Need advice- Going on a whalewatch

[FutureFocus]

What did you do on a in order to get nice shots (or which increased the opportunity to do so) while on a whalewatch?

This will be my first opportunity to try mine on the high seas being a fairly new acquisition and the season is just a couple of weeks old.

Would you care to share any advice in order to improve my chances of nailing some great captures? What should I do doing and how should (what shutter speeds/etc.) the camera be set-up for flukes, breeches, bubble-feeding and taking shots of the harbor/coastline while out to sea/on the move?

Hope there's something to capture this next time as the last one I went on had none!

Prior trips included taking a video cam which will be left behind next time.

Time to maximize opportunity with the new gear!

Thanks in advance.

 

[drr1531]

I shoot a lot from a boat. Best advice I can offer is to keep your shutter speed as high as possible. Lots of movement going on. Hands shaking, boat rocking, forward motion of boat, and target moving. Freezing motion is critical to get a sharp image.

 

[Ronald M]

VR 70/300 zoom. Light weight being the key. When a whale pops, there is no way to predict where or when so you just have to be ready and lucky. Then throw away 95% of them.

 

[Randy]

SS is everything.....forget about vr even active vr, crank up the ISO to get that ss as fast as you can

 

[gnagel]

I was able to get some sharp images of whales from a zodiac which was bouncing around a lot in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean--despite handholding the 70-200VR or the 500VR for the trip!

My recommendation follows along the lines of what Randy suggests: shutter speed is critical. I had decent success with shutter speeds as low as 1/800th...and I also shot in high speed burst mode in hopes of getting a sharp image or two from the sequence. I also tried to track the whales using dynamic continuous autofocus--I happened to use 21 points.

Good luck...it's challenging, but fun!

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Glenn