Steen V. Mogensen
                      email: mogensen@bellsouth.net

Updated 06-Oct-06

How were the pictures taken:
Home I have been asked what camera equipment I am using and what, if any, special considerations and/or problems there might be, when taking pictures under the conditions I experienced in Antarctica. On this page I will share a some of the details about the photography itself.
 

Camera equipment:

All the pictures are captured with a Nikon D100 camera. I have a Nikon F100 film camera as well, but these days I rarely use anything but digital. I considered bringing my F100 as a spare, but decided against it to save weight. If I had an extra D100 body I would probably have brought it.
So, I ended up bringing the following equipment with me:

  • Nikon D100, 6.1 Mpix digital SLR camera body with Nikon Vertical Grip
  • Nikon 24-120 f3.5-5.6 Vibration Reduction lens with UV filter
  • Nikon 80-200 F2.8 AFS lens with UV filter
  • Nikon 18-35 F3.5-4.5 lens with UV filter
  • 2x Nikon SB80DX flash unit
  • Nikon flash extension cable
  • Nikon remote trigger release
  • Homemade 50' extension cable for the remote trigger
  • Polarizer filters in 72mm and 77mm
  • Neutral Density gray filters, 2x, in 72mm and 77mm
  • Flash Extender "Better Beamer"
  • Lexar 1 Gb 80x Compact Flash memory card
  • 2x SanDisk 256Kb 40x Compact Flash memory card
  • 2x Omni Bounce flash attachment
  • TC-14e and  TC-20e tele-converters
  • Extension tubes, full set
  • 16x 2500mAh NiMh Powerex AA rechargeable batteries
  • Rapid Charger for the Powerex batteries
  • Spare battery for the D100 and a charger
  • Lowepro Classic photo bag
  • Gitzo 1228 Carbon Fiber tripod
  • Manfrotto 3026 ball head

For image editing and storage I used my IBM 570E laptop and I would also burn DVD's for backup every few days.

This might seem like an awful lot of equipment, and to be honest, when I carry it all around, it really is a lot of stuff. But the thing is that I rarely carry all of it with me, I just want to at least have it within reach.

If I could have any gear I wanted, I think I would have liked to add one more D100 as a spare, change the 18-35mm lens to a 12-24mm for more dramatic wide angle shots and for shots from the helicopters and perhaps change the 80-200 lens to a 200-400VR lens.

Out of all this, what did I actually use during this trip? Well, most of it really, except never more than 1 flash. Only used the shortest of the extension tubes a few times. Did not use the long trigger cable and did not use the Flash Extender.

And to answer the classic question: "Could a good photographer have taken the same images with a cheap point and shoot camera?" .... Yes, absolutely.
 

Weather and low temperatures:

There are two main problems associated with taking pictures in Antarctica, Snow and Cold weather.

When the wind is blowing, the snow is drifting, and since the wind can change in a few minutes, you never know when you are going to find yourself in a ground blizzard with snow everywhere. I kept some zip-lock bags with me just in case I needed to protect anything in a hurry, and I also had a zipped nylon bag which I used to protect the camera now and then. For the most part though, I just kept the camera in a small day-pack and paid a little extra attention when using it so it did not get exposed too much to the weather. When I did get some snow on the gear, I would just brush it off with a glove or a piece of soft cloth I had with me all the time. The biggest issue is to make sure not to get drifting snow into the camera bag where it might later get warm enough to melt.

The cold is another problem. Actually, it accounts for several problems. Perfectly good batteries seem almost useless, the camera itself might have problems and it is all in all difficult to handle the gear with gloves and goggles on!
I can usually shoot hundreds of pictures on a single charge of the D100 batteries, but in -20F or worse, the capacity is very low, often only a few images.
When the D100 has the vertical grip attached, it has room for 2 batteries. I would usually keep 1 of the batteries in a pocket close to my body to keep it warm, or sometimes I would put it in my glove in the palm of my hand. If I needed to quickly shoot a few frames, the cold battery in the camera would do the job, but if I needed to continue shooting, I would add the warm battery.

Handling the equipment with gloves on is not an easy problem to solve. Wearing a pair of thin gloves under the thicker ones, would work well, but my gloves were too small for that, so I would just keep a pair of thin ones in my pocket, and change to them when I needed to operate the camera. When everything is set up, it is actually fairly easy to shoot even with thick ski gloves on.
 

What about light metering in all that snow?

The problem with snow and ice is that the light meter is easily confused my it all. To make a long story short, the light meter in a camera will attempt to make the image a medium density, similar to what is know as 18% gray. This might work fine in the average light conditions in an average picture situation, but it does not work when the world, on average, is bright white! So for places like Antarctica, and anywhere else with lots of snow, you have to cheat a little.

The beauty of digital photography, is that you can check the result immediately. So what I usually do, is to use manual spot metering, meter off of the snow and open up about 1 2/3 stops. Then I take a picture and look at the highlights and the histogram. If I am reasonably within range I keep the shot and keep shooting with that general setting. I also often bracket 1/3 or 1/2 stop on both sides just to be on the safe side.
 

Want to know more:

If you have any questions about gear or how I use it, feel free to write and ask.