I took these on the hike back to Logan Pass from Hidden Lake in the early evening.  Both pictures have hikers in the frame.  You’ll have to look a little harder in the second one.  Like I said in a previous post, it was pretty weird walking across deep snow in the middle of July.  It was also very slippery.  I had to try very hard not to fall because I was carrying two cameras, my Canon 40D with the 70-200mm f2.8 + 1.4x teleconverter and my Canon 5D with the 24-105mm f4 lens.  That was about $6K worth of equipment around my neck…definitely not something I wanted to fall on.  Thankfully, I didn’t, but there were a few close calls.

Why carry so much equipment?  I carry the 40D combo for shooting wildlife and the 5D combo for shooting the landscapes.  I don’t like to constantly change lenses as I hike, so I carry both so I don’t have too.  Wildlife doesn’t usually hold still long enough to change lenses and still get the shot.  Even landscapes can change quickly (clouds/shadows moving across the scene, rainbows that appear suddenly and then disappear just as quickly, etc.) and you don’t want to miss a great shot because you were busy swapping lenses.  Besides, the more often you change lenses in the field, the greater your chances of getting a dirty sensor, exposing your electronics to the elements, or simply just dropping a lens.  I’m willing to carry a little extra weight (one extra camera body) to prevent that.

This is my birthday present to myself (a month early). I’m such a giver.

The rationale for these purchases:

The gorillapod: Because sometimes you just don’t want to carry a full tripod.

The 50mm: I’m always reading about how great these lenses are for portraits, especially in low light, so I had to have one.  This shot was taken with this new lens.  The DOF will take some getting used to.  My face is slightly out-of-focus and I’m only at f3.2!

The 12-24mm: I’m moving to Montana at the end of the month.  Is there a better reason to get an ultra-wide?  This lens should rock on my full-frame 5D!

The 40D: Why get a 40D when I already have a 5D? Three reasons. 1. I wanted to have a back-up body when I’m at photography school.  I don’t want to be in the situation I was in two winters ago at a photography workshop in Maui where my camera (my old Digital Rebel) broke and I had to tape it back together in order to keep shooting. 2. I also own the Sigma 50-500mm lens.  I was happy with this lens on my old Digital Rebel with the crop sensor, but was really disappointed with it on the full-frame 5D.  It shows significant vignetting on the full sensor.  The 40D has a 1.6X crop sensor so I should be happy with it again.  3. I like wildlife photography and wildlife tends to move, often very quickly.  The 40D can shoot at 6.5fps while the 5D can only shoot at 3fps.  I figure the 50-500mm will stay on the 40D most of the time.  I’ll use the 5D for everything else.

I also purchased a couple of polarizers and some camera bags to carry all my new gear.

Now this would be fun to play with: a Casio Exilim EX-F1.  It’s capable of shooting at bursts of 60 frames per second (fps) and movies at 1200 fps!!!  Just think of the cool action shots you could get with this camera.  For comparison, my Canon 5D is only capable of shooting in bursts of 3 fps and most camcorders record at around 30 fps.