Thanks everyone for looking an commenting! I'll try to answer some of your questions.
First about the 600 and weather sealing: It's a useful lens for isolating and portraying the animals. However it's too heavy for wielding from a swaying deck, and it's a daunting thing to haul onshore. So usefulness is limited by stamina, basically. I'd also recommend some clothing to keep moisture and sand out of its construction. I brought an Aquatech raincover, but at the one landing where I really needed it, I forgot the damn thing in the ship, so the lens stayed in the bag that day. For the DA* lenses and cameras, there's one word to describe it accurately. Adequate. About the Southern Right Whale: These whales are actually born with patches of rough skin or callosities. They contract both barnacles and other sessile crustaceans even before they are weaned, enough to be individually recognisable. The pattern of callosities and ongrowth is constant through their lives. They breed in the waters around Peninsula Valdez. The pic is of a whale mother, the calf is somewhere right around her. I have a couple of shots of both of them together also, but none of them good. Just dark ovals of whale back. About ice conditions: We heard news of the ice breaker getting stuck South of Elephant Island. Oceanwide expeditions had cabins booked on both vessels, and the expedition leaders were in regular contact. We took advantage of their reports on the ice conditions, and passed well North of both the South Orkney Islands and Elephant Island. We also took advantage of reports from another ship ahead of us; actually a sister-ship of our Prof. Molchanoff. They were about one or two days ahead of us on the same route, and relayed very valuable information on both ice conditions, weather and wildlife. I believe this contributed greatly to our expedition's success, but there's no denying we were extremely lucky too. The ice breaker reached Ushuaia on the same day as us, btw. Jostein 2009/11/25 AlunFoto <[email protected]>: > First pic from the Antarctica trip. > We began by doing a whale safari in the Golfo Nuevo, South of the > Valdez peninsula on the Argentinian coast. > We got quite close to the whales, and at one point they actually swum > under the boat. A challenge to shoot, though. Lots of ocean swell, and > only brief moments of photogenic exposure of the whales. No jumps, > just peeks above the surface. > > In blog: http://alunfoto.blogspot.com/2009/11/buenos-aires-again.html > > Direct link: > http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VWBjZjc1fI4/SwtVbdyD7wI/AAAAAAAAApI/by4v4p1dwX0/s1600/_IGP9560-Edit.jpg > > Jostein > > -- > http://www.alunfoto.no/galleri/ > http://alunfoto.blogspot.com > -- http://www.alunfoto.no/galleri/ http://alunfoto.blogspot.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
