The Traveling Widower

Tag: cameras

  • More Antarctica Photography

    December 18th, 2025

    After two full weeks of puttering around the house, I finally dedicated a day to go through the two 500GB SD cards that I used for the Sony A7 cameras (A7IV, A7RV) on the Antarctica trip. Most of the images I have posted so far on the blog or Facebook, were captured with my phone, with a smattering of images from the cameras from a cursory pass I made of the SD cards while still traveling. I’ve just been lazy, putting this task off until yesterday. 

    This turned into a significant effort:

    1. Each card had at least 1300 separate images, each with a JPEG and RAW version. You can shoot a lot with 10 frames-per-second.
    2. I first went through each of the JPEG versions, deleting duplicates or images that I knew I’d never do anything with. Digital cameras are wonderful – unlike film, it costs nothing to take a lot of lousy shots. But if you take hundreds of images, you still have to review each one. 
    3. After going through the JPEG versions, I used the list of remaining JPEG’s to compare with the RAW images, and delete the same files. Once that was done, I then did a backup of the remaining images to my two archive drives. I will probably need a new, dedicated archive drive sometime in the near future. More toys. 
    4. Phew!  That was a lot of work. I decided I needed a glass of wine after that. 

    The end result of this process is about 650 images that need a more detailed review – still a lot, but much better than 2600, and all of them are pretty darn good. Some are amazing, and really capture the vastness, magnificence and beauty of the ice covered Antarctic landscape. And of course, there were more fun images of penguins. 

    So now I have to work on the remaining batch images, and determine which ones I want to submit for club competitions, print on acrylic (I’m turning my house into a photo gallery), or just share with friends and family (and everyone else) on the blog. I’ll probably take my time on this, but will eventually wind up with about 50 or so, “keepers”. Maybe more. A lot more. I might wind up just putting together a digital photo book for the trip, and post that on the blog.

    I have also started reviewing some of the videos I shot with my phone and the Sony A7IV camera. I have just started dabbling with video this past year, first with the GoPro, and just recently with my latest Pixel phone. I had never used the slow motion or time lapse feature that are available on both iPhone and Android cameras – fun stuff. I also tried out video on the Sony camera once or twice on the trip, since it is supposed to be one of the best features of this camera. I intend to post one or two of those in the next day or two.

    And finally, since this post seems to have evolved into another discussion on photography, I’m buying myself a Christmas present today – a new camera lens. I mentioned before that I really want to reduce the amount of gear I bring along on each trip. The camera backpack I lugged around in airports this past trip weighed in at 20lbs. That did not seem so bad on the trip down to Ushuiai, but seemed to weigh even more on the way back, as I dragged my tired body through seemingly miles of airport corridors. I also want to avoid having to carry two cameras on hikes if at all possible. It was really difficult managing two heavy cameras/lenses while stumbling around on the snow and ice when we were visiting the penguin colonies – we were not allowed to put anything on the snow, so I had to have someone hold my pack while I switched cameras. Awkward at best. 

    I’m hoping that the Tamron 25-200 lens will become my go-to for most on-shore activities, and only travel with that and the 150-500 lens. And then there is the Baja trip in February – we are limited to 6.5 pounds for carry-on, and 30 pounds for the checked bag. The Sony A7R5 weighs 4.5 pounds with a lens, and my smallest camera bag weighs 2 pounds. I will likely only bring the new lens for this trip, and one camera body. Ouch. The GoPro will fit in my pocket, or in the duffel bag. And I will have my phone as well. If the grey whales do what they are supposed to (come up to the boats for a back rub), then I should not need the long lens.

    OK, enough geeky camera stuff. Here’s a couple of images from my recent review. Oh, and I will have a post or two before February – I’m heading off to the coast in January, to visit the elephant sea lion colony at the Ano Nuevo State Park. They have docent-led walks to watch the huge males fight during mating season. No penguins though.

    A since I mentioned it, short video clip, as we cruised through an ice field:

    And maybe a few images:

  • I Need More Toys

    This post is about photography technology and my latest obsession with acquiring new toys for my hobby. So, you can ignore this if you want. Just a heads up.

    The last time I bored my faithful viewers with a post about photo equipment, I may have said that I was through making major purchases after buying the Sony 7 IV. Well, it turns out I was just kidding.

    I had figured that I would be relying on the new Sony A7 IV as my primary camera, and I could bring the older A7R II along if I wanted to have a backup on longer trips. That worked fine for singular focused (more unintentional puns) trips, like whale watching or hummingbirds, where all I needed was the new long lens. The Alaska trip was more of a problem. Most days there was a mix of wildlife and landscape photo ops, so I had to either change lenses on the fly, or rely on my phone for the landscape shots. Zodiac photography made things worse – trying to change lenses in a crowded, small, wet boat introduced a high risk factor of dropping the camera either in the wet boat bottom, or worse, the very wet ocean. In Antarctica, it will be a lot of fun trying to change lenses in the cold weather either in the boats or on the shore…standing on ice and snow. With penguins pecking at my boots.  And if you own a mirrorless digital camera, you have probably already experienced the joy of trying to clean a dirty sensor. 

    For all of my upcoming trips I will have that same mix of landscape/close-up vs. longer distance wildlife photography, and was considering using my very old Sony 7R II for landscape (shorter lens), and the new A7 IV with the long telephoto for wildlife. That would work of course, but now I’d have to lug two different sets of batteries and chargers along. Plus, and now for the real reason, this gave me the opportunity to trade in the old camera (10 years) for a new one. Camera shopping!!!! Off to Mike’s Camera!

    Actually, I did a lot of research first. If I was going to make a major investment in another camera body, I wanted to make sure it was the right one. I had been considering a different line of cameras which use a different, smaller sensor technology than the A7 line, the APS-C  versus full-frame. The Sony cameras are a bit smaller, lighter and a bit less expensive than the full-frame line like the A7 IV. They also have a completely different set of lenses that are designed for the smaller sensor, although the full-frame lenses can be used as well. The problem, for me at least, with the APS-C cameras is the cropping factor – the smaller sensor limits the scope/breath of the image, so you are effectively increasing the length of the lens by 1.5X. That’s great if you want more of a telephoto effect, which is not what I’m looking for with landscape photography. So for example, a 24-70mm lens loses the wide angle, since the crop factor makes this a 36-95mm lens. 

    When I got to Mike’s, I was able to try this out with a few of the smaller sensor cameras. I liked the smaller body size, but the cropping did not work for me. What I really wanted was the top-end full-frame camera, the A7R V. And as it turns out, Sony was having an incredible sale on this camera. And with the trade-in for my old camera, it was less than the APS-C bodies I was looking at. And I would not need to buy new lenses either.  Simple decision – convincing myself took about 5 seconds. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use it before I leave for Antarctica. Plenty of time for that – I’m sure I can fit that into my incredibly busy schedule of doing nothing. I’m sure I’ll be able to talk myself into spending some time playing with the new camera.

    Speaking of lenses, now that I have a long telephoto (500mm), I would really like to get to a point where I only need to carry two lenses – the big zoom for wildlife, and an all-purpose zoom for everything else, something like a 20-150mm. This would give me coverage for just about every situation, with just the two camera bodies. Currently, I have a 24-105mm, and a 17-24mm wide angle. I do not really shoot too much at the lower wide angle range, so if I had a 24-200mm for example, I’d just have to lug two lenses along on trips. Well, Mike’s Camera is having a sale in November, with that exact lens. So I may not be done with my toy obsession just yet.

    Two last comments on photo equipment (if you are still awake reading this…zzzzzz). First – I did mention the use of my phone for landscape photography. The new Pixel 10 has an excellent camera, and I’m finding that in some cases, I’d rather just use the phone instead of the heavy digital camera. Cave tours are a good example – it’s difficult enough just winding your way through tight and/or low passages. It is hard maintaining your balance and keep the camera from banging against rocks at the same time. The same goes for kayaking – I have a waterproof case for the phone (and the GoPro too), so I do not have to worry about trying to keep the expensive Sony out of the water. And then there are crazy hikes like the Manitou Incline. The phone was all I could handle. I did not see anyone with anything other than phones or GoPro’s on that little adventure.

    The second and thankfully last point, is why am I taking photo’s with the big, hi-tech cameras at all. I’m finding of late, that rather than using the blog to describe the images I’m creating with the high-end camera’s, the images are secondary to writing the stories of my travels. I’m using more of the jpeg images from my phone than the higher quality raw photos I take with the digital cameras. But I still want to continue submitting photos to contests, and go on tours focused on wildlife photography, like the Kodiak bear trip or an African safari. If I ever get to the point where all I’m doing are cruises, I may have to rethink my priorities when it comes to photography. Hopefully it will be a long time until I have to make that decision. Besides, the phone technology will probably make full frame digital cameras obsolete by then.