mcjamison

I went whale watching earlier this year, from Monterey, California.  My main observation: things can happen REALLY FAST with whales. What you're hoping for is that they'll end their 3-or-so minute dive with a spectacular breach, and if you get one, it can be in any direction around the boat, and is over very quickly. 
 
I had my XF 55-200 on, and actually kept it pretty wide most of the time, around 65mm, and kept it up near eye level. Frankly, many of my shots were "hip shooting", spray and pray, as I didn't have time to get the camera to my eye. 
 
Maybe things are more leisurely on an Alaska cruise, and whales are just fussing around on the surface - or maybe cruise ships won't attempt to get as close as these dedicated whale watching boats, so you'd need a lot more lens. But on my trip, I wouldn't have been able to make use of anything beyond 150mm. I missed a few great moments even sitting there at 65mm, but I'm sure one would get better with practice and experience.
 
These are two of my best shots, of a Humpback who showed off for us - heavily cropped, but the Fujis have plenty of pixels.  This is with the XT-10, and I did feel some pain from the more limited buffer size when going full auto; an XT-1 with its bigger buffer size would have been better.
 
In any case, I hope you have a great time, and capture some wonderful memories!

I've switched between zooms and primes more times than I can remember, for all all systems. These days, I'm using a mixture. I've boiled it down to the following mentality:
- Using primes will mean I miss some shots, but the shots I do take are most likely going to be better, on average. I'm more likely to pick my shots better, and people will be more relaxed around smaller lenses.
- Using zooms means I won't miss a single shot, but I'll have to take 150-200% more shots to ensure I get the shot. I'm more likely to be too busy over-shooting to think about what it is I'm shooting, and people are more likely to be uneasy around the larger 2.8 zooms.
 
I pick which I use on any given day depending on what I'm expecting to shoot. Some days I only use primes. Some times, only zooms. Often, a mixture of both. 

Precious family event which will never be repeated? Use zooms. You'll be able to capture absolutely everything.
A nice family day out, but perhaps one which is just one of several that year? Use primes, you'll miss a shot here and there but you'll probably be able to enjoy the day more and you won't annoy everyone else as much.

As far as Fuji goes, specifically, I've not noticed any particular difference in AF speed between the XF primes and zooms, in most lighting conditions. It's only very low light where the primes start to be faster than the zooms, and even then, it's a minimal difference. Optically I find the primes are mostly better than the zooms, except the 50-140 which, for me, beats all the primes except for the 60mm. For harassing your relatives and friends, there's essentially no difference in speed or quality. I only notice the quality differences when I'm on a job and I have to be really picky.

These shots were my first attempts at doing real astrophotography. I was super inspired by the super dark skies up at 11000 feet on the volcano. The 14 was a little limiting however. I'm now looking at the Rokinon 12mm f2 for next time. The extra stop would be useful as well as the extra width. It was really hard to get the trees and much of the Milky Way in the shot with only a 21mm equivalent focal length.
 
Oh, BTW, the shot that appears to be a sunset ... it isn't. When have you seen the stars above a sunset? ;-) ;-)
 
 

 

 

 

I went whale watching earlier this year, from Monterey, California.  My main observation: things can happen REALLY FAST with whales. What you're hoping for is that they'll end their 3-or-so minute dive with a spectacular breach, and if you get one, it can be in any direction around the boat, and is over very quickly. 
 
I had my XF 55-200 on, and actually kept it pretty wide most of the time, around 65mm, and kept it up near eye level. Frankly, many of my shots were "hip shooting", spray and pray, as I didn't have time to get the camera to my eye. 
 
Maybe things are more leisurely on an Alaska cruise, and whales are just fussing around on the surface - or maybe cruise ships won't attempt to get as close as these dedicated whale watching boats, so you'd need a lot more lens. But on my trip, I wouldn't have been able to make use of anything beyond 150mm. I missed a few great moments even sitting there at 65mm, but I'm sure one would get better with practice and experience.
 
These are two of my best shots, of a Humpback who showed off for us - heavily cropped, but the Fujis have plenty of pixels.  This is with the XT-10, and I did feel some pain from the more limited buffer size when going full auto; an XT-1 with its bigger buffer size would have been better.
 
In any case, I hope you have a great time, and capture some wonderful memories!

Wow. I'm new to this forum, but I'm on a few other hobby related ones. I'm always amazed by people's negativity. Photography is an art, and the camera is the tool. If someone chooses to personalize their tool and share it, let them. If you don't care for it, then keep your snippy little comments to yourself.
 
If you don't have anything nice to say, than don't say it all. Something we all should have learned in kindergarten.