Expedition Photography Tips

In the middle of February, I joined Northstar Canoe and a seasoned crew of adventurers on the Rio Grande River. We paddled the lower canyon using the new Northstar B-17 in the IXP layup. While I write a photography column for Ocean Paddler Magazine and have photographed expeditions before, this trip lead to a slightly different style of shooting. I always look at an expedition as a teaching experience and I learned some interesting knowledge nuggets that I’ve been able to turn into a half dozen expedition photography tips you can use on your own trips.

Photography and Electronics Kit

The above cell phone shot shows the gear that I was considering for the trip. I ended up only bringing the gear left of the tripod, including the tripod minus the keyboard. I left the GoPro in the lower right and the Sony FDRX3000 home, but in retrospect that was a mistake. It wouldn’t have been an issue to bring either along. I also didn’t bring the Sony RX100m3 or its waterproof case. I didn’t miss it.

Here’s what I brought:

• Sony A7rii
• Sony a6500
• Sony 16-35 f/4
• Sony 24-70 f/4
• Sony 70-200 f/4
• Sony 16-70 f/4
• Zeiss Batis 18mm f/2.8
• Shutter release cord (off-brand)
• SD card case with eight 32- to 64-GB cards
• 8 extra batteries (plus the two in the camera)
• TOPO Design Rope camera strap
• Peak Design camera clips
• RAVPower 26800 PD Portable Charger 26800mAh
• RAVPower Battery Charger Set of Sony
• InReach SE Messenger (satellite text messaging and SOS)
• Battery-power lantern (w/ orange gel)
• 2x LED tea candle lights (orange)
• PrincetonTec EOS Headlight
• Blower bulb
• Lens cloth
• Lens cleaning solution
• Lenspen
• Spare Allen wrench
• Desmond DCF-428 Traveler Tripod
• Kirk BH-3 ballhead
• Filters all Singh-Ray: 2- & 3-stop Reverse ND Grads, 2- & 3-stop Soft ND Grads, polarizer
• Outdoor Research Padded Cell in a Sealline 10 HD drybag
• Watershed Ocoee Photo Kit Plus

What Worked

Pretty much everything worked well. I can’t really complain about anything that I brought, because having used most of it frequently I knew what advantages and disadvantages each piece of gear had. For example, the Sony system with the f/4 lenses is small and packs great for a trip like this, but the version of the camera I was using has terrible battery life, which forced me to bring 10 batteries and a power pack. You just need to know your gear for a trip like this to know how to work around the limitations.

InReach SE Messenger: I’ve had this thing for years. InReach gave it to me for an expedition that I couldn’t go on. I finally used it. Each night, I’d fire it up and send my wife a text via satellite. The text would give my condition (I’m okay) and our campsite location. I used it one morning to get the weather, but after that morning I didn’t really care anymore, because we were paddling regardless of the weather. It did come in handy in an interesting situation we encountered. A group a couple of days ahead of us pinned one of their canoes around a rock in the middle of a set of rapids. They abandoned it and left a note. The note said they were okay. We freed the canoe and stashed it on shore at a campsite. We considered paddling it down river, but in the end that would have put our party in a bit of a bind that nobody wanted to deal with. Instead, I texted my wife, explained the situation and asked her to contact the National Park Service (they manage the route even though it is on private land). NPS had a few questions which she texted back. We answered them. This might have saved some rangers time and hassle knowing where the canoe was and that they wouldn’t need to bring pulleys and gear to set a z-drag.  If I was buying one now, I’d get the InReach Explorer+ which has maps built in.

The two body combo using one full-frame camera and one cropped-sensor camera. The 16-35 f/4 lived on the full frame body and the 70-200 f/4 lived on the cropped-sensor. This gave me an ultra wide to wide option and a telephoto. This worked well for this trip. I used the 70-200 to shoot whitewater action and the 16-35 for everything else. Both cameras lived in the Watershed Ocoee bag and sat in front of me. When I needed to get a shot, the Ocoee was easy to get into.

What Didn’t

Almost everything that I brought worked well, but after the first day I didn’t put the 24-70 f/4 or the 16-70 f/4 on the camera. It was so dusty that any lens change introduced dust onto the sensors. It was hard work to clean them in the tent at night, which was also dusty. The 24-70 wasn’t wide enough for the shots I wanted to get nor was it long enough. Because the 70-200 f/4 lived on the a6500, I never used the 16-70 f/4. Both these lenses could have been handy if another lens had stopped working. But, they were essentially backup lenses and extra weight.

I felt like I needed a lightweight bag for hiking to carry my camera gear in. I was hauling it around in my hands and some of the canyons required climbing and scrambling that was hindered by having my hands tied up. Several times, I’d go off on a walk with just a camera and regret it when I needed the tripod and filters. I’d run through cactus to get back to camp and grab gear. I missed shots several times doing this. I’d bring a lightweight pack-able backpack to carry camera gear if I did this trip again.

Sony’s batteries. I knew about it, but it still didn’t work well. They fixed this problem in the latest cameras.

The TOPO Design rope strap seems cool, but when on your neck it slides around and causes rope burn. Skip it.

Expedition Photography Tips

1. Know the limitations of your gear and plan around it. No piece of gear is perfect and almost every piece of photography gear has a trade-off. Plan for the trade-off or accept it and move on to getting pictures.
2. Use two bodies: 1 for wide angle and 1 for telephoto. This allows you to capture the action without switching lenses.
3. Bring the GoPro if for nothing else but shooting timelapse at sunrise and sunset.
4. When on a water-based expeditions, get a Watershed camera bag. It is by far the best I’ve used when on the water. I used the Ocoee, because I own one and the size also works for my kayak. But, the next size up would have worked even better.
5. To avoid carrying multiple camera straps, use Peak Design’s Anchor Links. This allows easy switching or removal of the straps. Removing the straps came in handy at sunset when it was windy.
6. To light tents at night I used orange tea candle lights. They weigh little are small and make the perfect amount of light. Carry two for your light shots.

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