The one thing that stuck with me after these panel discussions is that there are a lot of parallels between the magazine industry now and the .com era from 1998/99 to the bust in 2001. Back then I was an intern in an IT department at a software company. There was a lot of hype, a lot of talk about ‘paradigm shifts’, and a complete uncertainty of where we were headed. This now seems to be repeating itself in the publishing industry. What makes me laugh is that the lingo now is almost exactly what I heard 10 years ago. There’s also a gigantic land rush for market share without a concrete plan to make money.  Fortunately, it’s not quite as bad as the last time around (people are actually trying to make money this time), but it’s pretty similar.

This all stems from the fact that print media is on its way to being a historical fact, rather than a daily involvement in peoples lives. Magazines are shutting down left and right, newspapers are finding ad rates dropping through the floor as distribution dwindles. For years the industry has relied on a two prong approach to revenue. They would charge subscribers a fee to receive their product and then they would charge advertisers a much higher fee to advertise to their subscribers. From newspaper people I’ve heard from, the subscription fees pretty much only covered distribution of the paper, and the advertising paid for everything else. According to some sources, subscription fees accounted for as little as 3% of the income for a newspaper. I haven’t been able to track down similar stats for magazines, but I can’t imagine it was much different on that side of the industry.

Now that people are moving away from print and on to the web, distribution costs have shrunk so dramatically that it’s almost to the point of being free. This means that people also don’t want to pay for what they might have paid for in the past. If you no longer have to pay for that Heidelberg press, why should I pay for your product online? Famously, News Corp doesn’t believe this and has instituted pay walls on many of their sites. How’s that working out? From the articles out there, not well.

So where does this leave us? It was always about the advertising. While advertising has always paid for the industry, the problem now is that competition is up significantly, and ad rates are a lot lower on the web than they were in print. The publishing industry as a whole has to find a way to get ad rates up, most likely by delivering a very targeted demographic to advertisers. That is at least some good news for the outdoor publishing industry. The outdoor industry is about as targeted as you can get and includes quite a few people with lots of disposable income (also how Arc’Teryx can sell $600 jackets regularly).

However, what I haven’t heard from either of these panels or anywhere else really is a full understanding of what blogs mean to the industry. Most of the larger media outlets seem to dismiss blogs entirely as not being real competition and thus not worth their effort. However, there’s a much bigger problem the giants of the industry need to consider. Small blogs push ad rates down simply because the same people that read Backpacker or Outdoor also read blogs. The targeted demographic that the big names in the industry cater to, also reads blogs. Blogs also have much lower profit expectations than any of the big magazines. We’re not supporting a staff of writers, photographers, editors, IT people, secretaries, facilities management, etc, etc. Our costs are significantly lower than that of Backpacker. Of course, since the big names may have 20 authors writing articles, they can cover a lot more than a place like Daily Hiker. However, there are a lot more blogs out there than there are Backpacker magazines.

When it comes down to it, the same type of people that read Backpacker or Outside online are going to read a few outdoor blogs. With ad rates being much cheaper on a blog than at a magazine’s web site, how is a magazine going to compete with a blog?

In response, some of the bigger names in the industry are releasing iPhone or Android apps and are also starting to release some much higher quality content. This is what I think the outdoor media has understood a lot better than the rest of the media in general. People want high quality content online that’s much more than just text. Both of the panel discussions have had the big names in the industry repeat over and over again that it’s all about the content. People want high quality content and if they don’t get it, they’ll go somewhere else.

Thus, the gauntlet has been thrown down for outdoor blogs in general. Instead of the major outdoor media figuring out how to compete with us, we need to figure out how to compete with them. While blogs like Daily Hiker don’t have nearly the resources to produce and update a high quality iPhone or Android app, blogs have simply dropped the ball on the content side. With the price of digital SLRs that take HD movies coming down significantly, there’s really no excuse for poor quality photos or videos anymore. While I know we at Daily Hiker have some room to improve in more than one aspect, I simply will not compromise on the quality of the photography.

While this may not apply to every single blog in the world, it certainly applies to outdoor blogs. The outdoors is an inherently visual experience that has to be told with high quality photos and video. Many of the outdoor blogs I see out there use mostly stock or poor quality photos for gear reviews. The pictures on other types of posts are just as poor. It may be a pain at times, but we need to improve the multimedia experience for readers in general. If I can carry an SLR up Mt. Rainier, anyone can take a decent camera out with them hiking.

If we expect to be taken seriously, we must improve. Blogs may have the upper hand when it comes to the web for the moment, but that’s not going to be for that much longer. It’s pretty clear that the major names in the outdoor industry are making it their mission to be the best on the web. They have quite a few more resources than blogs in general, but we are much more nimble. While I don’t see myself doing big pieces on mountaineering in Peru like the big names can (unless I decide to take a vacation and write an article about it), we can compete much better on a local level.

We are far more nimble when it comes to content about local hikes or outdoor news. If we want to do a piece on climbing Glacier Peak, we don’t have to get approval from an editor and the budget for a flight out. I can hop in the car with a bunch of gear and a camera and off I go. To some extent the big names are trying to counter this by crowd sourcing hike reviews, but that just means we need to be better than what someone will write in a paragraph on Backpacker’s web site.

Additionally, outdoor blogs have to be more than gear review sites. While there is something to be said for the value of an independent gear review by someone that doesn’t get ad money from the company like a Backpacker or Outside may, there is a limit to the usefulness of the review. If we expect to remain relevant, we have to do more than simply review new gear. We have to cover news stories about what’s important in the outdoor world. We have to include interesting outdoor stories. We must create new, original content. Daily Hiker certainly isn’t perfect in this regard, but we’re trying. That’s a lot more than I can say for some of the other blogs out there.

So I guess what I’m saying is that we have to try harder. Day jobs and life may get in the way, but if we expect our blogs to actually serve a purpose in the world, we need to devote the time and effort it takes to make them what they should be. If we don’t, the magazines are going to catch up and beat us at our own game.

Base Camp

Until now, we’ve been focused on the bare essentials that you’ll take to the summit or those that you’re carrying with you. On some expeditions, the weight taken to base camp is at less of a premium. Either a road allows vehicle traffic near the mountain or you can use burros to ferry your equipment. In this case, you can bring a bit more gear with you to use

The first thing I would add to my photo kit is a tripod. Even a cheap tripod can make an astounding difference in the clarity of your photos. Having a tripod opens up an entire new world of night photography.

You have two choices when picking a tripod. Either you can bring a full size tripod or a table top tripod. Table top tripods require you put them on some nearby large object like a boulder or a cairn to get the shot. With a full size tripod, you have more flexibility in your shots.

If you go the full size route, find a liter weight model that won’t weigh you or the burro down. At the high end, Gitzo’s Mountaineer series are extremely durable and made of light weight tripod. However, high end tripods also require heads. Markins and Really Right Stuff both make fantastic lightweight models with equally impressive price tags. A multitude of other manufacturers make cheaper alternatives that will work nearly as well.

The second thing in my bag would be a flash and wireless trigger. While this isn’t an obvious choice, a bit of off camera flash can make a critical difference in camp photos. Add a couple of nearly weightless ball bungees to your pack so you can attach the flash to tent poles or a trekking pole.

The third thing I would bring along is a telephoto lens. While I certainly wouldn’t bring a heavy telephoto zoom along when weight is a critical factor, it can be handy for photos at base camp of nearby mountains or other similar subjects. This isn’t to say I’d bring a gigantic 600mm prime, but a 70-200mm zoom can occasionally come in handy.

Further Reading

For some added information on the subject, there are a few places you can look.

Books:

Guide to Climbing Photography: While geared towards big wall climbing photography, this book has some good insights that you can adapt to your own mountaineering photography.

Mountain Light: Galen Rowell was one of the world’s best mountaineering photographers until his death in 2002. While this book doesn’t cover a lot of the technical aspects of mountaineering photography, it is a fantastic resource for getting into the head of one of the best.

Links:

Digital Photography in the Wilderness: This article is pretty old these days, but the information is still fantastic. I’ve been following Jeff Maion’s work for a few years now and his photos consistently impress me.

Strobist: A fantastic resource for learning about how to light photos. Many may question why a flash is the second luxury item I’d add to my pack, but once you take a look at some of the photos strobist followers are producing, you’ll see why.

Now we know the basics of what equipment to bring and how to carry it. Part three covers cleaning the camera in the wilderness and some accessories to make life a bit easier.

If you haven’t read the earlier parts of this series you may want to start with part one or part two.

Cleaning

Mountains are dusty places. Your lenses will get dirty and you need to anticipate that you will need to clean them at some point. So, we’ll need some way to remove the dust in the wilderness.

The first way to clean your gear is to keep it from getting dirty in the first place. While climbing on a glacier, dust generally isn’t a huge problem since the rock is covered by quite a bit of ice. Base camp is a different story. Moraines are giant areas filled with lots of dust. To prevent all this dust from getting in your camera, keep lens caps on your equipment when it’s not in use. Try to change lenses as few times as possible and in areas that are as free from dust as possible. This can significantly reduce the amount of dust that ends up in your camera and showing up in your photos.

Once your camera is dusty, you don’t have a lot of options when you’re in the middle of nowhere. While a bit of a luxury, I find a small rocket blower gets rid of most dust from inside a camera or on a lens. The blower is a bit bulky, but it’s light and stays at base camp for the actual summit push.

Also helpful are pre-moistened single use lens cloths. Zeiss makes ones that I use, but there are many other brands out there. Much like a wet nap, these cloths come in single size pouches that are already moistened with the proper amount of lens cleaner. You have to work somewhat quickly when using it as it dries rather fast, but they are a much preferred solution compared to the alternative bottles of cleaner and packs of lens tissue.

Accessories

At altitude, lens flares tend to be a rather frequent problem for me. The easiest solution to this problem is to use the lens hood that come with your lens. They store inside the same pouch as your lens and protect the lens from some damage. Get in the routine of using a lens hood and you will see an improvement in image quality.

The lens caps that come with most lenses are alright, but I have a preference for the caps that Tamron uses on their lenses. Tamron’s lens caps are of the center pinch variety that makes it quite a bit easier to use the lens cap with a lens hood. There are also Chinese knockoffs available on eBay for a rather cheap price that fit any budget.

A comfortable shoulder strap is a required accessory for my camera. I have a recurring fear of accidentally dropping my camera off a 3000ft cliff. A shoulder strap is cheap insurance that this won’t happen. I’d highly suggest getting a padded strap with quick disconnects that is long enough that you can put it in your holster bag around your waist while the strap stays around your neck.

Another piece of cheap insurance is a UV filter for every lens you own. UV light is quite a bit stronger at altitude and a UV filter will reduce its appearance somewhat in your photos, but that’s not the reason to use a filter. A UV filter will protect the front element of your lens from scratches or scrapes due to a stray rock or you cleaning dust off the lens. Be sure to get a decent filter as it can reduce picture quality, but $50 for a filter is cheap insurance for an expensive lens.

Part two of our photography series continues where the previous article left off. Now that we have an idea of the two main components involved with mountaineering photography we cover how to carry all this gear so it’s in easy reach.

If you haven’t already read part one of this series, you’ll want to start here.

Padded Cases

Now that you have an idea of what to carry, you need a way to hold you gear so it will get up and down the mountain unharmed. Unfortunately, there are no manufacturers that make backpacks geared towards the mountaineering photographer (or even the hiking photographer for that matter). Mountainsmith makes some photo backpacks, but none of them seem to have the correct blend of technical features and camera storage. So, we’re left to come up with our own solution.

In my mind, the one area a mountaineer shouldn’t make any compromises is in his or her summit pack. So, pick a backpack that you are comfortable climbing with and we’ll add the photo equipment on top of it. Specific tips on picking a pack are beyond the scope of this article, but you’ll be able to use nearly any pack for photography.

I highly suggest a holster style case for your camera. I use a Tamrac Digital Zoom 4 bag. Other manufacturers like Lowepro make a range of bags suited for nearly every camera The main feature you want to look for is belt loops on the back of the case. I thread these through the waist belt of my pack and loosen the neck strap enough that the belt can take a good portion of the weight. This keeps the case close to the body and leaves the area directly in front of you free for the task at hand.

The main problem I’ve found with this method is that it does reduce the amount of space you have for gear on your rack. Access to pickets or wands from your pack is still maintained, but a portion of the rack space is removed. I don’t usually have a very full rack and can move more of the gear to the other side to compensate so this generally isn’t a problem. If you are taking enough gear that this does become a problem, you’re probably getting to the point that a point and shoot is more appropriate than an SLR anyways.

So this leaves us with the problem of what to do with the other lens you brought along. In my experience, if it stays in the pack you will never use it. Thus, we need to find a way to mount it to the outside of your pack.

LowePro and Tamrac both make individual lens cases that are designed to fit on their own photo belts. I picked up a Tamrac lens case for each size lens I have. Lowepro also makes some very nice lens cases. The nice thing about these cases is that they have a very secure mounting method that includes both snaps and Velcro. I take the case and attach it to the bottom of the right shoulder strap on my backpack. This results in a very secure mount for a lens at approximately waist level on the opposite side of my pack as the camera. I can access this pouch without taking off my pack and it doesn’t interfere with my rack.

The only non-ideal part of this setup is that it can be somewhat of a delicate situation when swapping lenses as there is a chance that you can drop on of them. So, I tend to only change a lens when I’m in a safe area.

Batteries

When far from civilization for a few weeks at a time, batteries tend to be the limiting factor. While solar chargers are an option, they tend to be expensive, bulky and somewhat finicky. So unless you’re going out for months at a time I’d recommend just bringing along a handful of spare charged batteries.

Thankfully generic batteries for your SLR can be found very cheap on eBay ahead of time. For a two to three week trip, buy four to six spare batteries and charge them up before you leave. Make sure to test every battery for functionality before you leave as the occasional dud isn’t unheard of. This should be more than enough power to last through nearly any expedition with plenty to spare.

On summit day, leave all but one or two spares in your tent at base camp. Put a fresh battery in your camera and the spare in an inside pocket of your jacket. Camera batteries tend to be very susceptible to cold and keeping the spare warm with your body heat will make it last for quite a few more shots.

Storage

Now that you have all this power, you’ll need the storage space for the photos. I always shoot RAW and each photo is around 10mb in size. So, I go through quite a bit of space in day to day photography.

Do not bring hard drives for mountaineering photography. Due to the thin air, hard drive based solutions will not work at altitude and you will lose any photos you have taken. Flash storage is fairly cheap these days and it shouldn’t be too expensive to buy plenty for your expedition.

Since flash cards are cheap and weigh practically nothing, I tend to bring along twice the storage space than I think I’ll need. This will make sure that I won’t run out of space and is protection in case I lose a flash card on the trip to the mountain.

While there are many books on how to take better photos, there are none (that I can find) covering the needs of a mountaineer. The closest book on the subject is “Guide to Climbing Photography” by Jeff Achey. It is a good resource for the minimalist way to climb rock with an SLR, but doesn’t cover mountaineering specifically. With this in mind, I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts on the subject.

My experience with digital photography lies entirely with Canon’s line of DSLRs. While Nikon and other brands make fantastic cameras that will give superb results, I’m not entirely familiar with their model ranges. As such, this article primarily will refer to Canon’s mode lineup. However, the advice given can apply universally to any manufacturer’s cameras.

The name of the game when it comes to mountaineering photography is how much you’re willing to suffer for the results. A 10 pound tripod, 5 lenses, and a Canon 1 series camera would certainly provide some excellent photos, but I would seriously question the sanity of anyone that wants to carry that to the top of a 6,000 meter peak. So, we need to pare down the amount of gear required.

Technical Routes

To start, you need to know how technical of a route you’re going to be on. If you’re climbing a route that’s anything more than AD on the French alpine grading system. the best you’re going to be able to use at altitude (without putting your life at risk) is most likely a point and shoot. Get yourself something like the Canon G series point and shoots and bring some spare charged batteries.

A guide I climbed with liked to keep a point and shoot in a waterproof box tied around his neck with a bit of webbing. When needed, he would take the camera out of the box and snap away. This way the camera was secure and easily accessible when you are tied in and want to take a shot. On any sort of technical route, you will not be able to easily take two hands away from your tools to focus and compose a picture with an SLR.

On a less technical route, you will be able to effectively compose a photograph with an SLR. In this case, the altitude becomes the main concern. The higher you climb, the more difficult it will be to carry each pound of gear. So, you will want to limit yourself to the bare essentials. Any non-essential weight should be eliminated to reduce pack size and the difficulty of climbing. The first place to start in this weight reduction program is the camera itself.

The Camera

While cameras like Canon’s full size 1 series are rugged and waterproof, they are simply too large and too heavy for the purposes of mountaineering photography. I have seen a few people carrying them, but they take up massive amounts of pack space and in my opinion don’t provide a whole lot more to justify the added weight and bulk.

So, the heavy weight solution in my mind would be something along the lines of a Canon 5d Mk 2. The camera weighs in at around 1.8 pounds (810g) without a battery (body only). It’s not a cheap camera (Around $2500US), but it’s lighter than a 1 series body and has unrivaled picture quality.

For the rest of the world, I say skip the mid level ‘pro-sumer’ cameras like the Canon 50d and go with an entry level consumer model like the Canon 450d. While this may be heresy in photography circles, there is sound reasoning behind the idea.

The major difference between an entry level camera such as the 450d and a pro-sumer model like the 50d is the ergonomics of the camera. The 50d for example has a nice thumb-stick and wheel to change the various settings on the camera. To aid in this, the camera is quite a bit larger and feels a bit more comfortable in the hand in daily usage.

The consumer models however are much more bare bones. Anything that isn’t needed is stripped out entirely. The core capabilities of the camera still exist, but anything that isn’t needed has been removed. This is exactly what we’re looking for. The result is a camera that performs much the same as its bigger brother, but without much of the weight and the bulk. As a nice side effect, the 450d is significantly cheaper than the 50d.

The 50d weighs in at 1.6 pounds without a battery while the 450d weighs in at 1.1 pounds. While this weight savings might not seem like a lot, any weight saved adds up quickly and can make a significant difference in my pack at altitude.

Lenses

The eternal question of photography is always what lenses to bring along on an outing. When every ounce counts, this question is of extreme importance. For a summit push I limit myself to two lenses maximum. This makes me think carefully about exactly what I will shoot and reduce anything that I probably won’t need.

When picking a lens, the first thing you need to decide is are you going to use zoom lenses or primes. A prime lens is limited to a single point of view but tends to be quite a bit lighter and have slightly better picture quality than the zoom equivalent.

A zoom lens on the other hand will be a bit heavier but will be much more versatile. My main lens can zoom from 24mm to 105mm. This gives me a somewhat wide field of view at the wide end and a decent telephoto at the long end. While a zoom lens is heavier than a single prime lens, the universal applicability of the zoom makes it indispensable for a mountaineer.

The second choice you need to make is what field of view you are going to need. For the summit push you do not want to take any photo equipment that you might not use. I’ve found that I rarely use my telephoto lens since my photos tend to be of the mountain I’m climbing and not the others in the area. So, my 70-200mm zoom stays at home or at base camp while I climb.

So, the two lenses that end up in my pack are a super-wide angle lens (such as the Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 or the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5-4.5) and a normal zoom (Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS). With these two lenses I can cover nearly everything that I’m bound to come across from close up detail shots to landscapes or group summit photos.

While a discussion of specific lenses is beyond the scope of this article, I should point out some general things to keep in mind. When looking at the end photograph from a DSLR, the big differentiator is going to be the lens that was used. I tend to spend a bit more weight in my pack on professional series lenses as a result. That said, there are some fantastic lightweight consumer level lenses that will save a disturbingly large amount of money over the professional versions and quite a bit of weight.