We were leaving Neko Island heading for Port Lockroy at the bottom of the world (almost anyway) when a large pod of Humpys decided to play right in front of the ship. We were obviously in the middle of a hugh krill ball perhaps a mile or more wide and the Humpys were going nuts. When we saw this behavior in 2008 in Alaska they engaged in traditional bubble feeding; here they just went down and came back to the surface and swam with jaws wide open gorging on the krill. This went on for about three hours; we were standing on deck in sub-zero temperatures, running from back and forth from port to stbd not want to leave the show. At one point the obvious Aplha Humpy started a pectoral fin splash and did this over 30 times in a row - amazing!
Hope you enjoy this one; I will also post one with two Humpys alondside each other.
I was very pleased that I was able to image the tongue, baleen, and the eye; I accepted a less than preferred SS for a bit more DOF since the subject was rather large.
In the original image the eye is pink like the tongue - lost in translation, I guess.
Camera: 7D
Capture date/time: 20 Jan 10; 8:20PM
Light condition: very overcast
Lens: 300 f/2.8
Focal length: 600mm
Distance: 18 m
Extender: 1.4
Tube: none
Flash/Comp: no;
ISO: 1600
Exp Prog: Tv
Speed: 1/320 sec
Aperture: f/7.1
Exp Comp: +1
Metering: Partial
WB: Auto
AF Drive: AI Servo
Tripod: no
Filter: None
Crop: 20%
Processed in LR 3 (beta) and then CS4 - plus Topaz Suite and Pixel Genius Sharpening.
All C&Cs gratefully appreciated!







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