Skagway Photography Tour

I will be doing the Skagway Photography Tour on our cruise next month. Will anyone that has taken this tour let me know if a tripod will be helpful. My heaviest lens is a Nikon 80-400.

Thanks

I hope people respond to this. I was going to ask the same

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If moe info was on here people would right.

Skagway as in the train? guessing

The tour is with a professional photographer, no more than 12 people

I did a private tour of Skagway, geared to photography.

You can get lots of rain and clouds.

Are you hoping to get wildlife or scenery?

While a tripod could be useful at times, I don't think you'd find it critical.

I had this excursion booked for the first week of May but others on our roll call convinced me to join them on a private tour with http://www.elementsofalsaka.com for seven hours driving to Caribou Crossing. I'll talk to those members on our cruise that will be doing the Photo Tour to get a comparison.

Are you using the new AFs 80-400 or the old AF-D? Regardless, I'd take a monopod. The newer lens has much better VR and IQ than the older one and should get by with out any support if you need to travel light.

If you plan on using a very long exposer like waterfall pictures then a tripod would be required.

framer

I have the newer version of the lens. I am leaning towards taking the tripod because the lens does get heavy after a while.

I have the newer version of the lens. I am leaning towards taking the tripod because the lens does get heavy after a while.

I wouldn't expect to necessarily use the 80-400 too much. We saw no wildlife on our 7 hour tour to Caribou crossing. Ended up taking all landscapes. q

Just sharing some shots from my Skagway/Yukon tour:

Yukon Road on a Rainy day by Adam Brown, on Flickr

River in the Yukon by Adam Brown, on Flickr

Lake in the Yukon by Adam Brown, on Flickr

The Yukon by Adam Brown, on Flickr

Can you tell us what ship you'll be on and the exact name of the excursion? Is it through the ship or independent? If you're on Princess and you're looking at the "Skagway In Focus Photography Tour", you're most likely in for a treat and you can bring whatever you can handle. However, if you're willing to spend a little more, I can recommend a much better option through the same vendor.

I am on the Ruby Princess and you are correct about the tour. It is through Princess

The Princess tour is offered by Rainbow Glacier Adventures, http://joeordonez.com/. You can contact them directly to confirm space, but they definitely put top-notch photo guides on their photo tours. You may want to consider their (private) photo tour out of Haines, as it's a lot more of a photo hotspot than Skagway IMHO. With a private tour, you get a dedicated guide and a dedicated vehicle. In our case, we were on a short bus (four rows of bench seats per side), so we spread out - tripods/monopods in this seat, duffel bag in that seat, lenses here, etc.

Thanks for the info, I will look into it

I always have a tripod and there has been no problem accommodating it on a photo tour. A couple of years ago we did a photo tour out of Juneau. It was not too large a group and the guide was very good. At one point we walked through the woods and ended up at Mendenhall Glacier. Later on the guide told me that he knew he had a problem when he saw my tripod. He explained that most of the folks on this tour had new (to them) digital point and shoots and their expectation was that he would show them how to use them. When I would stop on the trail and set up to take a photo they would just keep walking and clicking. His concern was that there was only one of him and he had the only can of bear spray. Had he mentioned this prior to the hike I would have most likely been trotting along and clicking with the rest of them.

We are heading back up next month and I'm going to find out how Princess feels about carry-on bear spray.

Which ship are you heading to Alaska on? We are on the Ruby Princess on May 22

Which ship are you heading to Alaska on? We are on the Ruby Princess on May 22

We are on the Coral

We just returned to the ship from the "In Focus" tour. It was a great experience, the guides, Peter and Rachel, were friendly, knowledgeable, and worked hard to make sure we had a good experience. The trip involved mostly landscape subject matter and it was a glorious day for it. Peter and Rachel worked with everyone and did an excellent job of accommodating the various skill levels. This was a very well run tour and really amounted to a one day photography workshop. Oh, they also had a few spare tripods to loan out...

Thanks for the update on your experience. I can't wait. Only a week away

I have had little success posting photos...

This is from the tour, taken with my phone because my real pictures are on film.

On the Skagway in Focus excursion, is the three hour duration adequate for shooting the various locations? Also where did they take you? Thanks.

On the Skagway in Focus excursion, is the three hour duration adequate for shooting the various locations? Also where did they take you? Thanks.

At least based on the description, the day's stops are chosen based on the day's conditions. When we did a private tour in Haines with the same company, our guide took us to a great river landscape spot during low tide, which allowed us to walk out on the wet riverbed and get a perspective we wouldn't otherwise get if the tide was in.

If by chance you'd want to shoot longer, do consider their private tours. You can pick Skagway or Haines (they'll book the ferry for you). You can most likely arrange to extend a private tour, either by arrangement in advance or "on the fly". We ended up extending on the fly, and got our bear sighting (and photos) that the other couple (with their own guide) missed.

Now I may have figured out how to post a photo. This was taken on the In Focus Tour we took in Skagway. My goal on this trip was to get one image that I could enlarge, mount, and frame to put in our livingroom. This is a scan from a medium format negative. I am pretty happy with this because later on the shutter in this camera failed. I figured this out while photographing Denali and had no idea when on the trip it gave up. I lost about 18 exposures from the bad shutter.

As I mentioned before, having the opportunity to go with a local photographer who knows his/her way around is a wonderful thing.

My daughter is really into videography, so I have signed her and my husband up for the Skagway in Focus tour offered through HAL. She has a nice Cannon Vixia camcorder. Can't remember the specific model number and she has it with her in Argentina at the moment. She plans to take her monopod instead of the bulky tripod. Will she get a lot out of the excursion? Also my husband doesn't have a camera other than his cell phone. Will that work for him?

My daughter is really into videography, so I have signed her and my husband up for the Skagway in Focus tour offered through HAL. She has a nice Cannon Vixia camcorder. Can't remember the specific model number and she has it with her in Argentina at the moment. She plans to take her monopod instead of the bulky tripod. Will she get a lot out of the excursion? Also my husband doesn't have a camera other than his cell phone. Will that work for him?

The tour guide is going to take the group to photogenic locations. If your daughter is "fluent" in shooting video in photogenic spots, she'll be fine. I have zero experience with video, but find that (in my humble opinion) the wishes of a still photographer are different than a videographer: still shooters want something that can tell a story through moments in time, whereas videographers want to capture windows of time that tell different levels of story ("master shot", "closeup", "B-roll"). Personally, I'd take the tripod. As far as I know, it really makes a difference with video, and the tour will be generally structured to be tripod-friendly, so the still shooters are likely to be using theirs.

As far as just going with a cell phone, he's not going to be in a position to learn from any of the technical side of photography, but there could be some artistic/compositional stuff that could be of interest. I do expect that it'd get a little boring though, as the tour is more built around "setting up shop" at a spot and capturing the beauty, rather than a walking tour (where the avid photographer in the group is always lagging behind, trying to get the shot without people in it...).

But honestly, contact the operator. Look for Joe Ordonez and Rainbow Glacier Adventures. I don't have the site handy at the moment, but I think it's just his name with a dot com on the end. The office manager will either be able to answer your questions directly, get them answered for you, or connect you with the right person and let you hash it out.