Humpback Whales, Aug. 10

borderbrae

These photos were taken Monday, Aug. 10, on The Dolphin Whale Watch, out of Provincetown, MA. It was a beautiful warm sunny day and I think the whales were having fun. These shots were all taken using my sigma 28-70 lens since I was told the whales would be very close to the boat. Wish I had had the Canon 70-300 IS lens on for the breaching shots but hindsight is always 20-20, isn't it? Next time I will do it differently (I've got a Canon 28-135 IS on order) Enjoy! When I PP'd these I cropped the 12 mp shot to 8x10 but used as much of the original as I could, in other words, the ones that look like they might have been cropped to bring the subject in closer were not.

Whale Breaching


Another Whale breaching


Breaching again


This is the last whale we saw breach, after he fell back into the water he rolled onto his side and we could see one of his flippers and 1/2 of his flukes above water. He continued to wave that flipper for several minutes.


This pod of 5 whales was alongside the boat for several minutes and I got some great shots


This shows the flukes of one of the whales in the pod when he decided to dive


The pattern on the underside of the flukes is one way of identifying individual whales.


This whale and another came right towards the boat and dove deep right near it.

Maestro

Wow! What an experience. You did an excellent job with the whales breaching and the tail images are classic photos....well done.

borderbrae

Maestro wrote:

Wow! What an experience. You did an excellent job with the whales breaching and the tail images are classic photos....well done.

Thanks Stephen, it was a great time! Total boat ride is about 3 hours total, nearly an hour out to where most of the whales are. The whale watch is something I think anyone would enjoy. I was rather surprised at how few people had cameras with them, some were taking photos with their cell phones.....

Bud1880

Again Jean, some nice whale shots you've shared with us. I especially like that third one coming out of the water and rolled onto it's back. Very nice.

Thanks.

Bud

borderbrae

Bud1880 wrote:

Again Jean, some nice whale shots you've shared with us. I especially like that third one coming out of the water and rolled onto it's back. Very nice.

Thanks.

Bud

Thanks Bud. It was just such a great day hard to go wrong as long as you had a camera to capture stuff. I just had it on continuous and let 'er rip. It was definitely a learning experience for me, as far as camera equipment goes, not to mention learning about the whales.

raptorcaptor

I think you are going to enjoy your new lens! Sometimes the wider shots are nice too! Good set, Jean!

borderbrae

raptorcaptor wrote:

I think you are going to enjoy your new lens! Sometimes the wider shots are nice too! Good set, Jean!

Thanks for the kind words, Glenn. The new lens arrived and I put the UV filter on it. Will put it on the XSi and take some shots this weekend in prep for a coming trip to the UK.