We're back, we're alive, and I'll start the editing as soon as I adjust to the fact that my in-laws are visiting for the next week or so. We took a LOT of gear, we had a blast, and we have very few regrets. I ended up renting a 5DsR (long stories combined for that), a TS-E 17, and everything else I'd planned to rent. Only the 85/1.2 came back unused (plus little things like filters which I forgot to take on our key excursion, timer remote, pocketwizards as camera remote), oh, and our older/lighter tripod (mostly because the weather leaving Ketchikan was garbage and not worth heading up to look for whales from the ship).

The RRS TVC-34L tripod was awesome. I'm already a big fan of buying a tripod that's taller than you think you need. The leveling base was excellent for the gimbal head, though marginally useful for the ballhead. The 5DsR was awesome...a couple of times I put it on the 600 (minus the 1.4x TC III) but usually it was on the 16-35/4IS giving me great cropability when the next lens I had handy was a 100-400. The TS17 gave me some new challenges: I guess I'd never used it on full frame before, and I was surprised at how many times the metering would be WAY off.

The Profoto B1 was actually quite useful on three occasions: sunset pictures of us on the first formal night, fun pictures of us (by one of the ship's photographers, and by our waiters) while we did the Ultimate Balcony Dining, and great pictures of us and our dining room staff "friends" on the second formal night (lit so the exterior water view was visible along with the interior "us" in a balanced way.

I hope to get the pictures edited and posted within 10 days, but regardless I'll post a link here just as soon as I can get them ready.

As always, I do hope all of you consider a trip to Alaska (or several...). The photographic opportunities are nearly endless, and it's quite the photographer's paradise.