Any tips for shooting schooling hammerheads

[fairybasslet]

so that your photos look like this

as opposed to this

I did PM Eric for his settings but haven't heard back.

I'm also wondering how close you have to be to get that kind of shot.

 

[mjh]

Not sure what camera you have and I'm no expert but have been to Cocos twice. (Please note some of my suggestions break all the rules of diving so I suggest you do not listen to them ;-)

1. Get away from your dive buddies, lol. The hammerheads don't like bubbles so the farther you are from your buddies the better.
2. Inhale slowly and lightly, I have heard some even hold their breath.
3. Find a big rock or hole to hide in or behind.
4. You will want to shoot 100-400 if you can.
5. Don't need high shutter speeds 125 is typically plenty
6. Big strobes can help but must have wide spread since viz is usually 20-50ft max.
7. May need to pick what you are looking for, settings for big schools/sunballs very different than level profile shots.
8. Perfect lens IMHO 17-35mm 2.8 or like
10. Unless you are on a rebreather they typically stay a good 10-15 feet away. Though you will get some close passes.

Hope that helps

 

[matt215]

good points. you may want to turn your strobes off because you likely won't be close enough to get the light from the strobe on the sharks, and you may just introduce backscatter in your image. this is primarily the case for the big schools. typically you'll get the big schools overhead at alcyone and dirty rock dive sites. in my experience we were able to get very close passes at manuelita outside, dirty rock, alcyone, and to a lesser extent viking rock and punta maria. i am sure that others have had different experiences.
i usually adjust the settings on my camera on the main boat before i get to the dive site. so if i'm heading to alcyone, i'll have one setting in aperture priority mode, shutter priority mode, and manual settings. that way i can toggle back and forth between settings depending on the actino when i'm down there. i also usually take a shot in program mode of a rock or white tip or something when i first get down. then i look at the histogram and make changes as deemed necessary. don't forget to adjust iso ... i always forget about that

 

[fairybasslet]

Thanks guys. I always forget ISO too. LOL

 

[divengolf]

Is manual WB needed with the strobes off?? I would assume so rather than trying to do it in editing.

 

[M_Bipartitus]

In this type of shot, you should try a manual white balance, but this is also the easiest type of shot to change the color in post processing as it's nearly all blue or black. All you really need in post is to get the blues looking ok, because there isn't much of any other color. Depending on how deep you are the "sun" setting on the camera may even work.

Assuming these were taken with a similar wide angle lens, the top photo is about half the distance away compared to the bottom photo.

The second photo doesn't have as much contrast. That is the lights are not as light and the darks are not as dark. You could go into an image editing program and play with it, but it could take some time and a more powerful program like Photoshop. The reason it could take a while is that the top of the picture needs to be brighter with more contrast and the bottom shouldn't change much. This is because the top is dominated by light from the sun where the bottom has little direct sunlight so it's much darker. this leads to...

Eric's photo has the sun just off center (about a third up really). Compared to the second photo this accomplishes two things. First it makes the overall exposure more consistent top to bottom (what I was just talking about). Second, it gives the photo a center of attention that draws the eye into the photo. The second photo does not have this compositional element since the center of the sun is right on the edge or outside the frame.

 

[fairybasslet]

You're right about the composition. I think you can add a light source in PS too. LOL