Inexperienced-looking for some help before Alaska

I have an older Canon Rebel t3 I bought years ago (maybe 10) at a black Friday sale. It came as a package with the 18-55 mm lens, a 75-300 lens,and a few filters I have never known how to use. I have never learned how to do much with it other than full auto. I tried sports mode when my son played lacrosse but mostly got blurred shots. It takes great photos for everyday use and I took it to Alaska in 2015 and got some decent photos of humpback whales feeding and even a breach and the huge splash that followed. That leads me to my questions for the experts.

We are sailing Glacier Bay this year on NCL Pearl. I want to take a tripod and also would like to look into a better lens for shots of the glacier and hopefully some wildlife. I want great zoom but I am unsure if I will be able to get good shots without knowing more about how to operate my camera. Can I still use full auto with a lens that will allow more zoom? Should I look for wide-angle zoom? Any suggested resources to help me learn how to operate this camera? I have watched a few youtube videos, but haven't found any that are especially great.

We leave in 3 weeks. Thanks for any input and guidance!

We leave in 3 weeks.

I would recommend learning and practicing with what you have, rather than trying to buy and learn something new, like a new lens.

It's the weekend. How many photos have you taken today? How many did you take yesterday?

Take your 70-300mm out and try to shoot some bird photos. Birds are everywhere. They move around at inconvenient moments. You'll have to learn how to adjust your camera quickly in order to get a shot. And it's easier to learn when you're shooting something like a sparrow, rather than a bald eagle.

For capturing fast moving shots, you want to increase your shutter speed. In order to do that, you'll have to raise your ISO and lower your f-stop. Test your camera to find out how far you can manipulate those before you start ruining your shots. Practice taking photos with and without your tripod. Setting up a tripod quickly is a skill. Holding a camera steady with a longer exposure is a skill. Even if you don't have enough time to improve your skill much, you at least want to know the limits of your skill.

Your shore excursions will have you outside, taking photos during the middle of the day. If you're lucky, it will be overcast. But you may have to deal with harsh midday light. Every day at lunch, go outside and take at least 10 photos. Figure out which ones work ... and why. Figure out which ones don't work ... and why. You'll at least get in 200 practice shots before your cruise.

Each evening, take at least 10 photos inside your home. Don't turn on extra lights to make it easier. Work with the light you normally have. Try taking pictures with a flash ... and then try to get equally good pictures without the flash. This will give you some practice for shots around the cruise ship.

I want great zoom but I am unsure if I will be able to get good shots without knowing more about how to operate my camera.

The zoom you have (18-55mm and 70-300mm) covers almost every photo I took while on my Alaska cruise. You should be able to work around any limitations in that regard. I don't know how one works around not knowing how to operate their camera.

Have you read your camera's manual ... cover to cover? That's a starting point for improving your photography.

These are great tips and I do plan to play around with my camera every weekend, including this one, until my cruise. I should have done this years ago. I have read the manual and, like I said, watched videos. But, as you have suggested, I need to just use it and make mistakes.

Thanks for the response, I will stick with the lenses I have and get to know them the best I can before we leave. We are on the gulf coast of Florida so have some crazy weather out there this weekend to practice on.

I would say learn how to use your Shutter and Aperture priorities. Set your white balance to auto and your iso to auto. Practice all those bird shots on Shutter priority.

My shutter on this one was set to 1/3200 for a falconry show. The owl came out pretty clear, but the falcons still weren't as sharp as I would have liked.

I find Auto works pretty well for almost anything except fast moving action. So I usually shoot in Aperture priority and have learned to look at my shots after I take them. It sounds simple, but for a long time I didn't review them. Especially while you're practicing this will help you figure out what you need to do differently.

Have fun,

Vic

If you are planning to use your tripod to take Glacier Bay pictures - don't. I can guarantee that the rails will be crowded with people and your tripod will definitely be in someone's way and might even get kicked over. If you absolutely must have some sort of camera support and I don't even suggest one at all - get a monopod or a chain pod.

DON

If you are planning to use your tripod to take Glacier Bay pictures - don't. I can guarantee that the rails will be crowded with people and your tripod will definitely be in someone's way and might even get kicked over. If you absolutely must have some sort of camera support and I don't even suggest one at all - get a monopod or a chain pod.

 

DON

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Unless you happen to catch a bird, not really. The ships move slow enough that focus and tracking is not an issue.

Like the others, I suggest you practice with shutter and aperture modes. Learn how to adjust them without looking. With that the lenses you have, while not top end, should be quite sufficient.

If it matters, we have an aft penthouse suite with a large balcony and plan to spend much of our day there while in Glacier Bay. Just wondering if a steady camera would be beneficial.

 

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But, as you have suggested, I need to just use it and make mistakes.

I learned a lot from past mistakes. There's nothing more educational than blowing two days worth of photos.

Thanks for the response, I will stick with the lenses I have and get to know them the best I can before we leave. We are on the gulf coast of Florida so have some crazy weather out there this weekend to practice on.

Crazy weather = great practice. It also frequently translates into great photos.

My caveats regarding Victress2007's advice:

That advice is rather specific to the situation she was in. I just checked a couple in-flight photos I've taken. One (a great egret in Florida) was taken at 1/500. A juvenile bald eagle in-flight in Alaska was taken at 1/800. Victress2007 was shooting in very bright light, which facilitated high shutter speeds. I was shooting in overcast weather. I was shooting with a camera that has an upper limit of ISO 400 before the noise become intolerable (which also limited my shutter speed). Victress2007 was almost certainly shooting with a larger, higher quality sensor ... probably something that could handle ISO 800 or ISO 1600 adequately.

And this is why I suggest you learn the limits of your camera. Your camera is probably closer to Victress2007's than it is to mine. But I don't know that for sure. You don't either. (It's possible that Victress2007 has shot a Canon Rebel t3 before, but she didn't explicitly say in her post.) With my new camera, I ran a series of controlled ISO tests to see what the functional upper limit was. With my old camera, I learned the hard way by blowing important shots.

You don't need to wait for a weekend to test some of this. I did my ISO tests on a weeknight ... after a long day at work ... in my kitchen.

If you don't have them get extra batteries and memory cards. I like you really never took the time to learn the full functionality of my camera, even though I did take the time years ago to learn how to shoot with my 35mm. Work and other things took priority when I switched to digital. I picked up a book on Amazon that helped me a lot. Like other's have suggested learn to work in shutter and aperture mode. One of the tips I got from a wedding photographer that I took to heart is shooting in burst mode especially when shooting wildlife, and candid shot's of people. It's time consuming finding the best shot of the group sometimes, but at least for me it ensured I got all the action, and digital film is cheap and reusable. That delete button on my camera came in real handy a few times.

The vast majority of the picture's I took were wide shot's last year on the Pearl. In Glacier Bay looking over what I took, I kind of wish I had had a wider angle lens then the 18-250 that I took with me, just to show the full perspective of how massive the glacier's are and were.

... and digital film is cheap and reusable. That delete button on my camera came in real handy a few times...

All solid advice but (there's always one ;) ), making a judgement call on an image using the LCD on the back is a dicey proposition. Even with zooming in, the difference between nearly in focus and in focus is often fairly small and hard to detect, especially when shooting in burst mode. I would recommend doing culling of bad shots on a much larger, clearer screen.

A really wide lens is great, but don't forget how easy panoramas are to stitch these days.

Dave

All solid advice but (there's always one ;) ), making a judgement call on an image using the LCD on the back is a dicey proposition. Even with zooming in, the difference between nearly in focus and in focus is often fairly small and hard to detect, especially when shooting in burst mode. I would recommend doing culling of bad shots on a much larger, clearer screen.

 

A really wide lens is great, but don't forget how easy panoramas are to stitch these days.

 

 

 

Dave

Agreed, the only one's that get deleted straight out of the camera are the one's that look real bad. Boat rocked at just the wrong time, or someone moved into my shot. I don't even start to narrow down the picture's until I look at them on the 27" monitor when I can do it with no distractions.

OP: The best advice that you have gotten is from Victress2007. I had the model Canon and the ISO will easily go to 1600 without getting noisy. For your action picks use shutter priority, and let the camera do everything else. For your scenery shots use full auto, and you will end up with great pictures. They might not be good enough to blow up to 3 feet x 4 feet, but unless you want something like that everything is going to be fine. Sometimes people on here forget that a lot of people just want pics to share on social media or with family and are going to use them right out of the camera.

As far as deleting, memory cards are cheap, I never delete anything in camera, I always wait till I get home and have them offloaded to the PC, just to avoid accidental deletes (most cameras don't have the best UI for that sort of thing).

If you are planning to use your tripod to take Glacier Bay pictures - don't. I can guarantee that the rails will be crowded with people and your tripod will definitely be in someone's way and might even get kicked over. If you absolutely must have some sort of camera support and I don't even suggest one at all - get a monopod or a chain pod.

 

DON

I say bring the tripod anyways. You can still use it as a monopod. Just don't spread the legs out. Most people don't have a monopod. If you already have a tripod, just use that in the way I mentioned.