Camera, lens Alaska

[Watson's aunt]

Hi

 

I have a Canon rebel (Two) one of my lens is a EF Zoom Canon 70-300 IS

while it took very nice pictures of Glaciers and such It did not take very good pictires of whales and other sea critters. I am asking for advice on other lens or maybe a smaller camera. I cannot afford those huge lens plus they are too heavy. I really want some nice photo's of whales. LAst Alaskain cruise I was talking to someone taking photo's and he was surprised that my lens would not shoot the distance. He even tried it on his camera. So anyone who might have bought a smaller camera that will give me the distance I would really appriciate it .

 

 

Thanks

 

Mary

[E-500]

Hi

 

I have a Canon rebel (Two) one of my lens is a EF Zoom Canon 70-300 IS

while it took very nice pictures of Glaciers and such It did not take very good pictires of whales and other sea critters. I am asking for advice on other lens or maybe a smaller camera. I cannot afford those huge lens plus they are too heavy. I really want some nice photo's of whales. LAst Alaskain cruise I was talking to someone taking photo's and he was surprised that my lens would not shoot the distance. He even tried it on his camera. So anyone who might have bought a smaller camera that will give me the distance I would really appriciate it .

 

 

Thanks

 

 

Mary

 

The Canon DSLR you have is great camera. If you want a better zoom without the weight,cost and hassle of a more powerful lens, suggest you go with one of the Canon point and shoot cameras with 12-16x optical zoom. NOT digital zoom.

 

The lens you have now is aprox. 6+ zoom at 300 and it works well for most situations. Assume you know about aperature and shutter speed and can apply this knowledge to a simple point and shoot camera, you should be good to go.

[jtl513]

Are you aware that there is a forum dedicated to photo/camera discussions where you can benefit from the experience of cruisers from many lines? :)

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=118

.

[MVPinBoynton]

When we were in Alaska 7 years ago, I was using a Rebel XT with a 70-300 is. It took great photos of whales. For glaciers, I used a shorter lens. Didn't need 300, since we were close to the glaciers.

 

I now have a 7D, but the lens does very well; and will be going with me to Alaska again in June. Yours might be defective or you could be using some wrong settings. You probably should go to the photo forum to get more specific advice.

[shrimpboat123]

Hi

 

I have a Canon rebel (Two) one of my lens is a EF Zoom Canon 70-300 IS

while it took very nice pictures of Glaciers and such It did not take very good pictires of whales and other sea critters. I am asking for advice on other lens or maybe a smaller camera. I cannot afford those huge lens plus they are too heavy. I really want some nice photo's of whales. LAst Alaskain cruise I was talking to someone taking photo's and he was surprised that my lens would not shoot the distance. He even tried it on his camera. So anyone who might have bought a smaller camera that will give me the distance I would really appriciate it .

 

 

Thanks

 

Mary

 

 

I just got back from an Alaskan CruisTour this past July. I have a Canon DSLR and I wanted to get a long lens for those distant shot. So I went looking for a 100-500mm lens. I found one that was going to cost $1200 and weighed 5 lbs. When I left the camera store the purchased a Panasonic Point and Shoot DMC-FZ200 for half the price.

 

There is a whole thread on this camera at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1694983

 

You can also see the photos I took in the trip report I did which is in my signature below. I was very impressed with this camera.

[janmcn]

You should have gotten the shots fine…

What "speed" are you shooting with that lens…you need to be shooting at more than 1/600th of a second (I would shoot 1/1500 for wildlife). If you don't do that you will always have fuzzy photos. Also, put it in multiple shot mode and rattle them off. The 300 mm lens is almost the equivalent on your camera of 450 mm, so you should get wildlife fine. I would always recommend shooting from the walk-around lower verandah decks. People who shoot from "up top" forget they are many stories above the water, so they are much further away from the animals.

You've got a great camera and lens…the smaller cameras will not perform as well. Learn how to use it well and you'll love it.

 

PS: you can always rent a longer lens from lensrentals dot com. I've rented the 100-400 lens with good success. Cheaper than owning one I won't use much.

 

PPS: We have the Panasonic FZ200 which is a great camera for a small camera, but no way does it focus fast enough on wildlife…it's our "backup camera" to our Canon 5DMark3

[fionan]

That lens should be absolutely fine for Alaska wildlife, I've also got the Canon Rebel (EOS in Europe) and have used a similar lens with great success. Some tips:

 

If your problem with ealier shots was that you could not zoom in enough then make sure you are shooting at the highest resolution(Large photos on the menu). That will mean that for whales far away you can crop the picture on your computer and will still have fine detail.

 

If your problem was a blurred image, make sure that the whale is in focus by putting it dead centre in the frame so that the centre red dot is on the whale's head. - although you can change the focus point within the frame, only the centre focus point sends all the information to the Rebel camera's processor. The other points will focus but not as well. You can then compose the shot by cropping on your computer.

 

The main cause of blurriness is that the whale is of course moving while the picture is being taken - so speed up the shot. If the light levels are low you will need to move the ISO to 400 or even 800 so that you can still get a 1/500 or 1/600 second shot. The higher the ISO the grainier the image, so it is a trade off. But it is easy to switch ISO while shooting so it is worth trying different settings for the same scene (depending on how long the whale stays around)

 

If you are not comfortable setting the shutter speed and or aperture size yourself and the whale is far away, try using the landscape setting so that you have a better chance of the whale being in focus, but you will have to combine that with a high ISO to keep the shutter speed fast.

 

Finally, there are several versions of the lens you are using and some of them are considered to be not so good. If the lens came bundled with the camera when you bought it it might be one of the less good versions. The problems with those lenses tend to be at the far end of their length, so you are likely to get very much crisper photos by using the lens at around 250mm and then cropping even more aggressively on your PC. You could try that at home to see what the limit is on your lens.

 

Did I get better bear and whale and dall sheep photos with my 150 - 500mm Sigma lens? - undoubtedly. Was it worth the price and the weight of carrying it around? - probably not.

[Host Walt]

This thread was just copied from the Holland America forum. Later posts appearing on that board will not be duplicated on this board.

[janmcn]

By the way…you should also disable your IS while shooting wildlife…it will want to "hang onto" the first focus it finds…but the animal may not be there a few seconds later.

[NoahtheRed]

The 70-300 is notoriously fuzzy at the long end, so you have to be particularly mindful of your setup. Generally, for moving objects, turn IS off. As Janmcn pointed it, it can essentially try to track focus on something that's moving too fast.

 

Shooting wildlife requires 2 things: Speed and Speed.

[Watson's aunt]

Hi

 

Thank you so much I did not know there was a site. Sorry This is great thank you for all the tips.

 

Mary

[Watson's aunt]

Hi

 

I did not turn of the IS and did not change the speed. I am going to see If I can find something to practice on and see if that works. Camera worked fine on other things I photographed. I just could not zoom in on the whales. I am taking more wildlife tours this cruise. I really apriciate all your advice.

 

 

Mary

[fionan]

When you say the lens won't zoom in at all, that sounds like it might be a problem with autofocus. That happens because the light is low and you are trying to focus on a very dark object - the lens simply isn't getting enough information to enable it to focus. Depending on where you live, this may not be an issue on your practice shots - try shooting at twilight and focusing on a very dark object to reproduce the light conditions. In the Inside Passage you can do test shots focusing on the very dark bits of the mountains.

 

If auto focus still won't work then you need to focus manually- you will want the aperture to be as small as you can (higher number), so that you have the deepest field of focus and you will also want the speed to be fast so that the whale's movement does not blur the image. You will need to increase ISO as much as you can to compensate for these. Then manually focus as best you can on the whale. Once you have that set up, if the distance between the whale and the ship stays about the same you should not need to keep refocusing. You won't be able to do more than set the focus to be roughly correct in the first place.

Edited February 24, 2014 by fionan

[janmcn]

Mary….try just practicing with birds…even sparrows will do, or dogs or cats…at least that will show you how your lens works and what the "sweet spot" is…

Definitely use the "Tv" setting and change your speed to at least 1/500 (rule of reciprocal…you need to have the speed set to at least the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens…i.e. 300mm=1/300, etc..but your camera has a "multiplier" which makes your lens effectively a bit longer mm size…so faster is better.)

Take off the IS and try it…use it both ways to see what your diff is…

 

You'll figure it out pretty quickly! Enjoy!!!

[peety3]

I cannot afford those huge lens plus they are too heavy.

 

Go visit http://www.lensrentals.com/for-canon/lenses and browse the telephoto/supertelephoto sections. Look at each lens, and read the "Roger's Take" (or similar) for each lens. Use that to help you confirm what a particular lens can do for you. Consider renting something for your Alaska trip, as you can get so much more than what would make sense to buy.

 

Not all of these are heavy, and you're going to have to figure out what your weight limit will be. There are some gems out there, though some are certainly expensive. We rented the 400mm f/4 DO lens on our last cruise and absolutely loved that it was "only" four pounds. Be aware that it doesn't zoom, so that's a drawback that will present a challenge to many.

[Watson's aunt]

Hi

 

Thank you so much I will turn off my is and just shoot bursts of photo's maybe one of two will be good. I can't post any photo's yet as My computer is haviing problems

 

 

Mary

[Turtles06]

PPS: We have the Panasonic FZ200 which is a great camera for a small camera, but no way does it focus fast enough on wildlife…it's our "backup camera" to our Canon 5DMark3

 

I recently bought the FZ200 as a backup for my DSLRs, and because the weight of the DSLRs is getting to be too much for my knees, at least walking around for hours in a European city (for example.). And so far I've been pretty impressed with what it does, but I agree that (ideally, for those who have an alternative) it would not be the only camera to take to a place like Alaska where you'd be photographing a lot of wildlife.

[peety3]

Lots of good information here, but lots of mis-information here.

 

When shooting this camera/lens combination without IS, you do need a shutter speed of 1/500th or better to avoid blur due to shake. When shooting with IS enabled on this lens, you only need a shutter speed of 1/125th or better to avoid blur due to shake.

 

When shooting with IS on, be sure to half-press the shutter for at least a half second, preferably a whole second before taking any shots. The IS unit needs time to get the sensors spinning before it's able to offer its full performance gain.

 

On this lens, IS should most likely be turned off if using a tripod, and probably should be turned off if you're tracking birds in flight or otherwise "aiming around freely" etc. Otherwise, turn the IS on - once you get a whale in the viewfinder, it's not going to move around quickly (relatively speaking), so let it help your photos.

 

IS does not affect focus. It only "bends" the lens a little bit to the left/right/up/down to counteract shake/motion. Focus affects the distance out/in where the picture is focused.

 

If you're following any sort of object in motion, you most likely need continuous AF. You can get this from the "sports" pre-programmed mode, or by changing your AF settings to AI Servo.

[ikirumata]

Hi

 

I did not turn of the IS and did not change the speed. I am going to see If I can find something to practice on and see if that works. Camera worked fine on other things I photographed. I just could not zoom in on the whales. I am taking more wildlife tours this cruise. I really apriciate all your advice.

 

 

Mary

 

After reading your posts, Im wondering if last time you tried to photograph whales, you were trying to do so from the cruise ship. On my cruise, I would see whales from the ship, but even though I had brought a 70-200mm lens, the whales were just too far away to get any good shots. Only when we went on whale excursions did we get close enough to really photograph whales...but even then, they were pretty far off as boats have to stay at least 100 yards away. 300mm should be enough to get some good shots while on an excursion, you may have to crop/zoom some, but you should be fine.

 

One other thing that Im wondering is if you are using the rear LCD display to focus in on your whales. The focus is notoriously slow (at least on most rebels) if you are using the Live View LCD. If this is the case, try using the viewfinder.

 

Keep your shutter speeds high. I know that whales don't move very fast, but with the zoom and the fact that you are on a moving boat, you will need some faster shutter speeds to compensate. Its true that you may need to boost your ISO in order to get faster shutter speed, which introduces noise, but that can be fixed later. Blurry shots cant be fixed (at least I haven't found a good way to do so). To keep your shutter speed high, you can try shooting in Shutter Priority Mode (Tv). In this mode, you can set your shutter, say 600-1000, and the camera will adjust all the other settings to get you the proper exposure. Practice with this as the camera can only adjust so far. You may have to back off the shutter speed if necessary.

 

Good luck! I hope you come back and post some awesome whale pics!