As a part of Christmas present, my father-in-law gave "guys" a salmon fishing trip together. This realized in June of 2017. My father-in-law, two brothers-in-law, and I took a trip to King Salmon, Alaska. As the name of the city says it all, it is known for fishing King Salmon. It was a great experience fishing salmon for the first time. It was also awesome taking some photos of the wild in Alaska.
On the last day of our trip, we also took a short flight to Katmai National Park to see salmon swimming up the river and also grizzly bears. As I knew there would be opportunities to photograph bears from far, I rented a long lens.
While it was a bonding trip with the "guys" within my wife's family, it was a great experience shooting in Alaska. There are few things I did not prepare properly for.
As I rented Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens for the first time, I was not familiar with the lens at all. While it gave me the reach I wanted, I was not used to the lens and the focal length. I definitely lost some shots and also many of my images turned out to be little blurry. These long lenses, especially, L series tend to be expensive for most people (unless you shoot wild life including birds or sports photography), I definitely recommend renting the lens few time before the actual shoot.
As this was my first time visiting Alaska, everything was exciting. I had my camera case with me while fishing. I saw several bold eagles. But shooting a flying eagle from a moving boat was definitely difficult. I should have simply focused on fishing and took time to shoot eagles from land.
There are two must haves I did not bring. One was CPL filter. As I was surrounded by water under the sun, there was a lot of reflections. CPL filter would have cut some of the unwanted reflection. The other one was a monopod. I simply did not have a sturdy monopod for the long lens. Katmai National Park does not allow the use of tripod. Monopod would have helped stabilize the camera/lens and also would have helped my hands/arms carrying the heavy weight.
Though it was June and it was hot under the sun, Alaska still is chilly for the most part. It can be cloudy and foggy as well. Under the condition, it definitely was chilly and layers were needed. Also, I should have brought waterproof pants and more importantly waterproof backpack to carry my gear. As we flew to Katmai National Park, we were getting picked up by an airplane as well. But as this park is full of bears and where we can go and cannot go depend on where bears are. One bear was close to a bridge we had to cross as we were returning to the point of pick up, we really thought about walking across the river. In the end, we did not have to. But if we did, it would have been challenging to keep my gear dry.
Overall, it was an excellent experience and I thoroughly enjoyed shooting in Alaska. It was a great and challenging experience using the long lens for the first time.
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