Digital Photography in the Wilderness

Thank you very much .... first of all for the absolutely amazing photographs of places most of us will never see. Talking about battery life at low temperatures ... Even at lower altitudes (french alps) but also at temperatures around -25 to -30 C, I made similar experiences: Keeping two spare BP-511 and not using the display is just fine .... best regards ... Peter (http://www.fauland-photography.com)

As soon as I read your considerations on dSLR power consumption, I ran a quick review in my head: what uses power besides the LCD: the electronics: can't go without it. Mechanical stuff: shutter activation, mirror flip: can't go without it; auto-focus: hmm, here's something that could be turned off most of the time, if not all the time.

Have you considered the option? Did you use the auto-focus?

Thank you very much for your comments and for sharing your respective experiences.

The trip lasted for a month, out of which we spent 3+ weeks in the mountains. I could find an occasional power plug during the trek in the Khumbu valley (that region is well travelled by trekkers who go to the Everest base camp, and is accordingly developped), but once we left the tracks to approach "our" mountain, we left civilization, so we spent about 15-16 days completely on our own. Not that much, all in all, but the setup would have worked as well for a longer period.

Autofocus is a good point. I did use it, but since I shot mainly with a wide-angle it didn't have to work too much... Something to remember for next time.

I have been asked several times why I went digital in the first place, so I've updated the initial post on my website, here. You'll find also other good comments.

Thanks again for your interest,
J-F

I agree that a Nikon FM2N (or even 2) and film would have been the simplest of solutions.

In cold weather situations, using a disposable heat wrap (smaller size) attached to the the camera (it has adhesive tape) helps to prolong the batteries. Worked great with my D1 and Yellowstone's -15 degree weather.

Part of this issue of using electronics at higher elevations is also related to the chip construction techniques, or so I was told 10 yrs ago by an engineer. Most electronic components are manufactured at sea level ( +/- a few thousand feet). Air ( at sea level pressures) can become trapped in the epoxy casings the chips are 'cast' in. At higher elevations (ie lower air pressure), the pressure differential can cause the chips to "crack". You will notice that a lot of computer and other electronic systems have caveats about operation above 10-12,000 feet, esp if they generate any appreciable heat which would increase the likelyhood of a problem.

Notice the white spot on both these photos

While shooting on Mauna Kea in Hawaii with my Canon 10D, I started to get a white spot on the sensor. Seemed to go away after we descended back down. I do admit the sensor was a bit dirty so that could have had something to do with it, but it seemed strange.

Has this happened to anyone else?

But if we don't use the LCD and don't shot too much( like hundreds per day) and we also bring the film camera, why don't we just use the film camera and don't need worry about all the storage and power supply stuffs?

Richard,

I totally agree with you and I also understand almost everybody will move to digital sooner or later. My point is if we shot with DSLR we shouldn't limit us to view the LCD and limit the number of shotting because of battery and memory issues. Because we know there are some issues, so we bring a "backup", which may be a FC, or lot of batteries and CF.

The most exciting feature of DSLR, IMPO,is we can shot lot of frames in low cost and we can see the result via LCD and other tools in the camera. we should enjoy these features. And some new-coming DSLR will take the regular battery, just same as the AF film camera.

Beats a Polaroid for proofing your shots...

Please tell me this article is NOT one of those sneaky attempts to promote a product. It sounds so much as "If 10D is good enough for a mountain climber it MUST be good enough for me". This is not to say that the photographs on your website are not beautiful. Aren't they for sale too?. Respectfully, Zibadun.

I don't entirely buy the idea that digital is suitable for wilderness work.

For me, it would more likely be an extended canoe trip in a remote area than a trip up a mountain. Similar constraints apply: no access to electricity, weight being a concern, etc. Add to this the additional concern of waterproofing, shooting in the rain, etc.

A pile of film is heavy but not much more so than a pile of batteries, CD burner, and so on, especially with anything electronic packed into a watertight, padded case.

Power is not a non-issue. If you're being paid to bring back pictures and you end up without power, you'll lose a client -- they're buying pictures, not excuses. If you're an amateur this may not be such a prominent concern but you still have to be willing to take a risk. For journalists working in places like Iraq and Afghanistan this is not a problem because they work out of vehicles. But if you are away from a power source then power is one of your critical problems and until solar charging becomes a cheap alternative, it is a big reason for shooting film when in remote areas.

The point was already made that if you are going to carry a film system as backup, you might as well just carry film. From a weight perspective I'd agree with that; I don't want to worry about two systems.

I guess the bottom line is that digital will be fine as long as you don't run out of power and as long as you have backups for all the critical components. But to have that second card fail, or the CD burner fail, or to find your batteries dying ... very bad. And if someone is actually paying you to bring back pictures, disastrous.

I cannot help a Big Sigh! Digital, as the technology stands TODAY, has its place and its uses. But why drag it up a mountain?

Film is almost certainly more reliable and more accurate. Any argument with that statement? Worse than that for far flung journeys I've been recommended cameras independant of batteries. OM1 rather than OM4 for instance.

Yes I have a digital camera, great for family snaps where you want instant "look at aunty mary" results. If I worked in photojournalism it mght have its place too. But UNREPLACEBLE photographs from far away parts of the empire? Why?

Somebody once said that mountains are climbed because they are there. Bo**ocks, somebody wanted to see how close they got to god and how far they could see from the top. Since the invention of the camera he also wanted to come back with a picture of the view.

Digital is currently a retrograde step in mans journey to the top. When it's better than the current gold standard I'll take it to the top of my mountains, until then I'll take film.

Nearly forgot to say but..... Outstanding pics at this resolution!

I would be interested to know how many and what kind of lenses did you carry with you?

Hello,

The article is not a sneaky promotion, and I (unfortunately) have no relationship with Canon or other manufacturers. Digital over film has its advantages even in the mountains, which I have briefly described in an update to the article (http://www.maion.com/photography/weblog/2004-01-29.html). Your mileage may vary.

To answer the last question, I carried 3 lenses: 17mm (Tamron - 27mm on the 10D), which I used most, 50mm f1.8 (Canon - about 85mm on the 10D) and a 28-135 IS I used for long shots around base camp or while trekking (and as a backup would one of the other lenses fail). Next time I'll take a 28mm too. I also had a very short/lightweight but stable tripod, until base camp that is. (It someone is willing to send me a Gitzo Mountaineer 1028, I'd accept it gladly ;-)

Thanks again for your interest, and for the kind comments on the images!

J-F

Though I agree that digital is definitely useable in the wilderness, the question is whether one really wants to be subjected to so many things which may go wrong. My office-mate and his wife just got back from a trip to India and Nepal. He took along his D60, a 1-gig CF, a 512-meg CF, a 20-gig image tank G2, a sackful of lithium batteries and a couple of his favorite lenses, the 24-70/2.8 and the 70-200/2.8IS. His wife took her point and shoot film camera.

On the second day uphill, the 1-gig CF card started misbehaving, alternately causing an Err-02 or Err-99 on the D60 (whatever those are). The 512-meg card served its purpose, though. On the sixth day, the image-tank was dropped and rendered unserviceable, also possibly losing the images already in it (he's trying a recovery service this week). Power was never a problem, though. However for the rest of the trip, he was stuck with the single 512-meg CF card which quickly got full. Towards the end he had to manage with his wife's crappy point and shoot.

To me, the problem lies with the increased number of components which may fail, stop working at high altitudes/humidity levels, or are just that little bit more fragile, etc, (dying CF card, crashed hard disk, power loss, image corruption, etc). On the ground these can be easily controlled and backups made. These components can also be used carefully on the ground (don't drop your microdrives / HDD, etc). However in the wilderness one simply doesn't have this much control. Though things have worked, they may not always do so. What if both CF cards died? What if a couple of CF-interface pins got bent? Too many what-if's to be comfortable.

I've travelled a lot myself, and have dropped my film, abused my camera and lenses, etc but the problems were much less. A couple of spare Lithium batteries were always enough to last me months. A dropped film doesn't corrupt images or stop "working". An EOS-1v is probably just as shock-proof as a 1D. I almost never have to bother about power. The variables are much easier to control. I don't see myself using digital when travelling any time in the mid/near future.

Hi,

First of all, the pictures are just awesome. Good work!

I personally think wilderness isn't a place for a digital camera, nowadays. It still has many flaws, mainly on the side of circuitry protection.

But they are getting more and more withstanding and the energy consumption is getting more optimal. I think that the 1D MK II is one of the first digital cameras that would be capable of operating optimally in the extremes. But not that many people have money for such a body. Suposedly the Nikon D2H or even the original Canon 1D would cope too, don't know. But well protected, the 10D is just as good, as has been shown :) The advantages are costs and time. If you film with a digital camera you get the pictures ready for publication, wether laser print or through the internet. And if you have a huge number or photos you'll be having trouble with negs, since they have to be scanned and previewing on a "light board"(?) isn't optimal for finding the right shots. And when you discard a frame you're throwing money into the waste bin (or did that when you took the shot). Also, when taking film with you, how much do you have to take? You will propably overestimate the ammount needed, or, in the worst case, underestimate! Now, you will have to take into account the number of CDs needed, if you're using the forementioned CD burner, but if you're not going much uphill, you're usually better of with the image tank, for instance. Then you will usually not have to estimate the ammount of photos you will take.

The advantages of film are simply reliabillity, low energy consumption and practicality. You don't have to make sure electronics aren't harmed by the elements, since there are hardly any (although modern film SLRs have very high technology in them). Now that's enough reason for using film. It's easier when you shoot, but harder when you use the shots.

I personally plan to use both film and digital on my next trip. Next summer we're going to Lapland, if everything goes well, but I'll often have access to a power grid, so I will take a laptop with me. But I would propably think twice if I didn't...

I was just going to add a comment on a solution for storage that has worked well for me. I just came back from a month long trip in Southern Africa where I had no access to the internet to upload the pictures back home and power was constantly a problem. The solution was that I used my iPod to store my photos on during the trip. Belkin just came out with a really nifty little device that I highly recommend (http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/71401/wo/v67xdIpO0os72fOMCN41OTiMPj8/1.3.0.5.10). It is an attachment to the iPod that transfers pictures from all kinds of media over to the iPod. It uses regular batteries as a bonus. One drawback is that the iPod requires power and does not have support for replacable batteries (unless you get the Belkin battery pack). http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/71401/wo/v67xdIpO0os72fOMCN41OTiMPj8/1.3.0.5.10

One thing to think about in this "Brave New World".. digital cameras and CF cards go through airport X-ray machines with a lot less potential problems than film.

Great Pix

Just a comment about film cameras vs. digital. Seems like a higher risk with digital since you tend to store or dump alot of pictures to one device. At least with film, my losses can be metered out in chunks of 24 and 36.

Good article! Nice images!

My wife and I lived in Mongolia for a year on a scholarship. I took my "old-but-good" Fuji FinePix 4900. As mentioned, power and storage are concerns with digital cameras. Fortunately, my wife owns a notebook that provided off-loading capacity. I prepared for the adventure by purchasing 4 new SmartMedia cards and a spare 3-rd party battery for the Fuji.

For power when away from town, I took matters into my own hands: my camera is recharged by a 5v DC wall-wart. This is reasonably close to the 6v DC that 4 alkaline batteries will provide, so I built an external battery pack with commonly-available parts from Radio Shack. The D-cell pack plugs into the normal "AC Power Socket" and will recharge the Fuji battery many times, and it even powers the camera with no internal battery.

I was happy and willing to attempt this with my 4+ year-old camera, but I suspect that I'd think twice (or more) about it when i buy a $1500 body. :) Interestingly, D-cells don't seem to be as commonly available as AA size in third-world countries. If I were building the same rig again, I might opt for 8 or 12 AAs and have the option of rechargeable batteries.

Regarding the film v.s. pixel debate, we were asked to record the gazelle rut (yup, gazelle porn) which occurs in the middle of the Eastern Steppe on the week around Christmas. Needless to say, A) there is no power, which is a problem for digital, and B) it's darn cold at -35c, which is a problem for film. I borrowed a rather old and abused Nikon F-body equipped with a manual 300mm zoom with a 2x teleconverter, and shot a roll in-town before we went to the contryside, and it worked fine. Unfortunately, the apeture didn't function properly in the cold, and I produced no useable images. The Fuji worked flawlessly, but simply doesn't have a long-enough lens or resolution (which are sort of different solutions to the same problem if you think about it) to produce detailed images.

The final consideration in favor of digital is third-world developing... what a nightmare! I was apalled at the dust & fingerprint problems when we had film developed in Mongolia. Don't even think "how fresh is the chemistry". We actually hoarded rolls and took them with us when we travelled in order to develop them in more, uh... developed countries. Sorry... couldn't resist.

Wonderful article and better yet photos. I just wanted to add one more thing about logistics on emptying your CF cards.

Last time I took my DSLR with me to India, I carried only my CF card, battery charger and a CF card reader with a USB interface. Once I was done filling a card, I'd take it to the nearest "Internet Cafe", plug the reader and send the images to my PC sitting at home in U.S. As a precaution, wherever I could do it, I'd burn a CD before deleting the files.

As I understand it, most countries like India have these "cafes" (don't expect coffee or even tea there!) that are tied to the internet with a high-speed line. Yes, cost me a bit to send these off, but I was certain that by the time I got home, not only would I have a set on my hard drive, but also assured that that set has been already backed up.

Just my modus operandi. Your mileage may vary.

Ajoy

Funny thing, that everybody nowadays, consider an analogue camera a safe backup, some people even suggest, leaving the digi camera at home, if you bring along an ana camera for backup anyway. Remember the times before digi cameras ? Photograhpers on important shoots, would bring extra analogue cameras, as they couldn't be sure that their main would work. In 1992 I went to Khumbu, with a friend and all his pictures were overexposed, because of a defect in his mechanical camera. He didn't see it before he came home of course.

Poul

Sounds like a heavy and expensive option that puts more expensive equiptment at risk while offering lower quality results than film (and with the conservatism required due to battery contraints, the quantity seems the same). Why bother?

Excellent photos and article but I have a question. Would it not have been better instead of hauling along 2 expensive 1 gb flash cards, a cd burner, cdr, and batteries to power them to carry 1 or 2 dozen of the cheaper 128 mb to 256 mb compact flash cards? You can get 256 mb compact flash cards for around $35 each. This would eliminate one single point of failure that would have been a disaster, other than you camera, the cdrom burner.

From the specs on your camera that you took you could get roughly a 100 shots in a single 256mb card. That way if a single card went bad you would be out most 100 shots. Of course more than one card could go bad but I wouldn?t think that would be a issue. In my experience CF cards are much more reliable than cdrom drives or the cdrs that you carried.

Also a dozen or two CF could be carried in a single pouch and weigh next to nothing. This would have saved valuable space that the cdrom, the burner, and its batteries occupied with something much more important, extra batteries for the camera.

Climbing Digital

I take digital cameras rockclimbing in Yosemite every week, and have taken them on week long backpacks as well. No problems (except once when I fell 15 feet down a vertical face and when the rope caught me, my camera smacked hard between me and the cliff)

On the other hand, the first time I went to Nepal, my film camera died the minute I got to Kathmandu. Fortunately, some local camera shop managed to fix me up while I got my permits and whatnot.

Next time I went to Nepal, I shot HI-8 Video recharging the batteries with a $100 solar panel.

Next time, it's all digital

The expense of CF cards is trivial compared to the film and processing costs for shooting lots of film.

Certainly there are advantages to each approach, to each their own

Peace

karl

They use laptops all the time at base camp and higher. I trust transfers to HD much more than transfers to CDs. Also it's easier, faster, and the whole setup is lighter.