Well, the Captain had been getting ice warnings the whole trip. It was well known that there was much ice where he was heading. But you have to figure, he'd been doing his job for quite some time of his life...he, like the movie stated, figured with all of his experience he would be able to do something should the ocassion call for it.

The ship received Ice warnings before it even departed Southampton! And considering Smith wasn't on the bridge at the time of impact, Murdoch was, you can't really blame Smith for not turning the ship. At night icebergs are dark and with no breaking water at the base it makes them even harder to see. What they should have done is what the Californian did and stopped for the night.

Yea, I was going to say that, but I forgot to mention it in my above post and I hate editing it..so..yea....lol..I agree

About the ice warnings, though: Don't forget that many of these never actually reached the bridge, and of the few that did, Captain Smith never saw them. There were only one or two that he actually saw. Therefore, his knowledge of the ice ahead was severely fragmentary and limited, so he did not know it was a huge ice field.