As per my original outline of what I was planning to bring, here’s what I brought and what worked and what didn’t:
R5 + RF 100-500mm ƒ5.6-7.1 L IS USM, + 24-105mm ƒ4 L, + RF tele-extender 2X, polarizers, grad ND, lightweight carbon tripod, monopod, + Backup camera: GX-1 MkIII, + 430EX III-RT Flash, + Wandrd Prvke 21L Camera Backpack + one or two of Sea-to-Summit Dry Bags. Also: Canon Binoculars 10x30 IS II, Domke® Photographer’s Vest, Merrell® Moab 3 Waterproof Hiking Shoes.
Here's a sampling of images with technical data:
R5 + RF 100-500mm L , used it a lot for whales and birds.
R5 + RF 24-105mm ƒ4 L: used it most of the rest of the time for landscape and other non-boating, non-bird shots.
R5 + RF 16mm ƒ2.8: used it occasionally for wide open landscapes such as glaciers or volcanic areas. Could have used the 24-105mm, but sometimes the 16mm was better. It is tiny and doesn’t weigh much, so why not bring it? I thought…
RF Extender 2X: opportunities were limited to use it. Although the whales are often far away, putting the tele-extender onto the 100-500mm lens rendering it into a 600mm-1,000mm lens was ineffective because of the movement of the boat and the very small field of view. It became impossible to even find the whales through the viewfinder since there’s just a small field of view and a lot of rocking making it very difficult to find or focus with it. (I did use it for a couple of whale shots early on, included here, and realized the problems with using it, so didn't use it after that.)
Another issue is with birds in flight. They are fast moving and at 1,000mm you can’t even find them in the sky, let alone focus and lock in. With some practice I used my 100-500mm lens at no more than 300mm, which gave enough field of view to pick up the bird and let the autofocus lock in on the bird, and I either waited for the bird to fly towards me or if flying parallel to me, find the bird in the view finder, lock on the focus and then zoom out to 500mm. Most of the time I let the bird fly into me and took it at 300mm.
A few other things proved very useful:
- The Merrell® Moab 3 Waterproof Hiking Shoes (or whatever your favorite brand is.) You don’t need above-the-angle hiking boots, but a rugged-soled waterproof hiking boot is a must. The terrain is often rugged, getting on and off boats can be a challenge.
- My Domke®-photographer’s vest. I often travel with a photo vest for the obvious reasons, but also because of the tight weight restrictions on domestic flights, such as you would take in Greenland. Funny, they don’t care what passengers weigh, but they are rather strict about the weight of carryon bags! On both flights I took within Greenland I had to basically empty out my camera bag and put lenses, cameras, batteries in my photo vest as they wanted to check my camera bag! No way! So I shoved the R5 and the RF 100-500mm lens and the 24-105mm lens, and the RF tele-extender 2X, and my Backup camera: GX-1 MkIII, and my 430EX III-RT Flash all into the photo vest, and “passed” the weight restrictions on carry-on bags, and just walked onto the plane. After I got on board, I just replaced everything into my recently emptied camera bag! A stupid bit of charade, but you need to prepare for that!
- Monopod: I used this a lot, especially on boats for whale watching. The camera was always at the ready on the monopod and I didn’t have to hold it for 2 hours which would have hurt my hands. Ditto for the puffins. I think I only used the tripod a couple of times and could have done without it. It’s daylight almost round-the-clock in July in Greenland and Iceland.
- Both Greenland and Iceland are cloudy/overcast a lot at that time of year, so a monopod would help steady shots at lower shutter speeds.
- Didn’t use the flash much, but I always bring a flash anyway.
- Polarizers: most of the time it was overcast and not very bright, so a polarizer wasn’t useful.
- Back up camera: very useful, especially on boats where rain and rocking make changing lenses problematic. The G1-X III was good to have as a wider angle/up close camera when I had the 100-500 on the R5.
-Day pack: just a day pack to put your gear in for the day. The 21L pack I used for storing and moving all my camera gear, but for just a day out - especially on a boat - I don’t need everything, and a smaller, lighter daypack is what I used. It wasn’t a photographer’s back pack, just I lightweight 10L or so backpack I modified and packed with some inserts.
In the end, I would pack the same equipment, not a tripod though. I don’t think I’d change the lenses as with these 3, there really wasn’t any length that I didn’t have that I wished I had.
That’s about it…
