Here is the equipment I took with me:
Nikon Coolpix 5700
Nikon 1.5x Telephoto Lens
Olympus B300 1.7x Telephoto Lens
Raynox Wide Angle Lens
Maha Powerbank External Battery Pack
MBE-5700 Battery Pack with Maha AA rechargeables
Tiffen Filters Polarizing/UV
Nikon SB50DX External Flash
IBM 1 GB MicroDrive
Viking 512 MB Compact Flash
Velbon Maxi347GB Tripod
Nikon MC-EU1 Remote
Sony SRX Mini Laptop
Bus Link External 20 MB USB Hard Drive
Here is a summary of my experience with the equipment:
I spent a couple of months ahead of my trip practicing with the 5700 which helped a lot. I kept the camera in fast shutter mode the entire trip. This allows more rapid shooting in general.
I feel that I really pushed the 5700 to its limits on this trip – both in terms of focus speed/action shots, telephoto capability and battery life. I learned to screw in/out adaptors and lenses faster than a gun slinging cowboy.
The weather wasn’t very cold – mostly 30-35 Fahrenheit – we were lucky – but I found that the life of the MBE-5700 AA Maha rechargeables left a lot to be desired in cold weather. They drained about twice as fast as at 70F. I often went through both sets of AAs on one two hour zodiac landing.
The Maha Powerbank External Battery Pack was a great addition. It is fairly easy to use – and has massive amounts of energy. I needed it on the extended zodiac trips.
Initially, I shot in FINE mode with my Viking Compact Flash 512 MB. But, ultimately, I found that using the IBM Microdrive with the Powerbank, the camera operated much faster and could generally accommodate multiple RAW mode shots. The camera definitely operated at faster speeds with the extra power from the powerbank.
I personally see a great difference in quality in my RAW mode shots over FINE – and prefer to shoot in RAW mode whenever I can. For the web, FINE mode is great but for blowing up poster size prints, I want RAW mode.
I was lucky with weather and light. In general, we had lots of sunlight – which actually made it hard to use larger aperture settings. So, few of my shots have soft backgrounds. However, many action shots (like the whales) are very sharp – amazingly so.
I found the Tiffen filters hurt image quality in general – so I stopped using them. The Sony Laptop (it’s tiny) was a great help in analyzing the results from the days shooting – and making adjustments the next day.
My shots definitely improved each day I was there. There is a marked difference in quality between day 1 and day 4 and 5.
Due to the lack of time on our zodiac landings, I only used the tripod once – see the penguin shots at Neko bay. With the Remote and the tripod, these are definitely very sharp shots – in overcast conditions.
I found the Raynox Wide Angle lens to work well for landscape shots – as the edge softness was less noticeable.
I did get some vignetting when I used the wide angle and the Olympus B300. I got a lot of vignetting when using the Nikon 1.5x with the Oly B300 with a 58-55mm step down – depended on zoom setting and angles/light I think.
The quality of the Nikon 1.5x is quite high. The Oly B300 is just about as good – it handles the light very well. I was impressed with both lenses. The Oly is bulkier – but otherwise I’d highly recommend it too.
Sometimes with the screw in lenses, I found the OlyB300 brought me too close to my subjects. It was frustrating to have to swap lenses as I moved around through penguin colonies – as subjects I chose were often at various distances.
When it did snow, rarely, see the leopard seal shots, focus time was much slower. The Nikon does very poorly even in light snow conditions.
Once I started using RAW mode, I did lose some wonderful shots. With the humpbacks, I missed all the blow/spouts and a wonderful two tale shot. Mostly due to slow focus time – but more so often caught waiting for my third RAW shot to record. Even with the faster record times with the powerbank battery back, this was too slow sometimes for wildlife shooting. I also missed a shot of the leopard seal with mouth/teeth agape.
There was an 82 year old woman from Italy on our trip. She had a point and shoot film camera and a Nikon 5700. She did well with it – but it’s definitely too complex a camera for the average user.
I think in retrospect – I will move up to the next generation DSLRs as soon as possible – as I am tired of screwing in accessory lenses and losing shots to slow focus/record times.
I probably will not recommend the 5700 to friends. It’s too complex, too slow focusing and too complicated to learn. Now that I am accomplished with it, I’ll probably keep it as a back up camera – to my hopefully future next generation D-SLR. However, I’ve even considered selling it – for a more manageable camera. I haven’t made up my mind yet.
Still, the 5Mpixel quality and sharpness potential of the 5700 is quite wonderful. I can’t wait to blow up some poster size prints.
Well, for several months I read and read all of your posts - bought
lots of Nikon accessories and finally headed out on my vacation to
Antarctica.
Thanks everyone for your ideas and suggestions. The Maha Powerbank
external battery pack rocks!
Please let me know what you think of my photos - I haven't done any
processing yet but hope to soon...
http://www.pbase.com/reifman/antarctica&page=all
Thanks,
-Jeff
