All photographs shown at this site were taken with a Pentax Program Plus manual focus 35 mm SLR purchased in 1987.  My lenses included:

The Tamron and the Vivitar were purchased second hand on a limited budget prior to our move to Pond Inlet.  I had the two Pentax lenses for many years, and they were my most reliable.  The C-90 is an astronomical telescope with a catadioptric design (a combination of lenses and mirrors) which manages to fit the 1000 mm focal length into a compact hand-holdable package, only 15 cm long.  It is a slow lens, but solidly built, with superior optics.  It is easily detached from the clock-driven astronomical mount.  The only photograph taken with that lens shown at this site is iinguaq.jpg shown in the Mountain Photo Gallery.  The effective photographic magnification of that shot is 20X.  The mountain is approximately 27 km from town.

I made use of no special equipment to keep the camera from freezing, or the batteries from getting too cold, except to keep the camera inside my parka unless I was taking pictures.  I took over 1400 photographs in the first year (over 2000 in the two years we were there,) and the same set of batteries was used for most of them.  The equipment held up very well considering that a large portion of these pictures were taken at temperatures below -30 Celcius.

A large variety of film was used during the year.  Despite low light levels, I found that the best photographs were still taken with low speed film, and a tripod.  By the end of the first year, I had discovered that my film of choice is Fuji Superia 100 ASA.

My Program Plus served me well for the past 13 years.  However, it came time to retire it in favour of a more modern piece of equipment.  Before leaving the north, I sold it, still in good working condition, along with the lenses, to a person who lives and works full time in Pond Inlet.  I am now the proud owner of a new Pentax Z-1P 35 mm SLR.  It is a feature packed, fully programmable, rock solid, fast autofocus, four frame per second beast of a camera, and I am thrilled to have it.  Along with it I have Pentax FA autofocus 28-70 mm and 80-320 mm zoom lenses.  For more information, check out Pentax Canada, or more specifically, the Z-1P itself.

Of course, the beast shown here may have been the most important piece of equipment I used while in the arctic.  Without it, few of these photographs would have been possible.  I travelled nearly 7000 km in the past two years, and it didn't let me down once.