Travel Report to Alaska and Olympic National Park (WA) * 1440-960 pic size *

pniev

Student for life
I thought that my recent vacation trip to Alaska and Washington State would be a good opportunity to give a sign of life.

We took a cruise trip from Anchorage to Vancouver, followed by a visit to Mt. Rainier and the Olympic National Park in WA. I brought the Fuji X-T1 with the 14mm, 23mm, and 55-200mm lenses from Fuji as well as the 50mm Touit and 135mm APO Sonnar lens from Zeiss.

I learned that it is better not to use a CP filter in Alaska. Everything turns out too blue. A local photographer advised me to use the cloud-WB even in bright sunlight because of the blue-ness of the light. And I have to say that he was right: the jpegs looked much more natural with cloud setting.

I was very happy about the X-T1’s performance. The High Performance mode worked very well during a whale watching boat trip. The only negative is that the battery drains very quickly. The camera is responsive and the ability to quickly change ISO, aperture and shutter speed is very helpful. Shooting in bright sunlight turned out to be a challenge for a glass-wearer like me so I had to shield the EVF with my left hand frequently. This worked well with most lenses except for the Zeiss 135mm (which is a surprisingly comfortable lens to use with the X-T1 but you have to support the lens with one of your hands). I do hope the upcoming viewfinder accessory will be helpful. And did I mention the tilt screen yet? Just can’t live without it anymore! All in all, I do not regret that I switched from xpro to xt

Herewith some of my personal favorites:

Part 1 - Cruise trip Alaska-Vancouver:

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Gooooood lord. You always deliver the goods, pniev. Excellent framing, good balance of scenery and "life" in the shots, and delightfully "unprocessed" look.

A+
 
Stunning scenery, very well captured. Great job Peter! (y) Which lens did you find yourself using most? And more importantly, do you have more shots to share? ;)
 
Gooooood lord. You always deliver the goods, pniev. Excellent framing, good balance of scenery and "life" in the shots, and delightfully "unprocessed" look.

A+

Thank you for your very kind words, Kyle!


Stunning scenery, very well captured. Great job Peter! (y) Which lens did you find yourself using most? And more importantly, do you have more shots to share? ;)

Thanks, Bart. I probably used the 23mm most and surprised by the quality of the 55-200. The 14mm always delivers but the opportunities for superwide shots were rather limited. My favorite lens was probably the zeiss 50mm. I like the results and responsiveness much better than those of Fuji's 60mm. Works smoothly. Unfortunately I made too many shots at 2.8 and f4 to see how the bokeh looks. By that time my wife was 50m ahead of me so I had no time to use higher aperture numbers. ;-)

I took too many photos and kept around 200. Herewith some other samples.

Once I see Alaska, I can die happy.

Now I've seen it, I do have new ambitions. No desire to die happy yet. ;-)

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Great stuff Peter. I've never been to Alaska, but I lived for years in the Puget Sound area, so the Olympics were sort of home to me. I remember many camping trips there when I was in college and then a few hotel / lodge stays when my wife and I were newly married (ie, before kids). I love the photos, particularly the shots of the glacier and particularly the one with the little boats in the foreground bobbing around hoping a big chunck of ice doesn't fall off and swamp them...

-Ray
 
Thanks Ray! The Glacier shot with the kayaks is also one of my favorites as it illustrates the size of these glaciers. When you're on a big ship, it is difficult to imagine the size. A cruise is about the only possibly to see these glaciers and ice dropping in the water.
Peter

Great stuff Peter. I've never been to Alaska, but I lived for years in the Puget Sound area, so the Olympics were sort of home to me. I remember many camping trips there when I was in college and then a few hotel / lodge stays when my wife and I were newly married (ie, before kids). I love the photos, particularly the shots of the glacier and particularly the one with the little boats in the foreground bobbing around hoping a big chunck of ice doesn't fall off and swamp them...

-Ray
 
Peter - once again when you come back to sharing your photos - they're wonderful to see! I can't pick an absolute favorite, though I do love the whale pictures... Never having been up there myself, I can't really understand the vastness of "it all" but it seems to me that you've given us a very good helping of reality. I'm so happy that you and your wife were able to make this trip.

Don't hold back, if you have anymore you'd like to share.:drinks:
 
Can you talk about the whale shots? Curious what your settings were and how you made sure you were focused when they materialized briefly each time. Normally I wouldn't ask but having the same camera, I get curious how other people use it in small, specific ways.
 
Kyle,

Shutter speed: I used 1/1000 to freeze the water drops from the whale's tail.

Aperture: I started off with f5.6 but changed to f8.

Shooting mode: Ch (I forgot to change from S to Ch so my first shot failed miserably ;-) ).

Focusing was an issue indeed but not because of the imitations of the camera but the boat was going up and down, left and right. I thought about manual focus but used AF. I wasn't quick enough to refocus.

I also used the high performance mode. The camera was very fast in high-performance, Ch mode.

I think I used auto ISO but I'm not sure. I ended up with ISO200 (f5.6) and 500 (f8).

I thought about spot metering but I was too far away for that. So I used it for the bald eagle, which worked well.

What also helped: the humpbacks follow a specific pattern, which helps to anticipate when you see the tail

Hope that answers your question.


Can you talk about the whale shots? Curious what your settings were and how you made sure you were focused when they materialized briefly each time. Normally I wouldn't ask but having the same camera, I get curious how other people use it in small, specific ways.
 
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