Humpback Whale

[Rachel Hollander]

I thought I'd continue to mix it up a bit with some different wildlife. I saw lots of whales on my Svalbard cruise including blue, humpback and fin. The humpbacks got unbelievably close. Most of the time we could tell where the whales were going to surface based on the birds (mostly kitttiwakes and fulmars) swarming above them. It did, however, make it impossible to get images clear of birds. Here's one where the humpback was spyhopping.

Canon 7D
300 II
1/3200
f5.6
ISO 800
HH from moving boat, ff, levels, curves, selective color and sharpened in CS6.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[dankearl]

This is really nice, Rachel..
An Amazing view.

[Steve Kaluski]

Great sighting Rachel, very envious, never saw one of these on our trip, only seen them off Vancouver island. Personally I might have gone for a much more wider POV, however the closer POV shows off the clusters of barnacles/limpits nicely. Looks a bit too sharp at the foot and although nothing you could have done, I wish, like you, you hadn't clipped the legs of the gull. I do feel though, a little gardening on the top & RHS will improve things loosing the odd feet & wings creeping in.

TFS
Steve

[Loi Nguyen]

Wow, Rachel, this is a very close up of a humpback. Love the details of the banacles. Having the birds is actually quite nice and diffetrent. Never been to the Arctic water before, so have no idea of the colors, but the image looks a bit cool from here in the US. Loi

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Rachel, what an awesome view you had. Really like the close-up perspective alot.

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Rachel, love this image. I agree with Steve here. I might would have stayed than with the 70-200 or even with the 2x on it! That would had been my choice, the whales are huge and never know where they come up around the boat.


Have a great day

Ciao
Anette

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks all, much appreciated. Anette - I did use a variety of combinations with the whales, just liked this close-up best of the spyhopping.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Great sighting Rachel, and I like the details and textures (and frenzy of gulls) you were able to capture. Steve made some good points on cleaning up the image (which I would of course do by cropping tighter, as you probably would too :w3). You certainly expanded your portfolio on this trip!


As an aside: Interesting to note all the whales you saw. Our Wild Eye Svalbard trip which went shortly before yours also saw blue whale. They also had the most amazing sighting of 2 polar bears feeding on a kill, mating, standing up together, all going on for hours right next to the zodiacs...you should see the images the guys brought back...made my jaw drop :eek3:

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Morkel. We were on the same boat so it just goes to show how much it varies week to week, it is nature:w3

[Morkel Erasmus]

Yup! So, MS Origo I presume?

[shane shacaluga]

Very nice image. Being up close to whales is a wonderful experience

Always wondered whether the barnacles stuck to a whale cause them any problems

TFS

[Rachel Hollander]

Yes Morkel. Shane - thanks for commenting and as far as I know they don't cause any problems.

Rachel