We bought the boat towards the end of last year. I've written about how it helps you to escape the Pilbara Summer and some of our other adventures on the boat. But finally, I managed to go out on the boat to see the whales.
The water is teaming with them at this time of year. It's almost like you can't go out and NOT see any whales.
But talk about precarious situations. Our boat is five meters - so not that big. And I had a two month baby in my arms the whole time. A two month old baby, trying to keep him calm while taking photos of whales with my zoom - meaning you have to keep the camera REALLY still when zoomed - while on a rocking boat. Yeah, it didn't work PARTICULARLY well, but still managed to snap a few.
I ended up using the shutter priority and really ramping it up to about 5000 or so to try and freeze the motion of the whales. The tricky part was getting them in focus. I had the auto focus on which really helped but was not perfect. It got tricky-er when I realised that my replacement camera, the 70D, can film so I decided to try for some footage as well, but needed to turn the autofocus off for that because it kept shifting between the boat, the whales and the water. All in all it was quite ticky, but managed to snap a few. If only we could get a bit closer or I had a bigger zoom...and the baby was old enough to sit on his own. Next time I go out, I'll go out with grandparents who I'm sure wouldn't mind holding bubba for me...
Another example of when a zoom lens REALLY comes in handy...
