Cruise ship shooting

[Ed Richards]

Just reviewed the old threads on shooting on cruise ships, but the question seemed to shooting the shore from the ship. I am more interested in shooting the ship itself. While engine vibration will still be an issue, movement should not be, in that you will be locked in sync with everything else moving. Any one had experience with this?

[Gary Beasley]

Depends on the size of the ship. Larger ships you will rarely notice the vibration. Handheld shots where you can isolate yourself from the structure should work fine if the shutter speeds are on par. Larger ships may have photo labs on board for 35mm so you might be able to experiment and see what came out in time to retry if it doesn't work.

[Alan Davenport]

I've never taken a cruise, but my experience on ferries causes me to doubt that much of anything on a ship is ever vibrating "in sync" with anything else. Fast film/iso, wide angle lenses and perhaps flash where possible should help if the vibration is bad.

[Walter Calahan]

Use a wooden tripod to dampen vibration.

Bigger the ship the less you'll have a problem.

[Greg Lockrey]

Never been on a cruise ship and never plan on being on one, after nine years at sea in the Navy I can't imagine spending my hard earned cash on going back. But to solve your worries about vibration I would put your tripod on some sponges if in fact you do feel any vibrations that you can see in the finder. I suspect that these cruise ships are a whole lot smoother than war ships. I never noticed any camera shakes when I shot missle shoots off of CLG's

[ignatiusjk]

I almost got a job on a cruise ship as a photographer but chickened out.

[Ole Tjugen]

Use a Speed Graphic and shoot hand held.

Seriously. The vibrations are stronger than you realise, even on very large ships.

I'm sitting here on what could be equated with an extremely large ship stuck to the seafloor (an oil drilling platform), watching the wave patterns in my coffee cup. I don't notice the vibrations at all, but my coffee cup tells me they are present anyway.

[Richard Wall]

I used a LF camera and a gitzo G320 (Aluminum) tripod on a cruise to Alaska. I never noticed vibrations from the engines showing in the final prints. Although, we were on one of the larger boats. My biggest problem was as soon as I brought out the camera I had a crowd of onlookers that crowded around and wanted to know what I was doing. It was often hard to focus on what I was doing. So, the on-board experience was not really conducive for good images. However, Denali, where we were headed, was fantastic.

Richard

[Ed Richards]

> My biggest problem was as soon as I brought out the camera I had a crowd of onlookers that crowded around and wanted to know what I was doing.

My past experience is that there are not many folks on cruises who get up at dawn, so I figure I might get a chance to shoot then.

[Brian K]

Use a Speed Graphic and shoot hand held.

Seriously. The vibrations are stronger than you realise, even on very large ships.

I'm sitting here on what could be equated with an extremely large ship stuck to the seafloor (an oil drilling platform), watching the wave patterns in my coffee cup. I don't notice the vibrations at all, but my coffee cup tells me they are present anyway.

Ole, I've had Norwegian coffee and it's not the waves making the coffee in your cup vibrate, it's the caffeine! :)

[Frank Petronio]

If you can afford an expensive cruise, then you can afford one of these:

http://www.ken-lab.com/

(You can also rent them in big cities or from their website. It's $450 per month for a mid-level one and you can apply it towards purchase.)

They are quite common for aerial photography, especially from helicopters which vibrate a lot. One fellow -- Diane Arbus's former assistant -- Neil Selkirk -- uses one of their gyros with a Rolleiflex to shoot one-second long handheld exposures that are still sharp.

I've always wanted to try that....

I wish they could give me a commission lol.

[John Kasaian]

Well, if you've got a wood camera and the ship sank, it'll float! :D

[r.e.]

I am more interested in shooting the ship itself.

If you intend to do this with a large format camera on a tripod, I would be sincerely interested in the results of your attempt.

[wclavey]

I'm sitting here on what could be equated with an extremely large ship stuck to the seafloor (an oil drilling platform), watching the wave patterns in my coffee cup. I don't notice the vibrations at all, but my coffee cup tells me they are present anyway.

Likewise, I have never been on a cruise ship, but when I worked in Tankship Operations, I spent my time on Ultra-Large Crude Carriers (512K DWT, 1898 ft long, ...really large) and even on them, there was vibration that you felt, especially when under way...the combination of the engines and the sea. Perhaps the sleek shape of a cruise ship (or even a navy vessel) compare to a ULCC reduces the sea vibrations, but the engines will always be there. I confined my off-hours personal photography to hand held 35mm and MF, and there was no evidence of vibration then.