Just gotta put my two cents in about strobes and sleeping turtles...it doesn't seem to bother our residents at all. Most of our "resident" turtles have been at the same spot for 12 months or longer (some several years). They get photographed nearly every day. Most photographers use internal strobes only, so I can't say much about the more powerful ones. Our dive sites only cope with a small (less than 40) divers per day (and that is probably an overstatement of numbers most days) and of those, probably 5 - 10 carry cameras.
On the turtle shots you will see in my posts soon the same turtle is in the same spot each dive. He sleeps through it all. If you are really lucky, he will swim to the surface, have a breath or two and come right back down for another nap. sometimes I use the strobe, sometimes I don't. Either way I'm a lucky lucky girl if he will even open his eye for me.
On the other hand, at another site there is a smaller turtle that has a favourite spot. For ages I took photos without a strobe for fear of frightening it away. Then one day, months later, I took two with strobe. no reaction. From then on, I take most of them with strobe (internal and with my Ike 50 when I was shooting the Canon A70).
Conclusion? I have none. But maybe it is a matter of individual turtles in individual locations rather than never take a strobe shot of a sleeping turtle. AND these are all during the day, so who knows what happens at night...
On the turtle shots you will see in my posts soon the same turtle is in the same spot each dive. He sleeps through it all. If you are really lucky, he will swim to the surface, have a breath or two and come right back down for another nap. sometimes I use the strobe, sometimes I don't. Either way I'm a lucky lucky girl if he will even open his eye for me.
On the other hand, at another site there is a smaller turtle that has a favourite spot. For ages I took photos without a strobe for fear of frightening it away. Then one day, months later, I took two with strobe. no reaction. From then on, I take most of them with strobe (internal and with my Ike 50 when I was shooting the Canon A70).
Conclusion? I have none. But maybe it is a matter of individual turtles in individual locations rather than never take a strobe shot of a sleeping turtle. AND these are all during the day, so who knows what happens at night...
