Assignment

Photographing Sea World Part 1

Aurora, an aerial acrobat, glides over the crowds suspended by wires during the Blue Horizons show
Aurora, an aerial acrobat, glides over the crowds suspended by wires during the Blue Horizons show

If you are planning a trip to SeaWorld San Diego, be sure to bring along a long lens.

Regardless of the size of your camera’s sensor, you want to make sure you have an effective focal length of at least 300mm.

In fact if you have a choice, I also recommend one with image stabilization.

Be aware if this is your first experience especially with a long lens with image stabilization, the gyro mechanism is working every time you hit the focus button or the shutter release button, so it will drain your camera’s battery faster.

Riders on the Manta roller coaster are frozen in a horizontal position as they twist and turn during the ride
Riders on the Manta roller coaster are frozen in a horizontal position as they twist and turn during the ride. ISO 400 1/1000 sec @ f4.5  Canon 5DM2 with 70-300 f4.5 lens.

 

Always carry at least one spare camera battery.

Turn off the beep when the camera acquires focus and change the time that the LCD monitor stays on to “OFF”.

You can see that it’s in focus looking through the viewfinder, do you really need it to nag at you to press the shutter button?

Turning off the automatic preview for your LCD monitor doesn’t mean you can’t ‘chimp,’ it only means you decide when you want to check your exposure or focus.

You will find as you get better, you aren’t doing this as much, so you’re actually conserving battery power.

I also brought my camera bag strapped to a cart like when I photographed the animals at the Living Desert except this time I left the monopod at home.

Strategies

Bottle-nose dolphins take to the air in unison during the Blue Horizons show. Taken from the top tier of the stands, I was able to show the spray against the blue water.
Bottle-nose dolphins take to the air in unison during the Blue Horizons show. Taken from the top tier of the stands, I was able to show the spray against the blue water.
Dolphins in full flight but shot at 260mm setting on my zoom to clean out the clutter in the background.
Dolphins in full flight but shot at 260mm setting on my zoom to clean out the clutter in the background. Compare this one to the previous picture especially the background.
Patting the manta rays in shallow waters.
Patting the manta rays in shallow waters.

Look at the schedule of the different shows first.

Then plan your day’s activities around those.

The good seats aren’t always the closest ones to the stage unless you’re prepared to get drenched.

Think about your backgrounds. Sorry if this is sounding like a broken record.

But even when shooting with a long lens and the shallow depth-of-field, distractions exist especially when your subject is against a totally front lit background.

The ‘stuff’ in the background may be out-of-focus, but due to the tones or colors, they can still take away from your subject.

Shoot raw if your subject still appears small in the viewfinder even with your telephoto attached.

You can crop in after in post production and still yield a good jpeg after discarding pixels and cropping in.

You may lose the burst rate of shooting jpegs especially if you have a lower end body, but the gain in megapixels in my opinion outweighs the extra frames.
Next: Two fun shows to shoot
Peter Phun Photography

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