In short
The Arctic is the easiest place on earth to take a good photograph and one of the hardest to take a great one. The light does half the work. The cold, the spray, the distance to the animals and the rules do their best to undo it. This is what we have learned, and what we tell guests before they pack.
The three mistakes everyone makes
- Trusting the meter. Snow and ice fool every camera into underexposing. Dial in plus one to plus one and a half stops, check the histogram, and your white stays white instead of grey.
- Bringing the camera straight inside. A cold lens in a warm ship fogs instantly, inside and out. Seal it in a bag or a zipped camera bag on deck and let it warm up slowly in the cabin.
- Packing one battery. Lithium batteries lose a third or more of their charge in the cold. Carry two spares in an inside pocket, against your body, and swap them warm.
What to bring, honestly
If you own one camera and one lens
A 24 to 70 or a 24 to 105 on a full-frame body will take ninety per cent of the voyage: the ship in the ice, the fjords, the villages, the Zodiac cruises, the people. It will not take the bear. Accept that, or add the next lens.
For the wildlife
A 100 to 400 or a 100 to 500 zoom is the lens that lives on the Zodiac. Bears are photographed from a boat that keeps its distance, walrus from the water, birds from below the cliff. A 600 prime is wonderful and heavy, and on a Zodiac it is mostly in the way. Image stabilisation matters more than the extra reach.
For the landscape
A 16 to 35 for the fjords and the icebergs from the water, where the subject is closer and larger than it looks. A polariser helps in the midday light and ruins the aurora, so take it off at night.
For the aurora
The widest, fastest lens you own, a small tripod or a rail to brace on, and the northern lights guide for the rest.
A phone
Excellent for the landscapes, the ship, the villages and the people. Hopeless for a bear at three hundred metres. Night mode on a recent phone, braced on the rail of a ship at anchor, will give you a creditable aurora. Keep it warm, because a phone shuts down in the cold faster than any camera.
The light
In June and July the sun circles the sky without setting and the soft, low light that lasts twenty minutes at home lasts for hours here, from late evening through to the small hours. The best landscape light of the voyage is often at midnight, which is a reason to nap in the afternoon. Midday under the high sun is flat, and that is the time for detail: ice textures, rock, the pattern of a bird colony.
From late August the sun sets again and brings back the golden hour and the blue hour, then the dark. September in Greenland gives you all of it in one day: low warm light on the icebergs in the afternoon, a pink dusk, and the aurora.
From the Zodiac
- Shutter speed first. A Zodiac is never still. Set 1/1000 or faster for anything alive, let the ISO rise, and forget the tripod.
- Sit low and brace on your knee, not the pontoon, which transmits every wave.
- Keep the camera in a dry bag or under the parka between subjects. Spray and the fine Arctic drizzle find every lens.
- Shoot the ship. From the water, with ice between you and it, the ship becomes the scale that every other picture lacks.
The bear, the walrus and the rules
The most important lens for a polar bear is the one you have when the bear is seen from the ship. Most sightings are from the deck, at distance, and the bear does what it does without reference to you. On a Zodiac the driver keeps a distance set by the rules and the expedition leader, not by your lens.
In Svalbard those rules are now law: 300 metres from a polar bear through most of the season and 500 metres in the spring, 150 metres from a walrus haul-out, and no drones near wildlife at all. Our guide to the Svalbard rules sets them out. The photographers who come home with the best bear pictures are the ones who were ready at the rail when the call came, not the ones with the longest lens.
Birds, which are the easy wildlife
The cliffs and the kittiwakes that follow the ship give more frames than anything else in the Arctic. Continuous autofocus, 1/2000, a burst, and a bird in flight against the ice is yours. Puffins at Grimsey in Iceland let you sit at a few metres in July. The seabird guide names the cliffs.
People
In Greenland and Nunavut you are photographing someone’s town. Ask, every time, with a nod and the camera lowered. Most people say yes. At a drum dance or a kaffemik, put the camera down for part of it. The pictures that matter from a village visit are rarely the ones you planned.
Drones
Banned in most of Svalbard and in the national park of East Greenland, restricted near wildlife everywhere, and prohibited from the ship by every operator we work with. The helicopter flights offered aboard Ultramarine and Le Commandant Charcot, when the weather and the itinerary allow, are the legitimate way to see the ice from above. Our drones and phones guide has the rules by country.
The cold, and the care
- A microfibre cloth in every pocket, because spray dries to salt.
- Fingerless gloves under mittens, so you can work the dials without baring a hand for long.
- A dry bag for the Zodiac, a padded insert for the deck, and the camera never left on a windowsill in the sun.
- Download every night. Memory cards fail, and a voyage is not the place to find out.
Still water mirrors a glacier at the end of a side arm of Prince Christian Sound. Photographed on a Swan Hellenic SH Vega voyage. © Swan Hellenic
Questions we are asked about photography in the Arctic
Do we need a professional camera?
No. A recent phone and a willingness to be on deck at midnight will come home with a voyage worth keeping. A camera with a long lens adds the wildlife. The difference between the two is the bear, not the Arctic.
Can we fly a drone from the ship?
No. No expedition operator we recommend permits drones from the ship or on landings, and in Svalbard and the East Greenland park it is illegal near wildlife or inside the protected areas in any case.
Is there a photographer on board?
Most expedition teams include a photographer or a guide with real experience who runs informal sessions and will look at your settings on deck. Some departures carry a named photography host. Tell us if that matters and we will find the sailing.
Which voyage is best for photography?
For ice and light, East Greenland in September. For bears, Svalbard in June and July. For the widest range of subjects in one voyage, the Northwest Passage, which has ice, bears, villages, the Franklin sites and the aurora in the same fortnight.
