Skip to primary navigation Skip to content Skip to footer
Back to Dana Wharf Blog

How to Photograph Whales on Your Whale Watching Tour (Tips from Our Captains)

Humpback whale fluke photographed from a Dana Wharf whale watching boat off Dana Point, the signature shot every guest wants

The single most asked question we get on every whale watching trip out of Dana Point is some version of this: “I have a phone (or a camera). How do I actually get a good shot of the whale?” Our captains have been watching guests try, succeed, and miss for decades. Here is everything we have learned, condensed into a guide you can read on the drive down.

Spoiler: the biggest variable is not your gear. It is where you stand on the boat and whether you are ready before the whale surfaces. Both of those are free.

The One Rule That Beats Everything Else

Anticipate. Do not react. Whales surface in a rhythm. When a humpback dives with a fluke up, it is going to stay down 4 to 12 minutes and come up roughly downstream of where it dove. When a blue whale surface-lunges, it does it again in 30 to 60 seconds in a slightly different spot. When a fin whale takes a long breath, you can usually count to 8 and watch it come back up.

The shot you want is the one you set up before the whale surfaces, not the one you react to after. The single biggest thing our captains see is guests with great cameras missing great moments because they spent the moment scrolling to the right setting instead of pre-framing the shot they were about to get.

So: when the captain or naturalist tells you the whale just dove, get ready. Camera up. Settings dialed. Eyes on the water in the direction they say it will come back. That window is when the photo gets made.

Phone Cameras

Modern phones take surprisingly good whale shots. Three things help:

  • Burst mode. Press and hold the shutter the second the whale surfaces. You will get 10 to 30 frames in three seconds and one of them will be the keeper. Trying to time a single tap on a moving boat with a moving whale is a losing game.
  • Zoom only with the optical lens. If your phone has a 3x or 5x telephoto lens, switch to it. Digital zoom past that point softens the image badly. Wide shots that include the boat rail are often more compelling than tight zooms anyway.
  • Strap or lanyard. Drop one phone overboard and you’ll never go without one again. They are $5. Use one.

For video on a phone, switch to 4K 30 fps. Higher frame rate (60 fps or 120 fps) is great for slow motion of a breach but eats storage fast.

If You Brought a Real Camera

The setup that works best on Dana Point whale trips:

  • Lens: 70-200mm zoom is the sweet spot. Long enough to fill the frame with a whale at 50 yards, wide enough to capture a megapod scene. A 100-400mm is fantastic if you have one and the deck space to swing it. Anything longer than 400mm is overkill on most trips because the action is closer than you think.
  • Shutter speed: 1/1000th or faster freezes a breaching whale. The boat is moving, the whale is moving, the swell is moving. Fast shutter solves all of it.
  • Aperture: f/5.6 to f/8 keeps the whale sharp even if your focus point drifts a bit.
  • ISO: Auto ISO, capped at 1600. Daylight at sea is bright, but you want the shutter speed locked, not the ISO.
  • Focus mode: Continuous autofocus (AF-C on Nikon, AI Servo on Canon, AF-C on Sony). Tracking will hold the whale once you acquire it.
  • Drive mode: Continuous high. Same logic as burst on a phone.

If you have a polarizing filter, use it. It cuts surface glare the same way polarized sunglasses do, and it makes the water look the color you want it to look in the photo.

Where to Stand on the Boat

This is the most underrated tip in this guide. The bow rail of the upper deck is where most guests want to be, but it is not always the best photo position. Consider:

  • Upper deck bow: Best for distance shots, megapod overviews, and elevated angles on a surfacing whale. Crowded when the boat is full.
  • Main deck side rails: Closest to the water, best for fluke shots and surface-feeding shots where the action is right against the boat. The angle is dramatic.
  • Main deck stern: Great when the captain is following a whale and the whale surfaces behind us. Often the least crowded spot during a sighting.

Move during the trip. Do not lock into one rail the whole time. A 30 second walk to the other side often produces the better angle on the next sighting.

The Shots Worth Chasing

If you are out for the day and want to come home with specific shots, these are the ones to plan for:

  • The fluke shot. When a humpback or gray whale dives, the tail flukes lift out of the water for 2 to 4 seconds. This is the iconic whale photo. The moment the whale arches its back deeply, fire your burst.
  • The breach. Hardest to time. Whales do not telegraph a breach the way they telegraph a dive. The best approach: when a whale has breached once on this trip, keep your camera up between every surface for the next 10 minutes. They often go again.
  • The spout. Underrated. A vertical column of mist 30 feet tall against a blue sky is a real photo. Easier to nail than a fluke or a breach because the spout lingers.
  • The eye-level surface. When a whale slowly rolls along the surface, get low. Phone or camera against the rail. The angle that puts you at the whale’s eye level reads as intimate.
  • The megapod overview. Wide shot of hundreds of dolphins all moving in the same direction. Phone wide angle nails this better than most zooms.

Lighting and Time of Day

Morning trips are typically calmer water, softer light, and the sun behind you for east-facing shots. Afternoon trips are brighter, with more glare, but better visibility into the water for underwater whale silhouettes. Both work; neither is universally better for photography.

For a deeper look at the morning-vs-afternoon question, our captains’ breakdown covers it from the wildlife angle, which usually drives the photography angle.

Etiquette on a Crowded Boat

One thing photographers do that drives guests crazy: blocking the rail with a long lens for 20 minutes straight. Don’t do that. Move when others want to move into the spot. Share the angle. Some of the best photos on our boats have come from guests who stepped back and let a kid get a turn at the rail and then framed the shot of the kid spotting the whale instead of the whale itself.

What to Bring

The minimum kit:

  • Camera body and lens, charged
  • One spare battery (cold sea air drains them faster than you’d expect)
  • Extra memory card
  • Microfiber cloth (saltwater spray will hit your front element)
  • Lens hood (cuts flare and protects from spray)
  • Polarized sunglasses for spotting the whales with your eyes

For a full pre-trip packing list, our what-to-bring guide covers everything else.

Setting Expectations

Not every trip produces a portfolio-worthy shot. Some days the whales surface far away, the light is flat, or the action just doesn’t happen near the boat. The photographers who come back with the best work over the long run are the ones who book multiple trips, treat each one as practice, and let go of the pressure to nail it on a single ride. We have guests who run a season pass purely to chase the shot all summer. It works.

Where to Go From Here

The live schedule is at our whale watching page. Daily trip recaps with what we are seeing (and frequently with our crew’s own photos) are at the fish count page. If you want to plan around peak photography conditions, the July peak blue whale guide is the single best month of the year.

See you on the water, and bring extra batteries.

Previous Post Next Post