Re: Wildlife viewing on Alaskan Cruise
- From: "-hh" <recscuba_google@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 23 May 2006 05:02:39 -0700
Nonnymus wrote:
"Leo K" <leokXX@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,
I have a question for the group re viewing wildlife from the cruise
liner on an Alaskan cruise. I would like to purchase a good pair of
binoculars, and maybe will need a lens or two for my camera.
FWIW, at least one Alaskan cruise line (Cruise West) provides free
binoculars.
Can anyone give me an idea of the minimum magnification
would need in order to get clear views/pictures? TIA
While it would be fun to capture great shots from either
aboard the ship or on land, the times we've been to Alaska
have not produced that many critters. The ones we did see
were easily captured by our digital camera well-enough for
home consumption. Remember, the ship is moving and even on
land, a tripod is really needed for lenses over 400 mm (35
mm film equivalent or about 8X)
400mm is too much for most (90%) people; the general rule of thumb is
that 300mm is the reasonable maximum that one can expect to effectively
hand-hold, and onboard a ship is a "handhold" environment even if you
had a tripod because the ship has (hopefully) not run aground.
Also worth remembering is that wildlife viewing opportunities can often
be early or late, which means a lower sun angle and less light. As
such, a faster lens (and binocular, as measured by Exit Pupil Diameter
- EPD) is very desirable, since there's only so far you can push ISO
speeds. Fortunately, IS (Image Stabilization) helps here on the camera
side.
Even so, from an expectations perspective, even 300mm isn't
consistently enough reach, as can be seen from these two photos: the
former was no problem, but the latter is an enlarged crop (around 200%)
which shows the loss in image quality:
http://www.huntzinger.com/photo/2001/close_seals.jpg
http://www.huntzinger.com/photo/2001/crop_otter.jpg
(BTW, both are digital scans from 35mm film).
My suggestion would be to get a good Canon IS binocular.
I'd agree that IS is quite beneficial. For photography, for a "300mm
max" rule of thumb, you might want to consider the Canon 70-300mm
f/4.5-5.6 IS ($560), or perhaps the 70-200mm f/2.8 IS ($1650) if you're
using a consumer 'crop' Digital body (Rebel, or 20D).
Nikon also makes lenses which are functionally the same (including
general price points), but instead of "IS", they call it "VR".
This is also pretty much the last step in consumer-centric "afforable"
systems, as the next step up from this would be one of the professional
gyroscopic stabilizers for the whole camera system, and the Ken Lab KS8
for a big lens costs around $250/week to rent (10x more to buy):
http://www.ken-lab.com/stabilizers.html
The image stabilization is great and lets you view 10x and
even higher handheld without much shake.
For photography, expect IS technology to gain you 2 stops, so instead
of needing 1/500sec to freeze an image with a 300mm telephoto, you can
expect to do this with IS at 1/125sec. That makes for a big difference
in success rates at all times of day except virtually high noon.
We have a 15x pair of Canon image stabilized binoculars...
Current retail cost on the 15x50 IS's from B&H is $814 with shipping.
While they're fine for use in good daylight, their EPD is only 3.5mm,
which means that they'll be dark and thus a fairly poor performer under
overcast, canopy, or twightlight conditions where you really need a
binocular that's been designed to have a 5mm EPD. Overall, its just
another compromise between weight and performance.
For cameras, I'd go small and not fiddle with a big bulky
one with interchangable lenses. With the <35mm diagonal
image sensor of most digital cameras, you have lots of
telephoto capacity; it's the wide angle shots that will give
you heartburn.
Small digital cameras are very compact and convenient, but their
trade-off is that their small sensor size results in significantly
higher levels of noice (film analogy: "grain").
Wide Angle is the heartburn and there really are some nice WA
opportunities in the Alaskan outdoors. Get practice before you go with
Close-Focus Wide Angle (CFWA) and try to get at least a 20-24mm lens
.... and if you have a crop dSLR, since this is effectively only
35-40mm, go even wider: look at the 12mm's. Fortunately, lens speed
is less critical here.
I'd worry more about small size than interchangable lenses when cruising or on a trip.
YMMV, but that sounds like a self-contradictory statement from someone
who's also recommending lugging along pair of 50mm objective diameter
binoculars. Overall, if one of the reasons why I'm going on the trip
is to bring back my own memories, then I have to decide if its worth
carrying the weight to make them of higher quality. And while digital
has come a long ways very fast, there's still no replacement for glass.
FWIW, something else worth considering is that a big lens on a (d)SLR
can serve quite nicely as a monocular 'spotting scope', which is an
alternative to buying/carrying two pairs of bino's and a small P&S
camera.
-hh
.
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