Photos and stories about digital photography in Alaska by professional photographer Patrick Endres
Category Archives: Camera and Lenses I’ve been using the Gitzo GT0541 in conjunction with the Really Right Stuff BH-25Pro Ulralight ballhead as a backpacking setup for a few years now. I’ve grown to really like it and find it sufficient and extremely light-weight for those day trip excursions that require a streamlined, but functional tripod. Every pound seems to count,…  I mentioned my trip into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in a recent post, and I have a few more photos to share from that journey. In a land that exhibits dramatic and distant vistas, it is not surprising to find compelling subjects close at hand as well. While hiking along the Marsh Fork of…  As a follow up to my previous post “wolf pack kills moose calf” last week, in which a colleague and I photographed a predator/prey scene in Denali National Park, I thought I’d make a few comments on the photographic equipment and technical side of that shoot, and then share a few pictures taken following the…  It’s going on six weeks since I had shoulder surgery, and I have not taken one photo in Alaska in 2010. That is the longest photo-free period for me ever. However, that is happily ending as I’m pushing equatorial boundaries again for the second time in three months, with travels to Peru (Machu Picchu-if the…  In a few days I leave for a month long trip to Antarctica as a staff member of Cheesman’s Ecology Safaris. Based on a 300 ft. Russian Ice Breaker, 100 passengers will voyage to the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia, the Orkney’s and the Antarctic Peninsula. I’ll be giving photo instruction and operating an inflatable boat…  The pursuit of northern lights photography led me to the purchase of Canon’s 24mm 1.4L, and the following updated version II of the same lens. My comments are derived from experience with this lens in the field and are not a comprehensive review by any measure. Here is what Canon has to say about this…  I was all ready to photograph the Gemenid meteor shower last night, but clouds moved in around midnight, which was a disappointment. However, on Sunday morning, I woke up to a faint aurora display, directly over my house. I grabbed my camera and took a few experimental shots. I say experimental because I was testing…  I’ve owned a Canon 5d Mark II for a few months now and have had some time to test it out under different shooting conditions. The digital files created by the camera are excellent, and this topic has been well discussed on the web already. What I’d like to share are a few comments specifically… I left the world of direct, on-camera flash some years ago, and its a needed step to take for creative and interesting lighting of subjects. In the past, I’ve used Canon’s ST-E2 Infrared Transmitter (Or a Canon 580 serves the same function when set as master), which would trigger off camera flashes through a infrared… close up of snow flakes in Delta Junction, Alaska Macro photography offers a view of the natural world not always seen. Fine details and intricate patters emerge, solid colors reveal they are made up of several colors mixed together, and distractions of the “big picture” vanish. Close up of flower blossom, 100mm canon macro There… Patrick is currently in the far north chasing the Aurora Borealis, or northern lights. He has with him an arsenal of equipment, not so much because such a variety is needed, but because there is no perfect aurora lens. The search for such a lens continues, and perhaps Canon’s new version of their 24mm F/1.4… Canon will soon be shipping the recently announced, much anticipated 5D Mark II. It matches the company’s flagship 1DS Mark III for resolution, with 21.1 megapixels, and boasts some interesting new features. Perhaps most interesting to many, however, is the price. At $2699 verses $7999 for the 1Ds Mark II, it brings professional resolution and… In switching from the 1Ds Mark II to the Mark III, one should really read the camera manual. Now how many people actually do this? I glanced at it, but must admit that I feigned an entire read. Until, I ran into a few odd discoveries, which prompted further exploration. Most notably, was the reduced… This image illustrates one main advantage of fast wide angle lenses–they offer shorter shutter speeds. Shorter exposure times mean more detail. A five second shutter speed in this case captures more distinctive shapes commonly found during the coronal display. These shapes tend to get all blurred together with long exposures. To achieve this however, you… Canon’s 1Ds Mark III offers a means to customize the factory specified four-digit camera name that precedes the four digit file name. In the process of implementing this option, I encountered a problem which had no answer in the documentation—at least not that I could find. Under the Tools 1 menu, I set the custom… 
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