In the Field

Humpback Whale Tail Slapping. Great Bear Rainforest (northern BC coast). October 9, 2008.

Humpback whales are intelligent, beautiful, and majestic animals. Even though we only see them in a small fraction of the environment in which they live (only at the surface and a few feet below water), we still can observe a wide range of their fascinating behaviours. I caught this whale in the middle of a long series of tail slaps. This display is common and most whale experts consider it a warning display (presumably communicating the warning of some danger to other humpbacks and possibly - inadvertemtly - to other species).

This is an image that could not have captured a few years back under the conditions which I shot it. It was late in the day and the light was fading. And, the skies were heavily overcast and we were experiencing light rain. So...I had no choice but to dial the ISO way up (to ISO 2500) and pray! Fortunately I captured the image that I was hoping for (the "animalscape" above)!

Most photographers know that recently the "ISO rules" changed pretty dramatically, especially compared to the days of film and then with the first couple of generations of dSLR's. First Canon pushed the limits with a number of reasonably high ISO performance cameras and then in December of 2007 Nikon changed everything with the D3 (and shortly thereafter with the D700). So...what limits your ISO settings now?

Most everyone knows that digital noise increases as you increase your ISO setting. Up until quite recently you could go no higher than about ISO 400 before the noise increased to the point where image quality started to degrade substantially. Today, you can go much higher - I now regularly shoot up to ISO 1600 and, under certain conditions, even higher (like with this image).

"Under what conditions?" you ask. Well, something else happens as you increase your ISO. The dynamic range (think of it as the brightness range your sensor can capture) decreases. With most cameras the dynamic range decreases by a single stop for every doubling of ISO beyond the base ISO for your camera (so for every stop of ISO increase you lose one stop of dynamic range). This stop-for-a-stop decrease rate doesn't occur until after ISO 800 with the Nikon D3 or D700.

What does this dynamic range decrease mean when you're in the field? It means that once you start cranking up the ISO you're going to have more and more trouble capturing scenes with a wide dynamic range (i.e., high-contrast scenes). So...as ISO goes up it becomes far easier to "blow-out" highlight detail OR lose that critical shadow detail (or both). When I go high ISO I automatically look for scenes that are dominated by mid-tones. The image above is an example of a mid-tone scene that works at high ISO's: with the exception of the spray coming off the whale's tail, most of this image lies within a narrow brightness range.

Just something else to keep in mind when you're out there shooting!

This image was captured during my annual autumn "Spirit Bears and the Great Bear Rainforest" Instructional Photo Tour. If you're interested in joining me on one of my photo tours into the Great Bear Rainforest, check out the details on my "Seminars and Workshops" page. My Instructional Photo Tours into the Great Bear Rainforest are run in conjunction with Ocean Light II Adventures - they offer a number of amazing adventure tours (including top-notch bear-viewing tours as well as tours of exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands) and I highly recommend them!

Behind the Camera

Humpback Whale Tail Slapping. Great Bear Rainforest (northern BC coast). October 9, 2008.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) 14-bit format; ISO 2500.

Nikon D700 with AF-S Nikkor 600mm f/4G IF-ED II VR lens supported on Gitzo 1348 carbon fibre tripod with Wimberley head. VR turned to "On" and in "Normal" mode. Autofocus set to M/a mode.

1/1000s @ f4; -1.33 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Humpback Whale Tail Slapping. Great Bear Rainforest (northern BC coast). October 9, 2008.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass/capture sharpening, white balance adjustment, levels adjustment, and noise reduction using Phase One's Capture One Pro 4.5.

Further digital corrections on 16-bit TIFF file using Adobe's Photoshop CS4 and Light Crafts Lightzone 3.6. Photoshop adjustments included selective curves adjustment, selective application of cooling filter, and selective sharpening for web output. Final tonal adjustments made using LightZone's tonemapper/relight tool.

Conservation

Humpback Whale Tail Slapping. Great Bear Rainforest (northern BC coast). October 9, 2008.

Ten percent of the revenue generated by this image will be donated to Raincoast.

Species Status in Canada*: Threatened - North Pacific population (May 2003).

Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeagnliae) are active, acrobatic whales that can throw themselves completely clear of the water (a behaviour known as breaching) and will swim on their backs with both flippers in the air. Humpbacks are large (up to 14m - or 46 feet - in length and 40 tonnes in weight) and with huge flippers.

Humpbacks are found in tropical, temperate, and sub-polar waters around the world. They are found on both the east and west coasts of North America. The North Pacific population has been estimated at between 6,000 and 8,000 individuals, but only a few hundred of these are found in the waters off the coast of British Columbia.

While Humpbacks are recovering from the damage done to their populations by commercial fishing, the are still subject to a variety of threats from human activities, including becoming entangled in fishing nets, noise and chemical pollution and habitat destruction.

These two Humpback Whales were photographed along the coast in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. The Raincoast Conservation Society is fighting to protect the Great Bear Rainforest along the central and northern coast of British Columbia. This unique ecosystem harbours a strong population of many high-profile species such as Brown Bears and Gray wolves, plus many aquatic species that serve as prey for the Humpback Whale. If you are looking for a meaningful way to contribute to the conservation of the Great Bear Rainforest and all its associated species, Raincoast will provide maximal "bang" for your conservation dollars.

For more information on the status of Humpback Whales in Canada, go to: http://www.speciesatrisk.gc.ca and search under "Humpback Whale".

*as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada