In the Field

Humpbacks Feeding with Bubblenets. Bishop Bay (Great Bear Rainforest), BC, Canada. October 1, 2006.

This was an incredible moment. We were traveling between locations (via sailboat) during a bear photography trip when we encountered a pod of humpbacks fishing with bubble nets just off the shoreline. It was pouring rain and the light level was extremely low. So I did something I had never done before with a digital camera - I shot at ISO 800. To me this was a radical departure from protocol - like many other old codgers I hesitate to ever shoot above ISO 100! Anyway...the resulting image did require significant digital correction (especially noise reduction) but it worked! As a final note I want to emphasize that I consider this type of digital correction totally legitimate - all I really did was use my computer to make up for the deficiencies of my image-capturing device and produced a final image that matched the original scene as closely as possible.

Behind the Camera

Humpbacks Feeding with Bubblenets. Bishop Bay (Great Bear Rainforest), BC, Canada. October 1, 2006.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 800.

Nikon D2X with Nikon 300 mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR lens (600 mm equivalent with with camera in high-speed crop mode) - hand held (VR turned to "On" and in "Normal" mode).

1/500s @ f2.8; no compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Humpbacks Feeding with Bubblenets. Bishop Bay (Great Bear Rainforest), BC, Canada. October 1, 2006.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass sharpening, exposure compensation, tone curve adjustment and preliminary noise reduction, using Phase One's C1 Pro. Multiple RAW conversions (2 at different exposure settings) to extend dynamic range of captured image, in this case primarily to 1) retrieve highlight detail on the skin of the whales with reflected light 2) retrieve shadow detail on the rocks along the shoreline.

All further digital correction on 16-bit TIFF file using Adobe's Photoshop CS2, including compositing and masking of various exposure versions, additional tone curve adjustment, selective saturation enhancement, selective noise reduction (using PictureCode's Noise Ninja Photoshop plug-in) and selective sharpening for web output.

Conservation

Humpbacks Feeding with Bubblenets. Bishop Bay (Great Bear Rainforest), BC, Canada. October 1, 2006.

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