Share your experiences, Alaska

[Bill Dufour]

Thirty years ago I was told 200mm was the longest lens you could use on a hand held camera. More then that and you got camera shake or you had to add a gun stock handle to the setup.
Similar to about 7-10x power with binoculars. 30mm lens for daylight 50mm for night. Any more then that is wasted unless you have a good mount. That is from my childhood neighbor, a freighter captain
Bill D

[George Yetka]

It wont be once in a lifetime I did it with my family when i was 23 or so. And had to do it again with my wife for our honeymoon. Now im waiting for my kids to be old enough to go again.

I recommend going out of vancouver and spending a few days there. Its a beautiful city. We did bike tour and had some great meals

Along the passage horseback riding, glacier tour(helicopter ride onto glacier), yukon trane, Air tour(Mine was canceled as the day befores group tragically crashed), Boat tours. Actually anything is amazing

Off the boat rent a car and head up to denali. get a bus tour into the park.(I think the one to go with is the second to longest.Ive done this part twice the short one the first time and didnt end up seeing anything. The second trip I saw a ton of grizzlys and moose.

Packing is easy. Your not really going to be roughing it so pack what makes you comfortable. Days are warm sometimes hot. Nights are cool.
I brought a 300mm lens with a magnifier it was great in denali. Aside from that a 70-200 covered the rest of the trip.

In between the boat and denali there are some cool spots. Gold mines/ a town that had a cat as a mayor(Talkeetna) was here for fourth of July

I would do 4-7 days on land after the cruise

[Paul F Franklin]

Thirty years ago I was told 200mm was the longest lens you could use on a hand held camera. More then that and you got camera shake or you had to add a gun stock handle to the setup.
Similar to about 7-10x power with binoculars. 30mm lens for daylight 50mm for night. Any more then that is wasted unless you have a good mount. That is from my childhood neighbor, a freighter captain
Bill D

That was true 30 years ago....but lenses with built in vibration reduction (VR lenses), and the high equivalent ISO of digital sensors, allowing very fast exposure speeds even with limited light, mean you can hand hold much longer lenses these days. leaning against something or using a unipod or tripod is still a good idea, but not as critical as it used to be in many cases. I'm sure you've seen the sharp photos the sports photogs get even though they are hand holding those huge lenses on the sidelines.

[Jim Becker]

Thirty years ago I was told 200mm was the longest lens you could use on a hand held camera. More then that and you got camera shake or you had to add a gun stock handle to the setup.

"Back in the day" that was probably good general advice. But with many long lenses containing image stabilization these days, it's less of an issue. But this is also the reason I suggested a monopod for those long shots...it provides additional assistance but takes up almost no space in luggage or while walking around.

[Scott Winners]

If you are going to ride into Denali on a park bus instead of a tour bus, you want to go as far as the Eielson visitor center. The cruise/tourists busses don't go that far. But Eielson is far enough. You will be able to see at least part of the mountain, a metric ton of wildlife, and you will have time to ride to Eielson, hike up a hill with a picnic, relax, hike back down, RTB, long day, but there is no good reason to ride in any further on a day trip.

If you take the park bus all the way to Wonder Lake, the bus stop is between the lake and the mountain; you will have zero chance to duplicate Ansel's shot and there isn't time to hike around the lake to take the shot and catch a bus back to the visitor center.

[Scott Winners]

If you make it as far as Fairbanks you are welcome to stop by to try out my leg vise, but compared to South East, Fairbanks has very little to offer. Denali's peak is usually shrouded in cloud. If the mountain is "out" take 16 million pictures while you can.

[Mike Henderson]

I did the inside passage cruise in Alaska many years ago. When thinking of a camera, look at 4/3rds cameras instead of 35mm cameras. The lens is effectively doubled compared to a 35mm camera. I have a 4/3rds Olympus with a 12-200mm zoom. That gives me the equivalent of a 24-400mm on a 35mm camera. And on my Olympus, I can do a 2X digital zoom, which makes the lens equivalent to a 48-800mm lens on a 35mm camera. The quality is quite good. The camera and the lenses are smaller than a 35mm camera and equivalent lenses.

I blog our trips. You can look at our recent trip to see the photo quality. Some of the pictures were taken with an iPhone 13.

A 35mm camera with a 400mm, or 600mm lens, is quite large and heavy, and you'll probably need shorter lenses for some of your shots. It makes a big, heavy kit.

An iPhone is quite good for shots on the ship, but the telephoto on the iPhone is not very good.

Mike

[Michael Drew]

I concur with Mike.....

I use Olympus gear. I have a now obsolete E30..... I can't give it up, because I can shoot it well and I have many lenses, filters, multipliers, etc. I tried Canon and Nikon and just didn't like how they felt in my hand. It's not a 4/3, but is a tad bit smaller and lighter than full frames. But even so, it's not fun to travel with, especially with accompanying lenses and tripod. So much so, I rarely use it anymore.

If I were to start from scratch today, I'd go the micro route. 20K of shooting gear does no good if it's at home. The smaller/lighter micro gear would definitely travel around with me more than what I have now. I think that little 'inconvenience' often gets overlooked.

[John K Jordan]

In celebration of my 5 year clean cancer scan, we've booked a Cruise of the Inland Passage August 2023. Anyone that has done this, share your "Must Do" list or "Must Pack" item. This is a once in a lifetime trip for us and I want to make sure we maximize oour experience.

I have a friend doing that this summer. Ask me later and I'll see if he has advice to share.

We don't do cruises but when we went to Alaska we flew into Anchorage, rented a jeep, and spent a couple of weeks driving the highways and backroads. What an experience. Grizzlies, Moose, so much wildlife.

[Rick Potter]

Congrats on the health. Mentioned before, but don't miss the train trip at Skagway. We also learned reindeer could 'see' grass under the snow.