November 2010 South Georgia / Antarctica trip review

The long-awaited trip report!

Our voyage started out in Argentina in Ushuaia, with most of us arriving several days before our ship the Polar Pioneer was due to depart. This allowed us to get over any jetlag and explore the area. In fact the day before departure some of us organised helicopter flights through the nearby mountains, which provided very unusual and exciting photo opportunities!

The Polar Pioneer near Grytviken (A2_043141)

As with most of these voyages, departure was in the afternoon (of the 8th of November) and we spent the morning on a tour to Tierra del Fuego National Park. It was a little "touristy" at times, but did help get the group "socialised" and thinking about their photography. Myself and Glenn Guy were looking after 16 other photographers, and together we made up a third of the passengers on the ship.

The Falklands

We left Ushuaia in the afternoon, and arrived in the Falkland Islands on the 10th. Due to the swell we weren't able to land at Sea Lion Island, but we moved on to Bleaker Island (in the East Falklands) where we got to meet Rockhopper and Magellanic Penguins, as well as colonies of cormorants and sea lions.

David and Susie with the penguins, Bleaker Island
(© Craig Goldsmith)

Rockhopper Penguin (A2_038647)

Crossing to South Georgia

After leaving Port Stanley on the 11th we travelled to South Georgia, which takes 3 days. During this crossing I didn't take my motion-sickness meds. In general I only use the patches for the ocean crossings: this time I didn't and became a solid believer in their effectiveness! But once the ship's off the open ocean I find I don't need any medication.

Our voyage involved four big sea-crossings: from Ushuaia to the Falklands, from the Falklands to South Georgia, then down to Antarctica, and finally back up to Ushuaia. Some people struggled to cope with the motion of the ocean, finding it easiest to spend the time lying down in their cabins. But once we reached South Georgia at least one of them made a point of telling me (with a big grin on his face!) that it was all worthwhile.

For those of us up and about there were plenty of things to do. From photographing the waves and clouds, and the birds following the ship, to attending lectures in the lecture room downstairs or working on our images with Lightroom in the bar and the dining rooms.

At work in the bar
(© Forrest Brown)

South Georgia

Once we reached South Georgia (on the 14th) we spent a solid 4 days with up to 3 zodiac cruises/landings per day.

Praying at the Kelp altar (A2_043318)
Hercules Bay, South Georgia

Elephant Seal Love (A2_041127)
Elsehul, South Georgia

Where to start? (A2_041589)
Right Whale Bay, South Georgia

... at eye level! (A2_041806)
Right Whale Bay, South Georgia

Some people chose to join the group crossing the Shackleton path from Fortuna Bay to Stromness Harbour, while another group spent more time with the penguins and Elephant Seals at Fortuna Bay before taking the ship around to meet up at Stromness.

Lying down on the job (A2_042220)
Fortuna Bay, South Georgia

King Penguins coming ashore (A2_041806)

On windswept Prion Island we struggled to see the Wandering Albatross chicks hiding in the tussock grass:

Taking a peek with a video recording (A2_044208)

But were graced with a few appearances:

Young Wandering Albatross (A2_044751)

On nearby Salisbury Plain we had an easy landing (no surf!) and got to spend many hours with the huge King Penguin colony:

A small part of the Plain (A2_055676)

Heading to the beach (A2_045619)

"Who ARE these strange penguins?" (A2_044985)

Skua fly-by (A2_045233)

A highlight (well, it was all highlights!) was visiting Gold Harbour on our last day in South Georgia. The day started out quite chill and windy, but by the time we reached the shore we it was bright sunshine, and some of us ended up "slightly crispy".

The hanging glacier above Gold Harbour beach (A2_055678)

Another skua fly-by (A2_046194)

Elephant Seal bull keeping cool (A2_046083)

Young Elephant Seal covering the ship (A2_046228)

Bull roar (A2_046321)

Manicure anyone? (A2_046365)

Prostrate in the heat (A2_046495)

Trying a different vantage point (A2_046635)

This young King Penguin snuck up on me (A2_046166)

Coming back aboard (A2_046272)

We finished up by cruising Dryjalski Fjord and having the Risting Glacier obligingly calve some ice for us.

Douglas Crag (A2_047259)

Looking for a different angle with a short lens (A2_047171)

Calving glacier (A2_047445)

Antarctica

Travelling SW across the Scotia Sea, we were slowed by heavy seas, and had to bypass the South Orkney Islands. When we approached Elephant Island on the evening of the 20th we were unable to land due to the direction and strength of the swell, but it still provided stunning sunset scenery as we passed it.

Elephant Island (A2_047990)

The next day we landed at Deception Island in the afternoon, and continued down into the Gerlache Strait that evening. The weather turned a bit foul while we were on Deception Island, but everyone still got great photos!

Looking out to the blizzard and the ship (A2_048148)

The view from inside Biscoe House (HDR) (A2_048034)

Sheltering in some of the ruined structures at the old whaling station led us to some weird and wonderful things:

Corrosion and ice (A2_048144)

The 22nd was full of excitement, with landings at Cuverville Island, Port Lockroy, traversing down the Lemaire Channel, Zodiac cruising near Pleneau Island, and capped by a BBQ and party on the rear deck.

Out on the open ocean there's usually not a lot of incentive to get up early, but on our days in Antarctica we usually had photographers out on deck well before dawn (e.g. at 4AM) as the scenery never stopped. Even though it was usually overcast, the sky did light up.

We were obviously the first visitors of the season to Cuverville Island, with perfectly crisp snow and ice before our arrival.

360-degree view of our landing site (A2_049815)
Cuverville Island, Antarctica

The photographer and his models (A2_049526)

Sleeping Leopard Seal (A2_049066)
Errera Channel

Ice sculpture (A2_049620)
Errera Channel

Glowing Portal (A2_049866)
Errera Channel

Crowing Gentoo Penguin (A2_050438)

Our passage through the Lemaire was interrupted by a huge barrier of ice, but our captain decided to slowly plow through it.

Amongst the ice in the Lemaire Channel (A2_051022)

The ice closing behind us (A2_051027)

Booth Island (A2_051113)

The 23rd was our last day in Antarctica, starting with a continental landing in Paradise Harbour, and finishing with Zodiac cruising in the Melchior Islands.

Penguin cuddles (A2_052148)

Under the water (A2_052071)

Photographers in blue (A2_052539)

Lone Gentoo (A2_052751)

Colours under the clouds (A2_053238)
Gerlache Strait

Heading home

We then travelled north back to South America, arriving in Ushuaia on the 26th. The Drake Passage had fairly heavy seas, but apparently not as heavy as for the ships ahead of us. The MS Expedition (a much larger ship) was in port when we arrived, and its passengers were telling us of very rough seas. They looked at our ship and had been expecting us to have horror stories, but we must have missed the heavy stuff!

The obligatory group photo!

With the voyage over, once we left the ship we split off in different directions, with quite a few of us headed up to Buenos Aires and explored the city together.

Equipment

As usual, the workshop participants were using a mixture of gear, including:

• Canon 40D, 7D, 5DmkII, 1DmkIV
• Nikon D40X, D90, D200, D300s, D700, D3S, D3X
• Sony A700, A100
• Pentax 645D
• Phase One 645DF with P40+ back
• Leica M9
• various compacts

David inside Biscoe House, Deception Island
(© Glenn Guy)

My own kit:

• DSLRs: Canon EOS 7D and 5DmkII
• Lenses: EF 17-40mm/4 L, EF 24-105mm/4 L IS, EF 70-200mm/4 L IS, EF 100-400mm/4.5-5.6 L IS, EF 50mm/1.8, EF 1.4x II Extender
• Laptop: MacBook Pro 15" (with internal DVD replaced by 750GB second drive) with external FW800 drives for backups.
• Compact camera: Canon PowerShot D10 waterproof (shooting in DNG format using "CHDK")
• Feisol CT-3402 tripod with Manfrotto 438 leveller and Acratech Ultimate ballhead
• Manfrotto 479-4B monopod with 234 tilthead
• Manfrotto 080 monopod pouch
• LowePro Classified Sling 220AW bag

Medium Format

We had two medium-format cameras on this trip, both 40 Mp machines. A Phase One P40+ system, and a Pentax 645D. These both performed very well in all sorts of conditions. In fact I was very impressed by the Pentax. Its owner hadn't had it very long, and during the crossing to South Georgia I used it with their 300mm/5.6 to show them how it would go photographing some of the petrels and albatrosses following the ship. The camera's AF system isn't quite as capable at this as a good DSLR, but even so managed to track the birds in flight and get a few good sharp frames.

Not the best tool for the job, but surprisingly capable regardless!

Black-browed Albatross (A2_039157)

Pentax 645D, ISO 800

Digital processing

I ended up taking over 17,500 frames (culled down a lot since) and used almost 500GB of storage (then doubled because I kept a backup copy). My busiest day involved almost 3,500 frames, and like my last Antarctic expedition (where my peak was ~3,000 frames) this was the day that included transiting the Lemaire Channel.

I stitched about 30 panoramas during the voyage, and the files from these and the video I recorded did beef up the storage requirements. But most images were kept as RAW files which have minimal space overhead (compared with creating lots of TIFFs). My largest image was a huge single-row panorama of Stanley, which came to almost 550 megapixels. It's stored in a flattened PSB file that weighs in at 3.2GB! This stitching work sometimes took my laptop several hours, but it would happily work on that by itself in the cabin while I was busy elsewhere.

Most participants used Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to manage and process their files, although a couple of people were using Capture One and Aperture.

Some people kept a copy of everything on one drive and worked on a second copy (processing and deleting work there but leaving the originals untouched) while others used file synchronisation software to keep a backup copy of their entire working files. I provided copies of my PteroFile software for those Mac users who wanted to work with file synchronisation.

Equipment Failures

As with any such trip into wild conditions, we had our share of equipment failures:

• Two hard drives failed at the start of the trip. One was replaced by a purchase in Ushuaia, the other failed on the first day at sea but luckily was replaced by a spare drive (loaned by me). These drives that failed were both backup drives and after their replacement everyone on the trip was able to maintain duplicate copies of their photos during the expedition.
• One Nikon 16-35mm lens died, and not surprisingly: it was unprotected in a pocket when the photographer slipped when getting into a Zodiac and ended up sitting in the water. The D3S/X bodies (with lenses attached) being carried by that person did survive the experience.
• One polariser fell apart!
• The only other lens failure on the trip was from someone not part of our photography group who was carrying a D70 and kit lens in a pouch and crashed into another person while sliding down a snow slope. The plastic mount of the kit lens tore off, but with a different lens the camera kept ticking.

Snowswept graves, Deception Island (A2_048151)

Our landing on Deception Island was in a blizzard (and for one of our participants it was their first ever real experience of snow!) but no cameras died due to moisture. Some people resorted to only using their waterproof compact cameras, but many of us used our SLRs with various amounts of protection (including Kata E-702 covers). When we returned from the cold and wet onto the warm ship we were careful to first remove the rain covers and let the gear warm up without moisture collecting inside.

Most people using the E-702 covers ended up modifying them by cutting off the stiff Velcro-covered band at the front. If you're never going to add the E-704 extension for super-telephoto lenses, it just gets in the way.

Bags

The "AW" rain covers on the LowePro bags worked well, but we did have issues with the covers of some other bag types where the rain cover is not attached by a strap. When accessing the contents of the bag you have to remove the rain cover, and in a strong wind this can result in the loose rain cover bouncing along through the middle of a King Penguin colony! Luckily these were retrieved without harm to any penguins.

Sealing my dry-bag (© Craig Goldsmith)

Dry bags

Some people didn't use dry-bags for Zodiac transits, relying on just their backpack's water resistance to keep their gear dry. Although we did have at least one incidence of waves coming over the front of a Zodiac and drenching everyone, no camera gear was seriously damaged in that incident.

One participant put his Kiboko backpack into a SealLine Boundary Pack drybag, which is itself a backpack. This worked well. My own LowePro Classified Sling 220AW bag was usually transported in the Zodiacs inside a SealLine WideMouth Duffle (80l).
The 80L drybags brought by some participants (including models from Caribee) were a little large. The backpacks being carried inside fitted fine, but the drybags ended up taking up a lot of room in the Zodiacs. Limiting the size of the gear people bring onto the Zodiacs is something we need to be careful with on future trips.
Several people used LowePro DryZone backpacks which didn't take up much space in comparison, but have their own complications in terms of accessing their innards.

Boots

The ship provides everyone with rubber boots ("gumboots" to Australians) for use in landings, but I used my waterproof NEOS Adventurer overshoes over my hiking boots. These worked great: very comfortable and very waterproof. Several of the workshop participants also had these and I think all were happy with them.

At the end

I've mainly shown you some of my own images from this voyage, but it's always eye-opening to see the work produced by the other workshop participants. On the last night on-board we ran a slideshow of our combined work for the rest of the passengers, and I was very impressed. And that was just with the processing we'd managed to do during the voyage!

Next

We all learnt a lot on this adventure, and I'm now looking forward to our March 2011 return to Antarctica! Unlike this trip where we only got a couple of days in Antarctica itself, on that trip we'll have a whole week before we head to the Falklands. Through their feedback during and after the trip, the participants on this November voyage have also helped guide our daily schedule plans for March.

Two new spots available on our November 2010 Odyssey!

Two extra berths have become available on the Polar Pioneer for our November 8-26 Falklands/South Georgia/Antarctica photography expedition. The berths are in a "twin private" cabin, so cost US$13790 each (the Suite cabin I wrote about earlier is no longer available).

This trip departs in 5 weeks time from Ushuaia, so if you're interested (or even MIGHT be interested) you should contact Aurora Expeditions as soon as possible! Be sure to say you want to be part of the photography group of course: there are also non-photographers on this voyage.

There are also spots still available on our March/April 2011 Antarctica/Falklands/Patagonia expedition: again contact Aurora to reserve your spot. In addition there are also some spots available on our July 2011 Spitsbergen and August 2011 Kenya trips.

You've got a bit more time to consider things for these trips though.

Antarctica information evening in Melbourne!

If you're going to be in Melbourne this coming Thursday evening (the 19th), Aurora Expeditions is hosting a free information evening. Aurora are the expedition operator we're travelling with:

• to the Falklands, South Georgia, and Antarctica in November 2010 (trip fully booked),
• to Antarctica, the Falklands, and the Patagonian coast in March/April 2011, and
• to Spitsbergen (in the Arctic) in July 2011.

Unlike Aurora's usual voyages, these trips will have a specific photography focus. Depending on the size of the group we will have up to two photographic instructors running a photography workshop throughout the expedition. In particular the March/April trip is a special one, with all the passengers on the ship being part of our photography workshop!

Along with some Aurora staff, I will be there for the evening, so if you'd like to find out more about these and other Aurora expeditions, give Aurora a call ASAP to book a spot for the evening! Further details at Aurora's website.

Heading to Antarctica AGAIN!

Are you interested in coming on a voyage to the Antarctic Peninsula, the Falkland Islands, and the Patagonian coast? It will be an amazing experience in amazing locations.

Would you like to be part of a group of less than 30 other photographers: the only passengers onboard the ship?

We will be presenting photography tuition throughout the voyage, with two professional photography educators (including myself) working with the ship's regular expedition team to help you throughout the entire trip.

Stand by for announcements very soon: an opportunity is coming up for as early as March 2011!