Gulp! + second image

So on my day of watching bubble feeding whales I got close to two different lunges from the whales. The first was the side view of the main whale I posted in my previous photo. That image shows the play of the whales with the birds and the trees in the background and provides a good sense of the overall scene.

This image was from a more head on view of the big boy in the the middle of the pod and provides a more intimate perspective. Because of the awesome view of the gaping mouth, I zoomed my 100-400 all the way to 400mm and quickly snapped off 10 or 11 images in the 4 seconds the whales were out of the water. Due to the rocking boat a few of the images were poorly composed, and the first image had a ton of motion blur as I was panning the lens in to position and zooming. But right at the peak of the whales lunge I got 3 nice shots in a row. This is the first of those three. The remaining two have the mouth closing but the spray of water coming off of the whales. I think it is my favorite just because of the gaping mouth, but I can't really decide between it and #3.

For a great description of what whales do while bubble feeding, take a look at Brad Hill's recent post.

I would love to hear what you guys think of this compared to my last post. Personally I prefer this sort of shot to the wider angle shot I posted previously, but a number of people have pointed at my last post as the stronger of the two.

Thanks again!