Tim December 20th, 2007

December 10th 2007

Beagle Channel and through the Drake Passage

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The first day on Polar Star was spent mostly cruising through the Beagle Channel en route For the Drake Passage. For the most part we had reasonable weather sea wise but the photo opportunities were rather dull due to the over cast skies and dull coloring. Not one to be daunted by the lack of subject matter I thought that I would practice my skills with bird shots as they were hovering about the stern of the ship and presenting me with a subject matter that I had not really been giving much energy up to this point, primarily being a landscape photographer.

Pintado Petrels

These photos posted here are not the ones with the dull background described earlier, mostly because that was the 2000 images that it took for me to get something that was reasonable to present here. It was a bit frustrating to get my eye/camera to match the challenge of capturing birds flying at speed, twisting turning and diving into the sea at the last moment. never mind the rocking of the ship on top of that. What? My horizon is not horizontal? Ha-ha I was lucky to get a bird never mind something horizontal. Never the less I am stubborn, if not a little blurry eyed after 5-6 hours of the digital learning experience. Yes, it was sunset before It all came together. After trying various settings in the menu on the Nikon D80 and 18-200mm VR lens. My percentage of success improved and I could then start to focus on getting a composition, as well as the birds in some kind of focal order.

Pintado Petrel

Giant Petrel

Giant Petrel

This last shot is Debbie’s of a Blackbrowed Albatross shot with her Nikon D70s and Nikon 70-300mm VR lens. A much better lens for the job magnification wise but just as difficult to get the proper focus in time. The auto focus on our cameras was not quite as fast as required and did a lot of searching before locking in. Doing it manually was a option but the rate of success was no better. The best choice we had was to shoot like crazy and hope for the best.

Blackbrowed Albatross                                   image by Debbie Garside

The next posting will be missing a day. It was stormy for our Drake Channel crossing and I was more horizontal then anything. Although I did try to make it to the galley for breakfast in the morning telling myself that seasickness was all in the mind and it was just a matter of focus in order to continue as before. But as god willed it I was running for the door within a minute and diving for the deck my determination awash in nausea. Debbie having sensibly worn the the seasickness patch had to deal with my "natural remedy state" for only a day before I recovered wearing my sea legs. I was never seasick again throughout the rest of the journey.

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• Tim Schumm