Nikon D50 with zoom lens and wide angle.Best way to take action shots w/out flash?going on a dolphin cruise?

Question

Tonight I am going on a dolphin cruise. I'd like to know what settings my camera should be on. I have a nikon d50 with both the included wide angle lens and a zoom lens. What settings should my camera be on? How do I get good action shots. This won't be dark, but the lighting my be a little dim. I'd like to take most of the pictures of the dolphins without a flash.. how do I do that without it being blurry? Anything would be helpful thanks!

http://flickr.com/photos/9862751@N05/1342903124/

how do i get that kind of pic and how do I avoid grainy-ness?

also how do i get pictures like this?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24414299@N02/

is it mostly editing? I know it's taken with a d80

Answer 1

Forget the wide angle and concentrate on the telezoom lens.  The longer zoom the better.

I'll assume your long zoom is either a 200mm or 300mm on the long end.  I recently went out on a small boat to view off-coast marine life and captured some nice images of otters and seal lions with a 400mm.  

The problem with dolphins (I missed several) were that they don't "pose" like at a marine park and are constantly moving.  Try to anticipate where they will surface and take rapidfire shots, hoping to capture the moment in one or more of them.

Learn to brace yourself, holding the camera and lens properly, and watch for the swaying of the boat.  Practice standing with one leg behind the other, minimizing vertical camera movement.

I'd recommend moving up to ISO 800 or so, then using noise-reducing software afterwards.  

Best of luck and have fun!

Answer 2

You don't have much choice.

You either shoot at lower ISO's and get camera and subject movement or high ISO's and get noisy images.

Of course shooting using the aperture priority mode with your lens wide open will help, but you will have to decide after a few shots how you want to shoot the rest of the evening.

You will need a longer lens if you want to shoot close-ups of the dolphins

Answer 3

If you are lucky the Dolphins will be running close to the boat.  A long lens can work against you in low light when you are not on a stable platform.  Example a 200mm lens will need a shutter speed around a 200th of a sec where a 50mm lens needs around a 50th of a sec.  You need to do some testing with your camera to see how steady you can hold your camera at slow shutter speeds.  Also learn to pan with a moving subject.