Jock Elliott
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Troy, NY
Michael from Luminous Landscapes has filed a preliminary report about their antarctic trip here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/locations/michaels_antarctica_2014.shtml
At the end, he make the following comment: "There were three equipment casualties though, a Sony A7r gave up the ghost and a Nikon D610 died unexpectedly. Both will eventually visit the camera hospital and be resuscitated. The worst casualty though was a 350mm Zeiss Tele Super-Achromat which slipped off its latchless mount on a Hasselblad-to-Leica S adaptor, and tumbled into the Antarctic ocean. The sound of it hitting the icy water was chilling, if you get my drift. That was a double martini evening for the owner."
These people paid something like fifteen kilobucks for this trip (which Michael says is as close to another planet as most of us will ever get), and to have a high-end camera crap out suddenly is just unthinkable. To me, it's as if you bought, say, a Mercedes for a critical trip from New York to LA, and it craps out somewhere along the way. I would be beyond livid.
So, the question, if you were going on such a trip, what gear would you take for maximum reliability?
Thinking about it from the comfort of my place by the fire, I would be very tempted to take what I already own: FZ150, FZ200 and G12 and a bunch of batteries and memory cards for each.
Why?
- Redundant camera systems
- Good reliability experience so far
- Large focal range coverage
- No lens changing
- No exposure of sensors during lens changes
- Small enough to stick inside a parka between shots
- Adequate performance during 20 hours a day daylight.
What would you take?
Cheers, Jock
At the end, he make the following comment: "There were three equipment casualties though, a Sony A7r gave up the ghost and a Nikon D610 died unexpectedly. Both will eventually visit the camera hospital and be resuscitated. The worst casualty though was a 350mm Zeiss Tele Super-Achromat which slipped off its latchless mount on a Hasselblad-to-Leica S adaptor, and tumbled into the Antarctic ocean. The sound of it hitting the icy water was chilling, if you get my drift. That was a double martini evening for the owner."
These people paid something like fifteen kilobucks for this trip (which Michael says is as close to another planet as most of us will ever get), and to have a high-end camera crap out suddenly is just unthinkable. To me, it's as if you bought, say, a Mercedes for a critical trip from New York to LA, and it craps out somewhere along the way. I would be beyond livid.
So, the question, if you were going on such a trip, what gear would you take for maximum reliability?
Thinking about it from the comfort of my place by the fire, I would be very tempted to take what I already own: FZ150, FZ200 and G12 and a bunch of batteries and memory cards for each.
Why?
- Redundant camera systems
- Good reliability experience so far
- Large focal range coverage
- No lens changing
- No exposure of sensors during lens changes
- Small enough to stick inside a parka between shots
- Adequate performance during 20 hours a day daylight.
What would you take?
Cheers, Jock