Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/08/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]In a message dated 8/4/02 10:07:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, stasys1@gte.net writes: > My wife and I are off on a cruise/tour for 10 days to Alaska > starting in Vancouver. Trip starts in 12 days. Any suggestions/tips for > using the old R Leicas My wife and I did exactly this trip two months ago: six days out of Vancouver on Holland-America Veendam, day trips in each port and land tour, bus from Seward to Anchorage, train to Denali, thence to Fairbanks and home. What lenses do you have for your R and do you also have an M? You'll want a 35 or better a 28 for people photos on board ship. And at least a 180 for sea lions, orcas (they're not whales, they're very big dolphins as I learned on this trip) and whales while at sea and for caribou, reindeer, grizzly bears and other truly wild fauna ashore. A 2X extender with your 135 would be better, the extender with a 180, best. I had brought along a 180/2,8 (the pre-APO) and 2X extender. I had also brought a Leicaflex SL rather than an R. To my dismay, I realized only when reaching for it that my extender was an R. So my longest lens was 180 and the largest whales looked rather small. As did the caribou cow and her calf and the grizzly sow and her two cubs in Denali. You will want REACH. I asked about an M because at sea the M and wide-angle is far handier, quicker-focussing and of course better in low light. And ashore, my M6 with wide-angle and SL with tele-lens was a comfortable outfit to handle. It is a truly phenomenal trip. Hope you get to see the big mountain. It was in clouds the whole time we were there. It's almost 4 miles high, 6,640 meters! It creates its own weather. Did you know that if Alaska were divided in two, Texas would be the third largest state in the United States? Have fun! Seth LaK 9 - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html