FireWire, Firewire 800, and eSata. And it's neat and compact.

Obviously, your computer needs to support the chosen communication method.

Another option that I've not seen canvassed here as yet is that of storing to optical media. Your laptops should have at minimum a DVD burner built in, so why not grab a pack of blank disks, and burn your images to DVD?

Hi Gary

There's a trade-off here between speed and capacity. My inclination is to go for two 750GB 7200prm disks rather than say two 1.5TB 5400rpm disks because processing time will be short when we are travelling and I want to use it efficiently. (The 2GB and 3GB FreeAgent drives you mentioned earlier are destop drives and much larger). I'm probably only going to end up with a couple of hundred images at the most that I'm ever going to show anyone so the more clearly surplus ones I can dispatch the better.

The Freeagent GoFlex are one of the two I was initially considering (link in a thread above). Either Oyen or Seagate allow eSATA connections to a dual eSATA/USB2 port without additional power input. I may well also replace my 500GB laptop hard drive with a 750GB one (still 7200rpm). I'm not attracted to the DVD option.

gstark wrote:

Mr Darcy wrote::ot: Wow this is about as comprehensive a thread jacking as I've seen in a long time. Still not surprising given that two of us are doing a very similar trip in a few months, and Andrew has similar concerns with his trip.
Still, Gary, it might be an idea to move this discussion to its own thread. If you do, can you auto subscribe me, and probably the other participants.

Good suggestion. It probably won't be until tomorrow evening for me; if one of the other mods beats me to it, then fine.

Now done. I've split the threads as indicated at the very top of this (new) thread

Murray Foote wrote:The unknowable is how much I may shoot for HDR, panorama and focus bracketing (or all three combined). So maybe my worst-case estimate of 40,000 images is realistic. On the other hand, Craig shot that many in half the days.

Murray I can add some data here.

• For me a big day normally is 700 before culling. I had a number of days with over 1,200 before culling.
• One reason for the different images numbers between Craig and myself is that Craig did a lot more bracketing than I did.
• That said I also took a large number of bracketed landscape shots - something I rarely do. These were for both HDR purposes and to give me more latitude later choosing exposures when the scene was rapidly changing (eg moving past icebergs).
• I took a fair number of multi image panos (say 12 -20 at a go) and that, too, is something I tend to do rarely.
• The other thing to bear in mind is these can be long shooting days. On our longest day (16/11) I took my first shot at 4:30am (on a zodiac outing) and the last shot at 7:30pm (sunset from the boat). 22/11 was another long day (first image 7 am and last at 9pm).
• Finally sometimes I just took machine gun shots to nail an image or images such as a calving chunk of ice from a glacier or this case where I have 88 images taken over a 33 second period as a penguin wandered around an iceberg for us. The two images below are at either end of the sequence and are noticeably different. I think I have 4 strong images from that group (neither of which are these 2 BTW)

Thanks for that Peter. Some very useful information which will help us be better prepared. The penguins on the iceberg opportunities look intriguing, too.

Our days won't be quite as long - about 12 hours - but I want to make the most of the fading light so maybe that won't make much difference.

I now expect to have a 750GB hard drive and two 750GB backup drives. One of the backup drives will be for duplicate imports, the other for incremental backups (from the drive software) and image backups from Arconis or it could be Windows 7). I think the constraint will be space for duplicate imports. Assuming I leave 10% free on the drive, that gives space for about 48,000 images or over 1,000 per day. Probably that will be no problem and otherwise, I'll just have to make it work.

Mj wrote:This is always interesting to look at after a trip as it should really help cull equipment lists down to the real essentials.
Based on your usage then your could have just about gotten away with taking a 24-70 and 70-200 and the fisheye for the architecture. So you think you got value from the 500mm siggie?

Michael.

stubbsy wrote:... and for the nerds amongst us here is a statistical breakdown of the images I took (the 14-24, 24-70 and 90 lenses were borrowed from Craig on 2 occasions when I didn't have my similar lens with me otherwise I'd have used my equivalent lenses):

Michael

You've got to bear in mind that he is using both full-frame and reduced sensor bodies, so it's not clear from the lens stats what the effective focal length of the usage is. Also, the 14-24, 24-70 and 90 were borrowed from Craig and therefore not indicative of usage. It's interesting that the D700 had 80% of usage. I wonder whether that was unintended or the D300 was primarily a backup camera.

Peter

One thing I've wondered is if there's any vibration problem using a very long lens with VR on a monopod from the deck of the ship. If anyone was trying that, that is. I've thought maybe I could make an extra rubber shoe to dampen engine vibration if that might help.

Thanks for the split Peter, and for the extra info.

Murray Foote wrote:I'm probably only going to end up with a couple of hundred images at the most that I'm ever going to show anyone so the more clearly surplus ones I can dispatch the better.

The issue I see here is that I am reluctant to delete photos while travelling. Looking at a small monitor with limited tools, it is quite easy to dismiss an image as rubbish, then later realise there was potential to be released once I see the image on the big monitor at home. Some of my favourite photos fall into this category.
Of course there will always be those shots of the inside of the lens cap , but hopefully I will manage to limit those ones.

Peter has inspired me so I'll be doing some of my own stats up today if I get time.

Mr Darcy wrote:The issue I see here is that I am reluctant to delete photos while travelling. Looking at a small monitor with limited tools, it is quite easy to dismiss an image as rubbish, then later realise there was potential to be released once I see the image on the big monitor at home. Some of my favourite photos fall into this category.

I'm the same way, that's why I marked things for deletion but I haven't actually deleted any of my shots yet, I did delete a few very obvious screw ups in camera but I don't do it very often.

Murray Foote wrote:One thing I've wondered is if there's any vibration problem using a very long lens with VR on a monopod from the deck of the ship. If anyone was trying that, that is. I've thought maybe I could make an extra rubber shoe to dampen engine vibration if that might help.

I number of us had monopods, those that used them on the ship, had them attached to themselves in makeshift gymbals (like a jacket pocket, or lens case strapped to your belt) this way your legs dampened the vibrations but you still had some long lens support. This wasn't an option on the zodiacs so you were forced to push your ISO up to keep a faster then expected shutter speed to increase your keeper rate.

Stats are here Click Below.

Alpha_7 wrote:Peter has inspired me so I'll be doing some of my own stats up today if I get time.

Mr Darcy wrote:The issue I see here is that I am reluctant to delete photos while travelling. Looking at a small monitor with limited tools, it is quite easy to dismiss an image as rubbish, then later realise there was potential to be released once I see the image on the big monitor at home. Some of my favourite photos fall into this category.

I'm the same way, that's why I marked things for deletion but I haven't actually deleted any of my shots yet, I did delete a few very obvious screw ups in camera but I don't do it very often.

That's why I'm taking a 17 inch Sony laptop with Lightroom, Photoshop CS5, NeatImage, PKSharpener, Photomatix and whatever else I get in the meanwhile. It has an i7 chip, 6MB RAM, an aRGB gamut and will be profiled just before the trip. I've used it for in situ pruning and optimisation before at Blues Festivals.

Alpha_7 wrote:

Murray Foote wrote:One thing I've wondered is if there's any vibration problem using a very long lens with VR on a monopod from the deck of the ship. If anyone was trying that, that is. I've thought maybe I could make an extra rubber shoe to dampen engine vibration if that might help.

I number of us had monopods, those that used them on the ship, had them attached to themselves in makeshift gymbals (like a jacket pocket, or lens case strapped to your belt) this way your legs dampened the vibrations but you still had some long lens support. This wasn't an option on the zodiacs so you were forced to push your ISO up to keep a faster then expected shutter speed to increase your keeper rate.

That's very useful. I have been testing my 300mm for sharpness with various support measures (though inside and not in a ferocious wind - but hard to simulate that). I'll have to try some belt-attached lens cases. I also have an old belt-mounted monopod and I will test that but I doubt it's suitable because it won't have been intended for such a heavy lens.

Alpha_7 wrote:Stats are here Click Below.

Very interesting. I take it you were most impressed with the Lemaire Channel and the cruise of the Antarctic Peninsula generally. Your usage of the D200 and D700 was much more even than Peter. Did you mainly use the D200 as a telephoto camera?

Very little use of the 18-200mm and the 90 macro. Where did you mainly find macro shots? My intended macro option is a Leica Elpro 3 achromat on a 180mm f2.8 or a 110mm f2. It works even though a 55mm filter fully covering a 72mm lens.

Also, very little usage of the G9.

Craig,
Did you use the teleconverter much? Or did you just grab Peter's Siggie when you needed the extra reach? Or was 200mm enough?

There's another thought - card storage.

Cruising of the Antarctic Peninsula won't have been a problem because you can go back to the cabin and download at any time. South Georgia won't have been a problem because there will have been several separate expeditions on a day. But 2,500 images on 4th November, Glacier cruise on Lago Argentina will have been all in one hit. For me that would have been 35GB. I'm intending to take 2x16GB, 1x8GB and 2x4GB = 48GB so I should be OK there.

Hey, at least you guys can change cards. When I'm on a dive I'm stuck with the card in the camera. Fortunately, the dive is limited in time by the amount of air in the tank and/or bottom times to avoid decompression stops.

Mr Darcy wrote:Did you use the teleconverter much? Or did you just grab Peter's Siggie when you needed the extra reach? Or was 200mm enough?

Murray Foote wrote:Did you mainly use the D200 as a telephoto camera?

Peter and my shooting styles were quite different - I went nearly everywhere with 2 bodies, and almost always had the 70-200 on the D200 for extra reach as Murray suggested. I also used the teleconvertor a lot (but had a few technical issues with my lens mount being loose, so I had some dark frames to contend with).
I used Peter's Siggie on about 3 occasions twice on the boat, and once when landing on Prion Island where we visited the Nesting Wandering Albatross. We didn't have many whales which is what we both thought we'd use the 150-500 for hence is lower then expected usage.

Murray Foote wrote:Very little use of the 18-200mm and the 90 macro. Where did you mainly find macro shots? My intended macro option is a Leica Elpro 3 achromat on a 180mm f2.8 or a 110mm f2.

The 18-200 always in my mind going to be just my backup lens, however I found two occasions to take it out and use it as a primary lens. On our first walk around BA, we were being 'cautious' about how much gear we carried or showed around, so I used my Lowepro Passport, D200 +18-200 and the 14-24 for the entire walk around. The other occasion was landing at Deception Island, the wind was REALLY blowing, and there was snow coming in sideways. So I felt lens changes weren't going to happen, and if the weather killed my 18-200 I wouldn't care as much, so put a optech cover on it, and went out into the weather.

Macro wise - I shoudl with my macro on 2/3 days in Chile and 1 in Iguazu, a few other times I left it out of my bag to free up room or weight and regretted it, but overall macro wasn't a big thing for me.

Murray Foote wrote:Also, very little usage of the G9.

The G9 was my zodiac all weather camera, it was also my only video recording device so I videoed probably about 8 gig of clips, and now in hindsight would of recorded more (having a baby tripod or gorilla pod would of helped in that respect, as I was making tripods out of rocks or ice so I could film and shoot at the same time in some locations.

Hope it's all helpful information for your trip.

Murray Foote wrote:There's another thought - card storage.

Cruising of the Antarctic Peninsula won't have been a problem because you can go back to the cabin and download at any time. South Georgia won't have been a problem because there will have been several separate expeditions on a day. But 2,500 images on 4th November, Glacier cruise on Lago Argentina will have been all in one hit. For me that would have been 35GB. I'm intending to take 2x16GB, 1x8GB and 2x4GB = 48GB so I should be OK there.

I took 2 x 16gb, 2 x 8gb, 4 x 4gb the bigger the card got the faster it was and I noticed when it came to big days, downloading the old 4 gig cards took ages! I know a few people that were shooting 32 gig cards, and that would last you a day everytime. 5th of November which was glacier walk I shot 31.5GB, had bigger days on the boat, but as you said you can be downloading cards and shooting on your auxiliary stock.

Me again:

• I had much less D300 images than D700 ones solely because I only infrequently used 2 bodies at once. Both it and the D700 were quite serviceable, but when I took one body it was invariably the D700
• I had a 32gb card in the D700 and a 16gb in the D300. Apart from the Lago Argentina lake cruise day I never had to change cards. That day I used an 8Gb card in the D700 when the 32gb filled up. I still had another 8gb and 2 x 4gb in reserve, but never used them.
• I used the 1.7 TC a number of times on my 70-200 for extra reach when I didn't want to go all the way to 500mm
• The Sigma 150-500 had way less use than planned. My intent was to use it to shoot whales from the ship, but we saw bugger all whales. If there were such beasts I suspect I'd have a higher 150-500 count. I'm more than happy with the quality of images from the lens when used.
• I had a Dell Studio 17" lappy with i5 processor and 6gb RAM on board so was more than happy to permanently delete my crap images while travelling. That in turn means I had all but 3 days culling done by the time I got home.
• When culling I rough rated images being kept on a scale of 1 to 5. I also used colour coding as follows:
  red = start of pano or start of HDR, green = member of pano or HDR, green = defish required, blue=portfolio
  This corresponded to shortcut keys 6,7,8 and 9
• By choice I never both colour coded and rated an image since I had caps lock on and hitting any of the keys 1-9 moved me to the next image.
• A ranking of Portfolio was effectively a 6 star rating, but it had to be a stunner on first sight. I have 32 portfolio images. This will grow as I do my second pass and process images
• I think David Campbell on the trip had the idea to separately mark the "start" and "member of" for panos. This made working out the start and stop for later a breeze.

Thanks for all that useful information, Peter and Craig. Always good to be prepared as much as possible.

David Burren hasn't posted again on this Forum as yet but he's been posting on his blog including this post about panoramas and including Lightroom approaches:

I just thought of one more question, too. What airports required to weigh your carry-on luggage?

Murray Foote wrote:What airports required to weigh your carry-on luggage?

For me, I was only asked once in El Calafate to have my carry-on weighed. That was the second time I had been through the airport. The first time, they didn't weigh anything. Overall, I had 6 flights, 5 of those were checked in Argentina.

My camera bag was obviously over the carry on limit. The check-in attendant asked what was in the bag and when I showed her the camera gear, she said it was okay to take it on board and she didn't charge for overweight.

But of course, YMMV

André

Murray Foote wrote:What airports required to weigh your carry-on luggage?

I didn't get my carryon weighed anywhere, but at El Calafate our local guide was convinced it would be so Peter, David C and I all filled out Scott E Vest to pass through and in the end they didn't weigh our bags or us, but it was amazing how much gear we fitted into those vests.

Thanks for that, Andre and Craig

Alpha_7 wrote:

Murray Foote wrote:One thing I've wondered is if there's any vibration problem using a very long lens with VR on a monopod from the deck of the ship. If anyone was trying that, that is. I've thought maybe I could make an extra rubber shoe to dampen engine vibration if that might help.

I number of us had monopods, those that used them on the ship, had them attached to themselves in makeshift gymbals (like a jacket pocket, or lens case strapped to your belt) this way your legs dampened the vibrations but you still had some long lens support. This wasn't an option on the zodiacs so you were forced to push your ISO up to keep a faster then expected shutter speed to increase your keeper rate.

You can even get dedicated ones it seems. Manfrotto make one but this one looks better. Alternatively, my Lowepro Vertex 300AW came with a metal tripod leg holder that should do the trick if I can find it. A belt pack might make a platform too. Too much rolling around for the zodiac?

Murray Foote wrote:You can even get dedicated ones it seems. Manfrotto make one but this one looks better. Alternatively, my Lowepro Vertex 300AW came with a metal tripod leg holder that should do the trick if I can find it. A belt pack might make a platform too. Too much rolling around for the zodiac?

The 'zodies' do move around a lot, plus you have engine vibration and other people milling around so I didn't see anyone use a monpod while on the zodiacs. That said a couple of 200-400 users did use them regularly on the zodies (including André / Radar) sometimes when I was kneeling (common practice when safe is to have the front row when broadside to something to shoot) kneel down, and the second / back row stand so you all get shots). when kneeling like that I used a pontoon of the zodiac as shooting platform with my elbows splayed.

Which telephoto are you thinking of using ?

A 300mm f2.8 and I also have a TC14 and a TC20 III. Alternatively, if I'm not taking that, a 180mm f2.8 (with or without teleconverters)