Humpback mother and calf, part 3
:: Thursday, July 27th, 2006 @ 10:40:35 pm
:: Tags: Photo, Travel
mother humpback whale and calf
The humpback mother and calf (Megaptera noveangliae) from the past two days still weren’t in the mood to play, but we found another mom and calf. These two were totally accepting of our presence, and we spent 6 hours in the water with them. It’s rare for me to fill my memory cards, but after the day was over I had 744 underwater whale images totalling 10GB! I am sore and tired. Here are a couple teasers, but I’m keeping the best images private for the moment.
this mother kept rolling her belly toward us
It’s bizarre that the next shot was taken only eight minutes after the prior shot; it looks so different! The white belly of a humpback whale forces the camera to take a much shorter exposure, which darkens the surrounding water.
a calf sits on top of its mother
UPDATE Cetacean master Tony Wu has posted a short video of our first encounters in Tonga.
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Wow, can’t wait to see the heros. Is Tonga cold water? See anything else in the blue?
oh my god
Dave - Tonga was relatively warm. Even a cold-water wuss lke you would have been happy in a 3mm — especially since we were only snorkeling and free diving. :)
By the way, all photos on this page were taken with a Canon 1Ds Mk II and Tokina 17mm/3.5 lens.
Eric,
You go!!!! Some of the most amazing whale photos I’ve seen. The whales must have really felt comfortable intereacting w/ you and that means a lot.
If you don’t mind me asking, which ext. ring did you use w/ the 17mm?
Cheers James
James - How dare you ask what extension ring I used! :)
I used no extension ring. The 17 is really short.
that’s simply stunning!
Wow, E. You HAVE been busy, haven’t you? These pictures are incredible!
Fantastic. I’ve seen pics of others who have gone to Tonga - and many have just comeback with kind of murky pics which they have to convert to black and white for any effect whatsoever. Your pics are completely a different kettle of fish - contrasty and sharp.
What was the water like - clear with pretty good light penetration? were you shooting at most of time (wide open F2.8 or closed up F16)?
Well done anyways - the “E - man” does it again.
Paul - yeah. The only way to get sharp photos is to shoot with a really wide angle lens and to be very close. In many of the photos I came back with, I was within 3-5 feet of the whales. I shot most of the time at around f6.3-f8 at shutter speeds of at least 1/125.
Thank you :)