Aerial Ocean Wildlife Photography
Humpback whale feelin’ slappy
This is a (very) niche topic, but I thought I’d write up my photography notes from 15 flights as a marine biologist guide and photographer with South Pacific Helicopters and Wings Over Whales in Kaikoura, New Zealand.
Alpine landings are a nice bonus! That’s Mt Manakau (2,608 m / 8,556 ft) just behind the helicopter
It’s been SUPER fun working with Dan and his team – and I’ve been stoked to help support the awesome work of my buddy Dr Krista van der Linde’s NZ ocean charity, Moana Mark, by doing so.
So without further ado, here are my photographic notes… and favourite pics!
My first (NZ) blue whale sighting!
The Camera
I pre-ordered the Sony A1 II and received one of the first copies to arrive in New Zealand. It’s been brilliant!
I found 30 fps to be overkill for this work, so I use ‘Hi’ mode – 20 fps still gives me plenty of photos to work with. However, the helicopter does induce some weird vibrations, so shoot more photos than you think you’ll need to ensure you get some nice sharp shots. I use lossless compressed raw files.
The Seaward Kaikoura Mountains are always impressive too
I’m generally using zone focus with tracking, with shutter-linked autofocus (as I’m shooting one-handed most of the time). The great tracking on this camera helps me (a lot) to keep the autofocus on the animal.
Sperm whales are the main stars of the show off Kaikoura – here we were treated to a (rare) team-up
The Lens
I’ve bought the Sony 70–200 f/4 G OSS II lens for this work. I tried my 100–400 GM lens, which I love for regular wildlife work. However, I usually have to shoot one-handed around guests in the helicopter (I sit in one of the middle rear seats), and the 70–200 is lighter and easier to handle in that situation. 200 is a bit short sometimes (we don’t approach closer than 150 m to the marine life), so for the last few trips I’ve been using it with the Sony 1.4x teleconverter, and that’ll be my preferred setup going forward.
Humpback whale with dusky dolphins
A big advantage of this lens is the focus limiter switch – I set it at 3 m to infinity so it doesn’t accidentally focus on the window glass. We’re often circling around the whales quite quickly, so I’ve been using IS Mode 3 (on the lens) to help me stabilise the image. Panning mode (2) might work too, but I haven’t tried it to compare.
Under normal circumstances, something like a 100–400 will be an excellent option, but give your composition plenty of space – you may bounce around a little, so I prefer to crop in rather than accidentally ‘cutting off’ the whale.
There are enormous pods of dusky dolphins off Kaikoura – and they’re awesome little dolphins!
Settings
I shoot in Manual mode with auto ISO. After struggling with sharpness – which I could fix in post, but I’d prefer to get it right in-camera – I’ve eventually pushed my shutter speed right up to 1/3200 second to freeze motion while shooting fast-moving wildlife from a vibrating seat one-handed. I’ve been using the minimum aperture (f/5.6 with the 1.4x tele), but that does still push me up to high ISOs. The images clean up fine in post though.
Baby orca! They’re black and ‘mustard’ coloured until they’re about 6 months old (source)
Post-Processing
All my images go through Lightroom Classic (I use a preset to get all the images looking alright as they’re imported – I can add notes on that if you’re interested), and then, once I’ve picked out my favourite images, I run those through DXO Pure Raw to help reduce noise and generally improve them a bit. Highly recommended (download a free trial if you haven’t already!).
Long-finned pilot whales
Other Notes
Wear dark (or at least not brightly-coloured) clothes, as it minimises internal reflection on the windows.
The Wings Over Whales experience (from the helicopter)
If you’re coming through Kaikoura, a flight is an amazing way to see the area! And if you’d like a marine biologist to join you, either Krista or myself will be happy to oblige if we’re around – just ask when you book :)
South Pacific Helicopters
Wings Over Whales
Any questions? Fire away below! Thanks for reading.
Simon.
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