I have uploaded photos to my blog and gallery.

Gallery:

- Juneau
- Whale watching
- Sitka Ferry
- Sitka

Panoramas:

- Whale flip 1
- Whale flip 2
- Whale flip 3
- Juneau ferries and mountains
- Mountains of Juneau

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Related posts:

1. A twist and a turn
2. D300 Continuous AF rocks
3. Backward flip
4. Bodie
5. Infrared Sierra Part 3

We travelled with a 15 month old toddler and I, as an amateur photographer carried with me 18 lbs of camera equipment, both of which added many interesting twists to how we travelled. Some information here might help you if you fall into either of these categories.

Please send me an email if you find this information useful.

If you don’t want to browse through my blog but just want to see the photos, you can see the photos in my gallery.

1. Preface, Snapshots from heaven
2. The plan and what when wrong
3. Portage and Whittier
4. Train to Denali
5. Denali National Park, Part I
6. Denali National Park, Part II
7. Denali National Park, Part III
8. Lines and curves
9. Train to Anchorage
10. Alaska wildlife park
11. Seward wildlife cruise
12. Whittier glacier cruise
13. Kim’s B&B
14. Driving back to Anchorage
15. Lens choices and lessons learnt

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Phillipe Roger said it best in a nikoncafe forum. All you need is your widest lens and your longest lens. With digital SLRs, that means that you need a 12-24 range lens and a 400 mm range lens.

Long lens:

On the nikon mount, you could do away with the 80-400 VR lens. Most of the wild animals I saw moved slowly (but for flying eagles), you will do just fine with the 80-400 VR lens. Incidentally, I saw many many folks with the Canon 100-400 IS USM lens. In most places, I would be shooting with the 12-24 and they probably thought I was crazy.

The only shortcoming of the long lenses I mention is speed. They hit f/5.6 pretty early in their zoom range. Even though there is plenty of light all the time in Alaska, some times, I had to shoot wide open at ISO 1600. This image was shot at f/2.8 at ISO 1600

For the first time, I realized one could use as fast a lens they can afford / carry. I would strongly recommend a lens with VR / IS built in the lens. Most of the times you would find yourself shooting from a moving platform, a bus, train or a boat. You need all the support that you can get from the lens system. I had very less number of failed shots in this trip due to camera shake and that is pretty amazing considering the fact that I was on unstable platform all the time.

For this reason, I would recommend you to take a 70-200 f/2.8 lens with VR / IS on it. I would definitely add a 1.7 TC / 2.0 TC on it, you get the reach when you need it and you have the speed when you need it. I sorely missed the extra reach in many places. I had decided to use the $$ to get the 12-24 lens instead of the 1.7 TC, I wish I could have taken both.

Wide lens:

If there is only one lens you could carry with you to Alaska, I would recommend any 12-24 range lens. There is no other lens that will get used as much as this lens. Personally I was very impressed with the Tokina 12-24 lens. You don’t want to land in alaska and quickly feel the pinch of not having a wide angle lens.

Street zoom:

While I seldom used my 18-70 DX AF-S lens, I could have done without it. This range was very useful when I was inside the bus in Denali so I could quickly grab some shots like this one:

but there is no reason why I could not have used the 70-200 lens instead.

Filters:

I don’t know what I would have done without GND filters for this trip. I strongly recommend testing out a set of GND filters before the trip. Same with circular polarizers. I have learnt when to use one over the other and it is pretty useful.

I am planning to get a few ND filters as well. These days, I rarely take the camera out in bright sun. Even if I do, I usually hide it behind a circular polarizer, but I am learning when not to use the polarizer. A ND filter would help.

Memory:

Take plenty of film / memory cards. I travelled with 2 GB of cards (don’t laugh, thats all I have), but I also carried a 40 GB Cintre Datasync storage device with me. Once, I had to sync the cards before the day ended, but with this combination, I was able to survive the trip.

Support:

As an ardent advocate of tripod, I was surprised I did not use mine much during the trip, since most of the time, I was on the move. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have taken my monopod, just to take the weight off my hands.

Bag:

Trust me, get a bag with good padding and good lumbar support. The bus inside Denali rattles quite a bit. You want to protect your gear as much as you can. Good lumbar support is a must since you would be carrying all this gear with you on your back. My trusty Lowepro Mini Trekker Backpack AW just fit the bill perfectly.

Cleaning equipment:

I used my Rocket Blower to clean my mirror and sensor a couple of times. I never travel without a lens pen, couple of lens cleaning cloth and a soft white cloth. During the cruises, when it was raining, I was probably cleaning / wiping the lenses and camera more often than I was taking photos.

Hope this helps, folks.

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Wildflowers and mountains, Portage glacier, Alaska, Tokina 12-24, 2 stop GND



Dramatic clouds, Portage glacier, Alaska, Tokina 12-24, 2 stop GND reversed



Meadows and mountains, Portage glacier, Alaska, Tokina 12-24, 2 stop GND



Rainbow and mountains, Portage, Alaska, Tokina 12-24

I think I lost my CF card when I ran some 300 yards to grab this shot. There was a train track in the middle and I ran across the track to get a somewhat clear view. I was afraid that I might lose the rainbow in the clouds, so I sprinted. Somewhere during this sprint, the card popped out of my jacket.

Wildflowers and mountains, Whittier, Alaska, Tokina 12-24

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Kim is such a wonderful person, filled with warmth and is very helpful. She has simply the most amazing home [even though it is a B&B] I have seen, utilizing her Korean roots, she has gathered some of the finest oriental artifacts I have seen and displayed them. I really enjoyed staying there and given that I paid just as much per night to stay in Hole in the wall hotels in Anchorage, the comfort and service is incomparable. My only grief, if any was limiting my stay to only one night in Seward. I strongly recommend her B&B. She has an amazing garden and an even more fascinating rusty railcar in her backyard . I did not have any time to shoot away in the railcar, but used her garden to shoot some flower macros

Committee, Micro nikkor 105mm



Up close, Micro nikkor 105mm



Door bell, Micro nikkor 105mm



All purple, 70-200 VR AF-S

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It rained like crazy during the cruise, but it was such an amazing experience. To see the glaciers within a 1000 ft and see them calve with a thunderous roar is something you should experience.

Waterfalls, Resurrection bay, Alaska, Tokina 12-24



Icebergs, waterfalls and glacier, Nikkor 18-70 AF-S DX



Boat and icebergs, Nikkor 18-70 AF-S DX



Kayakers and glaciers, Tokina 12-24

There are many kayak based tours that depart Whittier. They take you in a boat, give you a kayak and let you enjoy the glaciers up close and pick you up after a few hours. Now, that should be amazing.

Seagulls and waterfall, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S



Waterfalls, Tokina 12-24

We visited another low tide glacier and witnessed many calvings (4 to be exact), I got some nice photos (there was another boat to fit the middleground, so many photos would have worked well). Of course, those were in the lost CF card

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In this part of Alaska, there are two possibile cruise options. One is the Kenai Fjords National Park cruises that depart from Seward, Alaska and the next is the Prince William Sound Glacier Cruises that depart from Whittier, Alaska. If you want to see wildlife, do the Seward based cruises. If you want to see glaciers, do the Whittier based cruises. We did both. We wanted to do the wildlife cruise and take an airplane to fly over the glaciers, but since the weather was so bad, we ended up taking two cruises. [There are some day long cruises that depart from Seward that not only show you wildlife but also show you glaciers, we went with a much shorter evening cruise though]

There are many cruises that depart from Seward, we took the Major Marine tours since they had a park ranger on board every cruise. The ranger filled us with so much information about the area and she spotted many many types of wildlife and at least a dozen bald eagles for us. I strongly recommend them.

Bald eagle in ocean, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

Empty deck, Tokina 12-24



Dramatic clouds, Tokina 12-24

Glacier in hills, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

You get to see some glaciers in this cruise, but these are not tide water glaciers you get to see in the Whittier cruises. Now, a visit to Alaska is never complete without seeing tide water glaciers, more on them when I get to that cruise.

Seagulls in rock, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S



Sea lions, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S



Humpback whales and boat, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

I consider myself so lucky to have witnessed a humpback whale and its calf in the ocean only a few hundred yards from us. They briefly popped their head up, but it was raining so darn heavily at this point, I had put my camera away and was enjoying them without the puny D70 eyepiece preventing me from seeing them .

Whoever said that the human eye has the FOV of a 50mm lens in 35mm speak must have either been an engineer or a lens salesman. They know nothing about it in real life . It was pretty dark there. This photo was shot at f/2.8 at ISO 1600, btw. The whales appeared bigger to my brain that what you see here in the photos.

My wife also sighted beautiful Dalls Porpoises in the ocean right next to us, swimming in pairs. I was so busy mucking with my camera searching for them, I did not even sight them . In future, I will leave wildlife photography to the real pros and grab a binocular with me .

Lost in thought, Tokina 12-24

Waterfall, Seward, Tokina 12-24, 10:40 pm

We saw this waterfall from the cruise, so we drove down to the waterfall, which is very close to the city and saw it in person. It was 10:40 pm and still some decent light

Sahana and oil spill, Tokina 12-24

Another lesson learnt was not spending enough time in Seward. Please give yourself a LOT of time in Seward, it is a beautiful town. Seward also has a beautiful Alaska Sealife Center which was in our schedule, but we could not make it because of lack of time.

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What a terrific experience it turned out to be! We got to see all the major Wildlife in Alaska up close and personal, a very great experience.

If you are headed to Alaska, do yourself a favor and visit this place, it is worth your time and you will never forget that experience.

Caribou family, Alaska Wildlife center, Tokina 12-24

Now, that is the Wildlife I want to take photos of. I had to shoot this in 12mm to even cover the caribou in full

Caribou family, Alaska Wildlife center, Tokina 12-24

Feeding time, Alaska Wildlife center, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

Elk, Alaska Wildlife center, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

Bald eagle, Alaska Wildlife center, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

Owl, Alaska Wildlife center, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

Musk ox, Alaska Wildlife center, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

Grizzly bear, Alaska Wildlife center, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

Black tailed Sitka deer, Alaska Wildlife center, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

Brown bear, Alaska Wildlife center, Nikkor 70-200 VR AF-S

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My wife did a white water rafting run just before the train departed (12 noon) . I chose to baby sit and passed the rafting. I did not realize that by climbing down a small hill, I could have caught a nice photo of her passing down the river . That would have been a keeper.

Cloudy day, Tokina 12-24, 3 stop GND

They have a peculiar mode of operation on the train. The trains fly northbound from Anchorage through Fairbanks and southbound from Fairbanks through Anchorage. The crews never travel the full distance.

The train meets half way and the crews exchange trains . Thank god, they don’t make us change trains

Whiz past, Tokina 12-24

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Anchorage experience theater, Tokina 12-24, Tiffen circular polarizer

Downtown Anchorage has many boring buildings and one or two very interesting ones. This hosts a dome theater and a pretty neat movie about alaska.

Benches, Cruise, 70-200 VR AF-S

Grinder, Alaska wildlife center, 70-200 VR AF-S

Criss cross, Alaska wildlife center, 70-200 VR AF-S

Rusty, Alaska wildlife center, 70-200 VR AF-S

Cross, Alaska wildlife center, 70-200 VR AF-S

Sprung up, Alaska wildlife center, 70-200 VR AF-S

Z, Seward, 70-200 VR AF-S

Crozzed, Seward, 70-200 VR AF-S

Red door, Kim’s B&B, Seward, 70-200 VR AF-S

Striped, Whittier, 70-200 VR AF-S

Wedge, Seward port, 70-200 VR AF-S

Swiped, Seward port, 70-200 VR AF-S

Flag?, Seward port, 70-200 VR AF-S

Now, if I say I am absolutely in love with my 70-200 VR, would you disagree?

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