Sea cruising with a camera: how to take photos aboard ship

Cruising with a Camera
The unexpected visual rewards of sea voyages

rom a photographer's standpoint, is there anything special about a cruise? Until I had the opportunity to cruise from Montreal to Florida on three small ships, I never really thought so. But this relaxing mode of travel in which your lodging moves with you, and the sailor's-eye view of coastal scenery that it affords, proved to me that there is much to gain by cruising with a camera.

Whether you're a beginning or advanced photographer, here are some pointers—specifically designed for boat passengers—that can enhance your next shipboard experience.

Choosing Your Camera and Film

Probably the best camera for the cruise passenger is a 35-millimeter point and shoot. This type of camera is very small and light, and except for tripping the shutter, virtually every operation is automatic. There's usually no need to worry about setting the film speed, focusing, or adjusting the exposure. The film advance and rewind mechanisms also generally operate automatically. A bonus for the sailing passenger is that some point and shoots, though not truly waterproof, are designed to withstand a hard rain or a poolside splashing.

Today's point-and-shoot cameras have high-quality optics, and they use the same film as the more expensive single-lens reflex cameras favored by serious amateurs and professionals. If kept loaded with fresh batteries and handled judiciously, they can give you professional-quality results.

Color print film with a speed of 400 is the best choice for the variety of conditions that occurs in cruise photography. This film is quite sensitive to light, so you can use it indoors and out. It also has wide "exposure latitude," which means that if your camera's automatic exposure control misjudges the lighting conditions, the film's built-in margin of error may still allow your photo lab to produce a pleasing print.

Although you should have little trouble buying film en route if you run out, try to bring at least one 24-exposure roll for each day of your trip.

What to Photograph

Other modes of travel simply do not offer the perspective on people and places that cruising delivers in abundance. The close quarters and congeniality of a boat create an atmosphere in which it's easy to meet and photograph passengers and crew. Meanwhile, an ever-changing and frequently spectacular panorama unfolds all around you.

"The Dorothy Moran, New York Harbor" by Robert Winkler

While sailing, you get to photograph a harbor from the water, surely the way any harbor was meant to be portrayed. You can record the procession of other boats and the people on them. You can also capture wildlife and seascapes that would be too far to photograph from shore.

Don't forget pictures of your own vessel. Among the shots that please me most from my own cruises are what I call my "deck abstracts," compositions in which water, sky and landscape are framed by the boat's railings, decks, cables and sweeping contours.

Special Photography Techniques

Successful marine photography requires anticipation and, when the moment is right, decisive action. From shore, a boat gives the impression of drifting along, but when you're using a camera aboard one, subjects come and go with surprising quickness. A boat moving toward you from the opposite direction in which you're going may provide only one chance for a good shot.

Since you can't rewind a cruise's ceaseless stream of images, you have to learn to see your shot before it's upon you. If a crew member announces that something of note will soon come into view, get out on deck and consider how long it will take the ship to reach it, where the best vantage point will be, and how the direction of the light will affect the view.

If you're heading directly into the sun, you can position yourself at the stern to have the light fall directly on, say, a passing sailboat. When the wind on the observation deck is so strong it's flapping your jacket sleeve in front of your lens, move to a more protected area. As you pass an island where pelicans sit in the treetops, go to the uppermost vantage point to get closer to their level.

Pan your camera with a moving subject to minimize blur, and if you have adjustable shutter speeds, use a speed of 1/250 of a second or above to minimize the effects of the movement of your own vessel, as well as vibrations if it is engine powered. With a camera that has a zoom lens, vary the focal length to pull in distant objects and gain greater framing flexibility from your relatively fixed position.

Inside, you might have to light some portraits with your camera's electronic flash, but use natural light whenever possible. You can, for instance, position a person near a window or porthole (though not in direct sunlight) for portraits that avoid the stark and unflattering look of electronic flash.

Finally, at each port, try to get an unobstructed stem to stern view of your boat. This is something we may overlook, but such a full-length portrait is important. It will stand as a visual summing up of your trip, a definitive record of what made it all possible.

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A message from Robert Winkler

Jeff Brush/Connecticut Post (used with permission)

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