micheal_kelly

Highway pass and Polychrome are my suggestions.

The Pinnell Mtn Trail is a good choice north of Fairbanks. The White Mtn trails are too wet in the summer. Granite Tors on the south side of the road to Chena Hots Springs would be closest to Fairbanks. Many areas close to Fairbanks will be tundra/wet in the summer making hiking less than ideal.

 

Don't be afraid to backpack in the park. They limit the number of backpackers in each area and none of the bus tourists will be visible.

Jonathan,

 

Classic problem. Go to google and search for ICC3D. It is a very nice free program that will allow you to compare the gamut of your image to the color spaces that your are trying to use with it. It has made a big difference for me. I can now see that there is no rendering intent that will "shoehorn" a badly matched image gamut to device gamut problem. It will allow you to comare the gaumt of your printer to the image. It will allow you to compare commercial printers gamuts so that maybe this image you decide to print on a Lightjet etc or someother printer because the shape of that gamut matches this particular image better.

Ethan, The difference with Calypso is that they don't assume an input color space of sRGB there by "clamping" or converting to their color space from an assumed space of sRGB. Doesn't make the Lightjet any closer to ARGB just doesn't mangle the image quite so badly on the way in.

 

Barry this is a decent intro to color management:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/techcorner/August_2004.html

Also Ethan has some nice graphs showing the diffrence between sRGB and Adobe RGB colorspaces on his web site www.drycreekphoto.com

The tour operator this year is using a cat in Glacier Bay. It is more stable than a mono-hull. I have used a tripod on that boat to good avail. I use IS lenses and the tripod just takes one set of movments out of the "picture". If you are lucky the Captain will kill the engines when near a subject, it is common practice. I would suggest taking your 70-200 and the wide angle. If you have a Canon 1.4x that can help for wildlife. Not much in-between. Sometimes the whales will be very near the boat. Sometimes off in the distance. Bring something to cover your gear when it is raining. But this year it has been unusually hot and dry.

Barry: You are wrong. Adobe 98 has a wider color gamut than sRGB. sRGB is a bastardized space designed to be a compromise between Apples monitor gamma of 1.8 and the native PC montior of 2.5, so sRGB supports a gamma of 2.2. It has a color gamut roughly equivalent to a crt. It was desgined to allow the masses to exchange images via the web. Some inkjet printers have color spaces crafted to match sRGB. Inkjet technology is capable of much wider reproduction than sRGB and most higher end cameras do also.

 

Salman, try Calypsoinc.com they use lightjet printers and claim to have a color gamut wide enough for Adobe 98. You will need to convert your images to their profiles that are designed for their printers.

Dry Creek Photo (they make profiles) compared Media Street to Canon OEM and found that the PNP inks had a slightly wider gamut than Canon. I have not seen anything on the MIS inks. YOu can search dpreview.com for actual graphs that Dry Creek posted.

Longevity I would look at Livick.

When the drive is in a PC it looks like any hd file space. If non-Canon files are moved to the drive or the orignal file structure was mangled the camera will ignore it during an in camera "format". It will then reduce the space accordingly. The in-camera format is nothing more than creating the dcim folders. So look for files that are not supposed to be on the drive. Something copied to the microdrive while it was on the pc. Anything outside of the dcim folder.

My Maxtor one touch died in the first week and I returned it. Got a Western Digital which is still working after 6 mo.

If you decide to drive on the Denali, or any other dirt road in Alaska, note that windshield damage comes from you driving into a rock kicked up from behind a truck going in the opposite direction. So if you slow down or even pull over and stop while a big truck passes going the opposite direction you will reduce or eliminate getting rock chips in the windshield.

 

The Denail Highway is a great way to see a "wilder" Alaska that you might not see from other more beaten paths. But there are few services so be prepared to take care of yourself.

Jeff,

I too was interested in the same goal. I have been watching Linux desktops for a number of years and they are geting better every year. This year I tried Xandros. It is a distro run by ex corel folks. It came really close but no cigar for me. It will auto sense and install a variety of hardware very very well. It auto mounts even usb harddrives and has a MS Explorer like file manager so it makes it easy for a Windows user to migrate.

The color management is a problem ( not that MS has color managemetn), I could not get the full res out of my monitor and video card and the variety of printer drivers for photo quality printers are still not available. It could be a very nice desktop for an average user but digital image editing is not really an average use of a computer. It demands performance and the full use of the pheripherals. It will come soon, so stay tuned.

http://www.wildlife.alaska.gov/management/planning/wolverinecreek/wolvcreekbackground.cfm

Let me look out the windows. Yep, it is still there.

I use Lyson Quad tone on a Canon S9000 and I do not see the problems you are indicating. The prints are much better than the color tinted black and whites that the normal color set produces. I still have to tweeak the individual "colors" to get a proper print. I am printing BW RGB converted images, I assume you are?

I have printed about 600 13x19 prints with Inkjet Goodies S9000 ink (also Weink same stuff). I also use Lyson Quad black on a spare head with the S9000. Both work great with no problems. Saves a lot of money.

I use the 1.4 and the 2x II on a 70-200LIS. I think the image quality is good with the 2xII but you will find the autofocus poor in less than bright sunlight. The autfocus works better with the 1.4.

 

For wildlife in bright conditions I have used the 1.4 and 2x stacked and it makes a pretty nice 900mm f8 lens on the 10D.

Raymond,

It is a long drive in the winter from Anchorage to Fairbanks and Chena Hot Springs is another 60 miles outside of Fairbanks. The "Lights" will be better as you drive North but you can probably get out of the city light polution of Anchorage by the time you get to Talkeetna and get a good chance there. The lights sometimes peak near midnight so don't give up too soon. Keep your gear in the car as you watch the show and when they get good bring out the gear. Fast flim and fast lens will be in order. Also be aware that the road you will be traveling on is out in the boonies by lower 48 standards so be prepared. Doesn't mean there is no one around but bring warm clothes, make sure you have a full tank of gas and don't expect that there will be a 911 box every mile on the side of the road. Have Fun.

My experience is the opposite of Scott (above).

First if you look at the color gamut plots of a Frontier they don't come close to the gamut of a Canon S9000 or an Epson 2200 which are much wider color gamut. If your image editor has a proofing option you can download a Frontier profile and a Canon profile and proof an image and see the difference yourself.

After printing on a Gretag-Sienna at PhotoAccess and a Lightjet I was not satisfied with the quality. I bought a Canon S9000 and the prints are much better. There are some strong cavets though. Using my own printer has been terribly frustrating. I am sure it is much more expensive because of the poor color management in Microsoft Windows and the printer drivers which yield a lot of reprints and paper and ink waste. I am apparently very picky from my comparisions with others on the net. But I am not the only one. I have spent a lot of money on calibrating the monitor and printer, costs that need to be included in the price of a printer.

The Fuji-archive prints will last a lot longer than inkjet prints.

After a year I have nothing but a crap-shoot of work-arounds to get what I want. BUT the prints that hit the mark are much better than what I got from the Lightjet. I will not go back. But it did not save me any money over a pro lab and it is a LOT easier to send your images to Calypso.

I've been using microdrives for 5 years. Hiking, river rafting etc. I've dropped my microdrives from 4 feet onto a hard surface. I have never had a failed microdrive. Your mileage might vary, of course.

If you check the in-depth reviews at dpreview.com you will find the 10d has a significantly better noise response than either the 1d or the 1ds. This allows use of 400 iso which improves depth of field, faster shutters speeds or allows shooting in lower light conditions.

As much as I think Mike Chaney is first rate, I have not gotten a good profile from Prism. But I have also not gotten a good profile from Cathy or any other inexpensive source. My printer is Canon S9000.

I agree with the Velbon Carmage 640. I did a lot of research on CF tripods and althought a lot of folks are in love with Gitzo they also often complain of the mountaineers coming apart. I am very happy with my 640 and I saved wieght and money.

The problem with the responses above is that there are big differences in LCD monitors. LCD work fine for image editing IF you choose the right monitor. You need to look for a monitor that has a wide viewing angle. It is not hard to get LCD monitors with 180 vertical and horizontal viewing angle and a high contrast ratio 300-400%. It just may be difficult to find the detailed specs on particular brands.

 

So you might want to look for yourself before you accept the proposition that no LCD can be used.

Richard,

 

Head up to Easter Dome when you get to Fairbanks. 360 deg view. Wait until at least midnight before you give up for the night.

 

Dress warmly, very warmly.

I really like doing landscapes from Highway pass/Stoney Hill. Especially in the Fall (late Aug!). Polychrome is a good too, tho.

Igloo is best on memorial day when the new-born lambs are jumping around.

 

Have a great trip.