Hello good old rendo friends...I need your tech help.

I have a huge problem taking photos of the landscape while I am on a traveling/moving cruise ship. Light condition between foggy and very overcasted. I will use a Canon 400d or Canon 550d. What setting option shall I use? 

Any advise would save my winter holiday pictures end up in a bin....

Well there are so many variables it's hard to give an easy answer. Some of this will seem obvious too you, but you know, you will want a large depth of field, so try a small aperture setting (i.e. a large number), and bring a tripod for longer shutter speeds and using long lenses if ya have em!. A cable or wireless shutter release will really help too, especially for dark days and nights. A lot will depend on just how fast this boat of yours is going!!!!!! Bring spare batteries etc etc. Errrm, obviously try to always find a focal point in your shots and be aware of your foreground too. A good polarizing filter is great to add colour and contrast. It will also cut through all that glare on the water. One factor to consider with polarising filters is that they change the exposure needed for a shot. Backup your shots on a hard drive to ensure against the worst! Keep your horizons straight or as straight as the boat will allow!! And I'm guessing you may get to see some great weather conditions out there...shoot it all!!!!!! Try and use the camera you are taking as much as possible before you go so it becomes second nature. Get your exposures right and be aware of ISO settings. And don't 'chimp' and delete shots from your camera on the ship. Take them all home and then review! Trust me on that last one!

And have fun!

Oh geez...this is totaly opposite what I was thinking of the camera set up. I have to work it out how the gloomy overcasted condition ganna match up with the large f-number...:( ( I guess you were refering to higher then f-8)

The cruise going about 10-12 knots...I am not sure if the tripod will be any help here. The ship moving, bouncing constantly. I need fast shutter speed :(

Pls...correct me if I am wrong...:(

thx the input hope others will have some ideas too...more is a better...X fingers

seeya  T

I would suggest a Canon Ef 50mm1:1.8  fast mounted on your 400

and a telezoomlens on your 550

with mist and fogg a overexposure and adobe will do some little help :)

have a nice trip

The obvious choice for landscape shots is a wide angle lens, is it not..??? Wide angle also gives you more depth of field; you won't have the need for small apertures, long exposure times or a tripod. In case of fog, a wide angle lens with large aperture (small f-number) can give you fantastic dreamy and moody landscapes. In case you want to experiment more and your photo bag can take it, bring a relatively fast small telezoom and a flash for fill-in light to control the gloomy light conditions.

'The obvious choice for landscape shots is a wide angle lens, is it not..???' Yes but she is shooting land from a boat. If the boat is a distance from shore then the wide angle lens is going to give her horizon shots with little detail in the land. She will end up with multiple shots of blue water, sky and a strip of land in the middle.

'You won't have the need for small apertures, long exposure times or a tripod'.

Shooting on the deck of a ship at night, she is going to need a tripod to grab the colours from the lights on board. They are going to look crap with a fast shutter! How is she going to control camera shake at night on deck without a tripod? How is she going to control shooting a distant landscape at zoom in low light without a tripod?

How are going to light up a gloomy distant landscape with a flash?

Tunde I also forgot to say....remember that a tripod moves with the ship. So say you are shooting the decks etc in low light. It wont matter that the boat is moving because your camera and tripod will be moving with it. In my experience, you end up shooting far more shots of onboard the ship than you plan because when the light isn't bright enough out there (morning, evening, night, storm), the stuff on the ship is all you can see! And if you don't choose a slower shutter speed, you photos won't look that great. If the ship gets a chance to hug the shoreline and the light is good enough, then that's the time to use your wide angle or prime lens with a faster shutter speed if you wish. And if it's a fairly big ship, it will be far more stable than you may expect. If your definition of a cruise ship is actually a speed boat then yes, more faster shutter will be needed. ;) 

But to not take a small tripod cos it's a hassle to carry or it makes your bag too heavy, or to just leave you shutter speed high cos it's easier and nothing will blur out will mean you will come home with a card full of happy snaps full of noise and thats about it. And isn't that what you are trying to avoid with this post!!!!!!

Have a great time wherever you go!

Andrew, maybe I don't have the right information about the type of cruise and what and when Tunde is going to photograph. My sister just got back from a cruise on the river Nile in Egypt, so I guess that might have 'blurred' my vision... ;o)