Here come the whales, Hawaii!!

[nwcountrygal]

I have learned it is a jinx.. if i bring camera no whales on shore, If I don't whales breaching everywhere. Last year missed a shot of whales breaching just as sun went downn whith whale breaching at the same time. OHHHH that sucked. Bummed three days seeling whales and tonight??? Sure tonight for New Years gonna hear one tonight?????

[rainroosty]

You can always go to the hospital and get a picture of that big bag of blubber spouting off at the blowhole.

[Calico Salsa]

Originally Posted by nwcountrygal

if i bring camera no whales on shore

Well there's your problem, you are looking in the wrong direction, the whales are OFF shore...

OK, seriously, folks should go on a whale watch trip. Help your brothers and sisters in the business, and get out there on the water. From shore you can definitely see whales, but usually its a tiny little spout or if they do breach, you don't see them until they are out of the water... far too late to pick up your camera, point it, and take the shot.

When you are on the boat, just resign yourself to the fact that you'll spend a lot of time looking through the viewfinder, waiting for the whale(s) to show themselves above the water line. A couple of nice photos here means I've got well over 150 where all you see is water with ripples, or a dark bump on the surface, or a bit of fin or tail. You have to take a lot of photos to get a couple of ones worth showing.

Once you've grabbed a good spot at the rail, when the whales are near the boat, get a feel for the timing. Look for whales (the crew will point them out) who tend to stick their heads up. A bigger roll of the back is often followed by a good tail shot - but that also means that whale has dived down, and won't surface for 15+ minutes. Competition pods give you a lot of action.

If you have a good digital camera, and one with zoom, take several shots. Put your camera on multi-shot mode (often the icon of a guy running) and shoot at least 2-3 everytime you hit the button. Later on when you look at the photos on a bigger screen you might find you got more than you thought.

Digital makes it easy to take a ton of pictures and just delete the bad ones later. Don't expect to take 2 photos and just happen to get the whale leaping out of the water looking you in the eye. Pros take hundreds and hundreds of shots.