Is my simple point & shoot Canon 5 MP Good Enough For An Alaskan Cruise?

[KarJer]

I have a Canon Powershot SD400 pocket camera I am taking to Alaska in a week. It has a zoom feature but its very limited. Will this do me for 95% of my pictures on the shore excursions or do I need to come up with something higher in resolution and with more zoom. I am not very sophisticated with cameras and don't have enough time to learn on something that is not easy.

[okbowler]

According to the instructor in the digital camera class I took, 5 MP will give you all the detail you can use unless you plan to make really large enlargements.I have 10X zoom on my camera and cannot hold it still enough to take free hand zoom shots. Instructor said 3X works fine for non professionals . :) Bill

[miami]

I have the same camera. I love it. It takes great pictures and I take it everywhere, it's so small. For Alaska, I bought a Kodak with a 10X optical zoom and I'm glad I did. I took both. Used the Kodak for whale watching and going through the glaciers. I wish I had brought it to Prince Rupert. There were eagles everywhere.

[KarJer]

It was the possibility of taking pictures of bears on shore or a whale surfacing that I was thinking about. Not sure how close those kinds of shots occur near the ship or in the excursions.

[SheilaNC]

We found that our 5 mega pixel took great pictures on both our Alaskan and Mediterranean cruises. It was helpful to have image stabilization and to be aware of changes in lighting. Some of our Hubbard Glacier pictures were fabulous. I wouldn't buy a new camera just for the possibility of getting wildlife sightings....bears are infrequent from the ship. Whales were quite frequent and close on our Juneau shore excursion but not close enough for good pictures from the ship. Just MHO.

[KarJer]

Thanks HostSheila, I appreciate your feedback. I really don't want to take another camera because of the bulk. I also really don't want to spend any more money before I even get there.:)

[love2relax]

I got great photos of whales and otters by using the zoom on my 5 MP camera. The shots are very comparable to those taken by my BIL (who had very sophisticated equipment). I'm not familiar with your model of camera. My only frustration was with shutter delay. It was so frustrating to see a whale breaching, and only get a photo of the splash. Or when the humpback whales were getting ready to dive, I would press the button. Ugh! You wouldn't believe what a difference a few seconds makes! My BIL's pictures always show the full whale tails dripping the water, while I caught them a few seconds later. It was VERY frustrating. There were lots of eagles along the shores in Sitka, and also some deer; but I couldn't zoom in far enough to get clear photos of them. (FYI, my BIL didn't get very good photos either.) If you have a good, fast shutter, you should get some really nice photos of the whales. I got some great pics of glaciers calving in Galcier Bay too. (Due to my shutter delay, the bergs usually were hitting the water when the lens finally clicked, so I got a lot of splash with them: cool! Have a great cruise. You will LOVE Alaska. If I could make a living, I would MOVE there!