Guide: How to take photos on a boat

Originally published: June 2012; updated October 2025

Taking your camera out with you on a boat is an excellent way to get up close to marine creatures in their natural environment, but also poses a unique set of challenges both for you and your equipment. As you can probably tell, I’ve spent an awful lot of time working at sea which has given me some amazing opportunities to see and photograph some stunning marine animals in their element. In this short guide, I list my top 5 tips for taking better wildlife photographs while you’re at sea

1.  It’s probably going to be wet: prepare accordingly!

If you’re going out to sea, it’s going to be wet! Even if you manage to get out on a beautiful clear day, with no waves and no rain it’s often much more humid out on the water than on land so make sure you and your equipment is prepared. If your boat doesn’t have a dry area on board, then taking a drybag or waterproof case of some sort is a must so you’ve got somewhere safe and dry to store your gear when you’re not using it (or for when it starts to get wavy and the rain comes on!).

Rain is never too far away when we're working in the Gulf in the summer

If you intend to do a lot of photography at sea, then it’s well worth investing in weather-sealed equipment to avoid the worst of the long-term corrosion that comes with photographing in salt spray. It’s not something to worry too much about for the occasional trip - I used a (not weather-sealed) Canon 400D for many years after which got completely swamped by a wave once while it was round my neck (it was a case of save myself and soak the camera or fall in the sea) and it’s still worked perfectly well for years after a bit of a towel dry and some time near a radiator, but I also lost two Tamron 17-50mm lenses to saltwater and rain before upgrading and that gets expensive. If your camera body and lenses have weather-sealing, it makes a big difference. I can't speak to the newer camera bodies, but my Canon 7D and 7D mk II both served me for years and have never had any issues with them or my L lens setup. Still, you should know going in that this is an environment where these kinds of accidents can happen and make sure you're comfortable with what you're willing to expose your gear to.

Even when it's clear, sunny weather, there's a risk of salt spray from the boat's movement, and humidity is usually higher than when you're onshore.

If you need to change lenses at sea, it’s worth trying to do it as few times as possible, do them as quickly as you can, and ideally do them in a protected, indoor space to avoid allowing the dampness and salt inside your camera body. Obviously if it's very rough weather or raining and you have no good shelter, I would recommend just keeping to one set-up and not risking your gear.

Rough seas require more care, but can give really cool opportunities to photograph seabirds that like to use the wind to their advantage

It’s also worth mentioning that it is often colder at sea than you think it will be, and the sun is MUCH stronger because it's got all that water to reflect off of, so make sure you're dressed appropriately for the weather: pack decent waterproofs (jacket and trousers) and warm layers if you're in a cooler climate (yes, this includes Scotland in the summer!), and make sure you have appropriate sun protection and drinking water in hotter ones so you can spend as much time outside as possible. A decent pair of walking boots or outdoor shoes are also great for keeping your feet dry and giving you grip on the deck.

2. Manual mode is your friend

If you're trying to track seabirds, one of the first big issues you'll run into is that many of them have flight patterns that will have them gliding over dark blue ocean waters one second and zooming up above the level of the horizon to be backlight by a bright sky the next. If you're using aperture priority or shutter priority, this means a lot of fast-paced adjustments need to be made on the fly to get the exposure correct which is both extremely difficult and also unnecessary. If you use manual mode, you can pretty much lock your aperture (keep it wide), shutter speed (keep it pretty fast) and ISO settings in with a couple of test shots and then forget about them until there's a major change in the lighting, leaving you to focus on more interesting things like tracking the subject and composing a nice shot. As long as you remember to check the exposure is still correct when the light levels change it’s dead easy. Manual mode also makes it WAY easier to react quickly when unexpected visitors turn up!

Having my camera set to manual (and ready to go) meant that when this whale appeared unexpectedly next to our ship I was ready to get the photograph and didn't need to worry about the camera settings.

3. Know your subject

This is good advice for photographing any wildlife. If you can, try and do a bit of research before you go, so you know which species you are likely to see in an area, what they look like and what their common behaviours are (for example, knowing how different seabirds feed in the water will help you anticipate when and how they will strike the water, allowing you to take a more exciting shot). It will also help you decide if you’re causing a disturbance to the animals, and when you should back off. If you can’t do this in advance, most boats offering wildlife trips will have guides on board who are often qualified marine biologists who will be more than happy to talk to you about the different species (I used to be one of them!).

Similarly, you can learn a lot about the behaviour patterns of different species just by watching them for a short while, so if you are seeing a lot of one particular species it is often extremely beneficial to just watch them for a bit without trying to photograph them. Most species have repeated behaviour patterns and once you know what you’re looking for, it’s possible to predict when a gannet is about to make a dive, or when a fulmar is about to take off for example. Similarly, different animals have different ways of flying around boats – gulls and fulmars might glide alongside a boat for a while, but often do it in stages between flying and resting on the sea surface, while kittiwakes will fly in a figure-of-eight pattern behind a boat until they get fed up. Being able to predict how an animal is going to behave will massively help your photography by allowing you to anticipate when the best shot will happen.

4. Get your sea legs on!

This one’s pretty important since boats are only ever going to provide an unstable platform for shooting from, but there are a few things you can do which will help:

• Check the weather: It’s not always possible to predict what conditions will be like on the day you go out to sea, especially if you’re booking a trip well in advance. Still, if you are able to choose what days you go out on, it’s generally best to aim for calm days until you get the hang of things. Calm days also make it MUCH easier to spot things like dolphins and whales because there aren't a ton of waves obscuring your view of them.

  
  

• Brace yourself: How much a boat moves around will generally depend on its size and how far from shore you’re travelling. Typically, the further from land you go, the bigger the swell will get and the bigger the boat you need to stay stable (there are always exceptions, but it’s a good general rule). If your boat does start moving around, it is usually possible to brace yourself against something for a bit of extra stability, but make sure you keep the camera strap around your neck in such a way that you can drop it quickly if you need to hold on.

  
  

  If you want to try to stand and keep your balance, I find it helps to tuck your elbows into your sides, keeping one hand on the camera body and shutter release, and the other under the barrel of your lens. Standing with your feet apart and knees slightly bent will allow you to use your legs to absorb most of the motion, and I find that standing at about a 45 degree angle to the waves seems to work pretty well. A good, grippy pair of boots is a must for helping you keep your balance. Again though, if you're in any doubt at all that you can do this safely, either stay seated, or brace yourself really well against secure and safe parts of the boat.

Leaning against something sturdy will help balance you against the swell.

• Seasickness: This isn't really a photography tip, so much as a general boating tip, but do whatever you can to avoid it. If you're not sure if you get seasick or it's your first time on a particular boat, I would generally recommend taking an over-the-counter seasickness tablet of some form before you go, even if you don't think you usually get seasick. Different boats all roll differently and it's a shame to lose a trip for something that might be avoidable. If it's an important or particularly big trip, I'd actually recommend trying out the tablets a few days before you go so you know how you'll react to them (side effects are super variable person-to-person), and of course, talk to your pharmacist or doctor if you have concerns or questions.

  
  

  Otherwise, I think one of the most important things is to make sure you eat before you get on the boat. I've spent weeks of my life at sea at this point, and having a bit of ballast in your stomach is hands down the most successful preventative measure and is the one tip I’ve heard a lot of people bring up when we’re at sea for long periods of time – not eating properly is about one of the worst things you can do to yourself! Similarly, make sure you drink plenty of water. Some people (myself included) find ginger can help settle their stomach (in whatever form you prefer – crystallised, tea, biscuits, whatever!), and of course, watching the horizon (or the wildlife) also helps make you feel a bit more steady. If you're on a diving or snorkelling trip, getting into the water and off the swell is a pretty amazing cure.

5. Stay safe and remember that gear is replaceable: This is absolutely the most important thing. If you fall out of a boat into temperate (e.g. UK) waters, the sea temperature is low enough year-round to kill you from hypothermia pretty quickly (and it will ruin your camera!). At the end of the day, it’s not worth falling in the water for a photograph so use your common sense – wear a life jacket as required, and if there’s any doubt that you might not be able to keep your balance and shoot, don’t shoot.

All right, so that's it for my top tips: hopefully some of these are helpful if you're planning on heading out on the ocean to photograph the wildlife. Have you tried any of these tips? Do you have any of your own tricks that you swear by? Let me know below!