I shoot with Nikon mirrorless cameras. Traveling to Antarctica I have the chance to see both immense landscapes and some far off wildlife.

I don't want to be on the other side of the world and regret not getting an entire landscape because I don't have a wide enough lens. I also don't want to have to explain to people that the little silhouetted shape is a whale breaching the surface because my lens is too short.

I also didn't want to waste time changing a lens in the field. I fully expect to be shooting a landscape and have a seal appear and do a show while I am swapping lenses. So, I want to have a wide lens on one camera body and a long lens on another camera body.

Due to that, I wanted to bring everything from 14mm to 600mm, which means four lenses.

At the last minute I have changed my mind, and rented a 1.4 Teleconverter, and will be only bringing three lenses.

The photo here shows my Think Tank Backlight 36L, but I decided traveling with that on a plane is too risky, so I swapped for my 26L instead.

• Think Tank BackLight 36L
• Think Tank BackLight 26L
• Nikon Z8
• Nikon Z6iii
• Nikon Z 14-24 f/2.8
• Nikon Z 24-70 f/2.8
• Nikon Z 70-200 f/2.8
• Nikon Z 180-600 f/5.6-6.3
• Nikon Z 100-400 f/4.5-5.6
• Nikon Z Teleconverter 1.4

I will probably be using the wider lenses on the Z6iii, and the longer lenses for wildlife on the Z8, since that camera has much more room to crop if I need to.

I will also be carrying two 4 TB hard drives, a few CPLs, six batteries, a Power Delivery Portal Charger, a 500 GB CF Express card in each camera, as well as a 500 GB SD card in the second slot, set to backup.

As I write this, it is 36 F (2 C) on the Antarctic Peninsula, and only 28 F (-2 C) where I live. Humidity is about 50% in both locations. I am not too worried about the weather.

The company I am traveling with gives us boots that we have to return, and a coat that is ours to keep.

For base layers, I have a few sets of merino wool pants and shirts from a couple different vendors. Mainly it is from Smartwool and Rainforest

Next, I have a mid layer, which basically consists of some light weight fleece pants and a fleece pull-over.

For my top layer, I have some water resistant hiking pants and some plain old hoodies.

There are times we will be on zodiacs, and I have some water proof pants for those times as well.

For my head, I have a merino wool neck gaiter and a wool cap as well.

For my hands I have merino wool glove liners and I got the Tinden Photography Glove from Vallerret.

I landed in Ushuaia at 8:45 PM Argentina Time, and I was hungry and exhausted from the long hours of traveling. I thought I had a better seat on my overnight flight, but I was wrong, barely slept on the plane.

At the hotel, I went for some food, then bed. The picture here is the view from the hotel of Ushuaia at night.

Today it is very foggy and we are headed to Tierra Del Fuego for a 5 mile hike. Let's hope the rain doesn't get in our way.

We had amazing weather during the hike, even the tour guide joked that we should pay more because of how perfect it was.

It was mostly just a scenic hike, we stopped for a few pictures here and there.

The picture to the side here was the scene were we stopped and ate our lunch. I have been in worse places.

I had my camera set up totally wrong, and got almost nothing.

But, there were some wild horses that cut rigiht across our path and divided our group in two.

I got the tail end of the horse party. Five horses, three adults and two were much younger. Look for them in the gallery below.

A few of us hopped on another plane, this one was a little 6 seater.

We took a flight to see the sights around Ushuaia, including Beagle Channel, and the area we went hiking the day before.

I didn't shoot a lot. I felt a bit nauseous, but Greg must have seen that. He offered me this gum that helped a lot.

I was sitting above the wing, so it got in the way of many of my shots.

We are on the ship, and finally moving.

At first, we were pinned to the docks due to high winds, but that only lasted about 30 minutes I think.

We got underway, had dinner, then headed to our cabins.

Then some Megellanic Penguins were spotted on the shore, so of course we all ran outside to see them.

They were a bit too far for my camera, and it was getting dark, but I took a landscape shot to show how many there were.

This photo doesn't even do it justice. That landscape sloped to a beach on the channel, and there were probably a couple thousand more at that end as well.

Woke up on the Drake Passage about 2 AM.

There were 4 meter (12 foot) swells.

I ate breakfast, I kept it down.

Back to bed, hope for calmer seas tomorrow.

Woke up a couple hours later, same day, nearly missed lunch.

After lunch there was a citizen science program where we looked for birds.

I caught a picture of this bird, which I think it a Southern Giant Petrel which has a wing span of 85".

Between looking for birds, I shot some waves.

There is a chance we reach Antarctica tomorrow night, and I might even get my first excusion on to Antarctica!

The last few days have been in 60 F weather, sunny, and clear (a bit of rain here and there).

Today I woke up to fog and cold!

That means we have crossed into Sub-Antarctica waters, land is near, and we should reach Antarctica tonight.

The image here is of the first iceberg I have ever seen in person.

The real photography should start tomorrow.

We made it here faster than expected, I got my first glimpse of land.

We will also be getting our first expedition tonight.

Not entirely sure where I am, but we got here early.

We took our first expedition off the ship to cruise on some zodiacs.

This is a bonus expedition we didn't think we would get.

Seals, birds, and glacial ice.

This morning, we did another cruise on zodiacs down the Peitier Channel.

The ship dropped us off, and we cruised to the other end, seeing the sites along the way.

Today was my birthday and we started it a landing on Yalour Island which has a colony of Adelie Penguins.

We got about 90 minutes with the penguins, then we went for a cruise around the many icebergs around Yalour.

On this cruise we saw four crabeater seals, a weddell seal, and some gentoo penguins that were jumping from an iceberg into the water.

Just before getting back to the ship, a couple humpback whales were circling our zodiacs and we got several chances to photograph their tails.

This morning has ruined all birthdays going forward.

In the afternoon we did another landing and cruise.

The landing was on Winter Island where there is a Ukranian Research station and Wordie House, but we only went inside Wordie House.

During the cruise we found more crabeater seals, the image on the right is of one that was dry on top, but wet on the bottom.

I was maybe less than 30 feet from the seal to the right here.

Today I am taking a bit of a break from wildlife.

We crossed the Antarctic Circle, broke through some ice sheets, had these low clouds and light on mountains.

Eventually we got off the ship and went and stood on a floating ice sheet.

We made the initial goal of this voyage, and tomorrow we are going even further south to a colony of roughly 7,000 adelie penguins.

We landed on another Adelie Penguin colony at Red Rock Ridge, this one has roughly 7,000 penguins.

Then a leopard seal showed up, so make that 6,999.

The leopard seal chased one of our zodiacs, not the one I was on. It even got really close to our people that were out kayaking.

We took a slow cruise back to the ship, and got some more shots of penguins jumping in the water.

Today was supposed to be a landing and a cruise, but our group opted to just cruise.

It was another Adelie Penguin colony, and we get better shots from the water anyway.

We found a leopard seal sleeping on a small piece of floating ice. I say small, but this seal was easily 8 or 9 feet long.

Who thinks this guy would eat penguin babies?

This morning was a cruise in Paradise Bay, it has a Gentoo Penguin column nearby.

There was also a couple rock faces supporting a colony (rookery?) of Antarctic Shags.

Surrounded by mountains and glaciers, I could spend a week on just this bay, but we got 90 minutes.

The ship has to move, tonight we head for a landing at Neko Harbor.

That same night, we moved to Neko Harbor, and there was a Gentoo Penguin colony, and a snowy hike on a hill above the colony.

The hike wasn't a hard one, some steep parts, but it was only about 10 minutes to the top.

At the top, the view was too much to describe. The picture to the left here was the view from the other end of the harbor.

There were several glaciers hanging over the harbor, and even more in the mountains behind those.

We had a morning zodiac cruise in Charlotte's Bay.

It was a very quiet and snowy morning. Fog surrounded us. It felt like being in a snow globe.

It was pretty uneventful, there were a couple crabeater seals, and it felt like the morning was going to be a bust.

Then there was a sound, but I couldn't tell which direction.

Again, from in front of the boat.

A third time, but now I saw the blow from the whale, a humpback behind an iceberg.

We made our way over and there were several humpbacks, and they were making bubble nets.

According to the timestamps, we spent an hour with those whales, and it made the day.

Good thing too, because we were supposed to have another landing that night, but the weather turned against us, and the landing was cancelled.

These humbpacks were the last thing we would do in Antarctica.

We have crossed the Drake again, and we got the lake this time. I didn't think it could be so calm.

While cruising up the Beagle Channel I was hanging out on the back of the ship shooting birds following the ship, mostly Black Browed Albatross.

We had our final group meeting and I went back out to shoot some birds, and I caught a dolphin.

The trip is over