By the hundreds of thousands members of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd fill valley after valley, Nikon D3x, 24-70mm f2.8

Barren Ground Grizzly wandering the edge of the Arctic Refuge. Nikon D3x, 600mm f4 VR lens

Far away from the centers of our civilization lies a land of wonder, where hundreds of thousands of caribou roam the plains, where myriads of birds migrate to rear their chicks and where the kingdoms of grizzly and polar bears meet. It is America’s vast Arctic, far removed from the rest of the world, but heavily affected by humankind.

Thousands of murres gather on pools on the ice awaiting the nesting season on the nearby cliffs; Nikon D3x, 70-200mm f2.8

A large lead opens in the Chuckchi Sea between Pt. Hope and Cape Lisburne; Nikon D3x, 24-70mm f2.8

For many years environmental organizations have fought for the protection of the Alaskan arctic, but as the energy crisis worsens, pressure is driving Congress to open this wilderness sanctuary to oil drilling and mining operations. As part of my Freedom to Roam project in connection with the Blue Earth Alliance and Braided River Books, I am  working to produce photographic material in support of the Arctic Conservation Campaign. With compelling imagery I hope we can reach Congress and the general public by showing a true portrait of a land often called a “barren wasteland”.

Sea ice landscape at the edge of the lead. Nikon D3x, 14-24mm f2.8

A polar bear roams the edge of the packice in the Chuckchi Sea. Nikon D300, 200-400mm f4 + TC/E 1.4

After spending many months on the ground amongst hundreds of thousands of caribou, nesting birds and barren ground grizzlies in 2008, I realize, that the only way to cover this massive expanse of land is the aerial perspective. So in 2008 I started to plan a major “Arctic Aerial Expedition”, as part of the 2009 work on the Freedom to Roam project. The goal was to show wildlife in their environment, offering a true representation of the way animals depend on this interconnected ecosystem. My goal was to document the retreating sea ice, the platform for seals, walrus, birds and the polar bear as well as to document the 3 major caribou herds of the arctic slope.

I want to invite you to follow my blog as I am going to share with you some of the amazing experiences I had over the last weeks photographing Alaska`s Arctic. Please pass the info on to friends who are interested in wildlife, conservation, Alaska and photography.

.. is undoubtably one of the most important tools in wildlife photography. While sometimes it seems one may be waisting ones time, I have learned that if one give into the waiting game, animals start to present themselves: You discover a little birds nest nearby, you observe a fox that does its daily round to mark its territory – and if you are lucky the moment you are waiting for may come true. Some of the best images in my career happened after such long hours of waiting. 

Snowy Owl returns to the nest to feed the female and chicks. Nikon D3, 500mm/f4 AF-I

After 72 hours this was won of the “golden” moments that made all the waiting worth while. Emil and I had scoped out a good nesting location of the snowy owls. It was a great Lemming year and there were many active nests near the town of Barrow in the northern most tip of Alaska. After acquiring permission to set up a blind the waiting game began. 

Wishful thinking

While I can loose my patience quickly with stuff that “unnecessarily” takes a long time, I can have the patience of an elephant after I get “hocked” on the idea of an image. Often I make different scenarios up in my mind. It becomes a collection of imaginary moments of whishful thinking. These thoughts nourish my desire to wait for those moments to materialize. 

Believe me. There are many times when I have waited for nothing. But the times when a wonderful image came out of it make the wait all worth it. In my career some of the best images came out of such stubbornness, where I just did not want to give up on the image. 

I loved the many hours out on the tundra with the owls. There was so much to see and listen to.

Observations

Owl mother settling her downs around the chicks

I quickly learned about the hunting pattern of the male, that would sit guard some 150 yards from the nest. He occasionally would fly from mount to mount to switch out his perches from where he would hunt the lemmings.
The female would have the responsibility over the nest. She needed to keep the chicks and the last remaining egg warm.

But even she did get anxious once in a while. She had been sitting on this nest for  many weeks, through rain and snow and the daily harassment of the jaegers.
If a long time had passed where the male had not brought in any food, she seemed to try to motive him for the hunt with longing calls. Then when the male finally arrived after a successful hunt, she would change her calls to a kind of ongoing “purring” sound to encourage him to pass over the food. 

Male arrives at the nest with a lemming

It was her job to feed the chicks. I watched the male try once in an helpless effort to stuff a whole lemming into the mouth of a chick. He quickly gave up though, just dropped the little rodent and took off for its perch again.

WHAT IS YOUR PATIENCE REWARD STORY ?

Rainshowers over the Brooks Range - Nikon D3x, 24-70mm f2.8 lens

We started our aerial expeditions heading north beyond the Arctic Circle. Coming from Fairbanks I met my pilots in Coldfoot and we flew west towards the National Petroleum Reserve. It is a vast landscape of open valleys soon turning into treeless tundra. Only willow bushes remain. Beneath us I see the trails that caribous have carved into the ground over decades and centuries. On the riverbeds we also see the tracks of grizzly bears and wolves.

Midnight on the Nigu River in the National Petroleum Reserve - Nikon D3x, 24-70mm f2.8 lens

On the gravel bars of the Nigu we find a spot to set down the bushplanes. It is a wonderful arctic night on the Nigu River. The sun never sets, but colors the mountaintops at the edge of the valley.

Aerial photography out of the Wilga with the NIkon D3x and GP-1 GPS receiver

We are supposed to head out in the field today for several weeks of intensive aerial photography, but I just wanted to squeeze in another post about a super cool little tool: The Nikon GP-1 GPS receiver. This little thing is a must for people who do aerial photography. I think it is also very cool for someone who is on a hiking, rafting or whatever trip and wants to later go back to locations on a maps recreating a picture trail. 

Nikon GP-1 GPS receiver 

Nikon GP-1 on the D3x

The GP-1 receiver just slides onto the camera into the flash shoe holder and you plug it into the bodies 12 pin connecter where the cable release normally goes. That is it and you are ready to go. You may want to switch the setting in the camera so that the GPS collects data whenever the camera is on. So that the GPS data is immediately available when you are taking a picture.  But switch off the camera if you do not use it and bring some extra batteries for the camera, because they do drain faster.

Lightroom Map feature

I will talk more about this tool when I get back – just another little hint. If you use lightroom, they have an automated tool in the library, that you can click on the GPS data and you immediately see the location on the map. Huge help for the keywording when you are flying around all over Alaska and do not know every river, mountain and creek.

A glacial stream mixes with the turquoise water of Lake Clark

My only concern with always having the exact GPS location embedded in the photograph is that certain photographers might like an image and will go to exactly the same location. With some landscape photographs that might get a big whole in the ground from tripods and photographers feet all trying to copy the same image ………..

Image of a giant group of Mobula Rays shoot with the Nikon D3x with 24.5 MP

I often get asked about my gear and Emil has been bugging me to do some updates about the photography, techniques and gear. So I better give it a start. I got the Nikon D3x a little while ago and I am sure some of you are burning to hear some my first impressions. Well, to sum it up in one sentence: I am completely impressed with the camera!

Hasselblad vs Nikon D3x

This year I knew I had to do a lot of aerial work for my Freedom to Roam project which meant I need to get a high resolution images in a single shot. There was no chance for stitching multiple images together to get a high resolution image. So for a while I way toying with the idea of renting a Hasselblad with a nice set of lenses. I borrowed on of the cameras from Glazers in Seattle and tried it out on a Sunday afternoon. To tell you the trooth, the Hasselblad produced wonderful images, but it was somewhat clumsy and slow in use. I imagined myself trying to photograph wildlife from the air in a fast moving plane and quickly tossed the idea. At that time the Nikon D3x was not out yet so I had no idea what I was going to do. When the camera finally was available I ordered it “blind” from Glazers and Emil bought it out into the field. The big advantage over the Hassi were the Super Fast Auto Focus, the huge array of lenses I already owned and especially the 5 frames per second with a 16 image buffer. 

First Impressions of the Nikon D3x

The very first impression of the camera does not make you happy: That is the price tag. I had a while to digest that before I actually had the D3x in my hands. When I unpacked the camera in a motel room in Baja and played around with the settings and fired off the first rounds of shot I suddenly thought there was something wrong with the camera. Oh my good – in the middle of a major project with a bad new camera. The problem: In CH (continous shooting hispeed ) the camera only made about a frame and a half per second. I was quite disturbed. After checking the booklet I realized however, that the reason was, that I had set the bit depth to 14 Bit. That is probably the only negative surprise that I experienced with the camera. In any other regard I was extremly impressed with how well it hit the focuspoints spot on, and how great the image quality was even with the wideangle zoom lenses. (Which speaks more for the quality of Nikon glass then of the camera)

The Nikon D3x at work

I have had the Nikon D3x for several months in the field now and tested it in some of the most difficult shooting situations you can imagine. Shooting marine life at and under the waters surface out of a fast moving plane. Such a scenario normally would be a huge nightmare for any autofocus system. To lock onto a subject that is below a reflective surface, while racing by with over 100 mph. This is where the camera blew me away. Out of a rapid fire series often 100 % of the images were perfectly sharp. And believe me I am a sharpness freak, reviewing my images constantly at a 100%. In average I would say, that over 90% of the time the AF worked beyond my expectations and the sharpness that resulted in the images was equally impressive. I suddenly realized that my D3 started to just sit in the camera bag and the only times I picked it up was when I wanted to change a lens that was on the D3 to the D3x. This is not at all to say that the D3 is a bad camera. The contrary. It is probably one of the best cameras on the market because of its wonderful high ISO performance, but I just LOVED to have 24.5 MP files from the D3x. 

This image is zoomed to 100% of the resolutions of the image / 24.5 MP Nikon D3x

Will I sell my D3?

Absolutely not. I love the camera and there are so many situations where the High ISO quality will have the priority. Whether it is in my SUBAL UW housing or for night time photography. The D3 is a absolutely perfect camera for just about anything if you do not want to go really big as for exhibits or if you want to have the flexibility to sometimes do large crops. 

SO What about the higher ISO quality?

If you expected a D3x with the same ISO quality as the D3, just twice as many pixels, you are wrong. The D3x simply does not live up to that. The obvious reason: Nikon need to pack 24.5 MP on theD3x sensor, where the D3 has only little over 12 MP. These denser pixels cannot be as light sensitive and noise free. 

That being said, I do love the way Nikon approches “noise” as film grain. I like that “organic” look of the images. I is much more like a higher ISO traditional FILM that digital image noise. Without hesitation I used settings between 400 ISO and 1000 ISO which were sufficient for my shooting situations. Beyond 1000 ISO the quality drops more obviously.

More to come about the gear in use …………

Shot with the Nikon D3 and 14-24mm lens

Came back to Anchorage few days ago after a short overflight on a bush plane. We started in Anchorage flying towards Katmai Park, covering Cook Inlet, along the Chigmit Mountains, and in between landing in Urus Cove and Bruin Bay to document the incredible views that volcano Augustin offers from most of the places we explored. We found lots of harbor seals, grizzly bears and black brants flying over the mud flats. It is just so incredible to see, how the landscape takes up on a complete different shape when seeing it from the air. 

Exploring Alaska with a Wilga. Emil short after landing, takes a good stretch. Volcano Agustine in the background viewed from Ursus Cove.

Augustine Volcano - Nikon D3x with 24-70mm F2.8 lens

We also covered Lake Iliamna and on the way back Florian took some interesting abstract pictures of Lake Clark and its mixed glacial and fresh water patterns. Stayed tuned for more updates on the aerial work that Florian will be doing in the north!

ESPAÑOL

Y como buena Mexicana, no me puede faltar de vez en cuando, una traducción breve sobre nuestras aventuras en el Norte.

Regresamos a Anchorage hace unos dias. Fue una experiencia increible poder sobrevolar una parte de la costa sur de Alaska, especificamente Cook Inlet, que esta escoltado por las montañas Chigmit. Fue un vuelo innolvidable porque vimos mucha vida salvaje desde el aire, y la manera en la que el paisaje cambia cuando lo ves desde esta perspectiva es fascinante. Descubrimos un grupo de focas anilladas, osos grizzlies y un tipo de ganso negro, bellisimo que estaban migrando al norte. 

En estas fotos me pueden ver volando en una avioneta Wilga, con unas ventanas panoramicas increibles que te dejaban ver para todos lados. Sí vamos a estar apretados, mejor no sentirse claustrofobicos, no? Florian viajo siempre en la parte de atras para poder abrir la ventana y yo venia de aeromoza repartiendo bebidas y alimentos… y encargada de la foto familiar. Ja! Mas abajo, pueden verme estirar mis piernas con la hermosa vista del Volcán Agustin, en la Bahia del Oso. Y por ultimo un piloncito de foto que Florian tomo mientras yo tomaba la foto familiar en la avioneta.

Mantenganse al tanto para nuevo material que estaremos subiendo de nuestras proximas expediciones.