Help Photographing Translucent Invertebrates

[danclem]

Hi All:

Anyone have any words of wisdom photographing small, translucent invertebrates (like 1" jellies), in our Seattle area temperate waters where there is a great deal of detritus and current. Most recently I used my Nikon d300 (cropped sensor), 105 mm lens, auto focus, 60th @ f14. Often times I will focus right through the critter.

I have thought about bringing a black slate to place behind the subject for more contrast. Any thoughts? I suppose another option would be to switch to manual focus, rack the focus out, and move my rig to focus.

Any help greatly appreciated. The rest of the set-up is a Subal housing, twin Ikelite 125 strobes, one set on full, the other on half power, and a Hartenberger focus light set on 2-3 power.

Thanks!

 

[weeksd]

Backlighting is a good start. You don't need alot of strobe power. Focuslock so the autofocus doesn't hunt for focus. Very subtle lighting as the water is dark and greenish color.

 

[danclem]

Thanks. I think I have the lighting down once I can get the critter in focus. The Wetpixel posting generated a few ideas, and I will give them a try.

Thanks,

Dan

 

[Puffer Fish]

Fairly easy...but putting something behind it would be a mistake and somewhat difficult to do.

1. Normally one has their stobes pointed to avoid backscatter...this is the one time you don't what to do that. In this case you want to light up everything in the water...it may mean a bit of photoshop work later, but essentially you are trying to take pictures of water like things, floating in the water.

2. Your camera will flash sync up to a 1/250th.. would suggest using that (you can use 1/60th, but lots of little guys have fairly fast moving stuff on them.

3. You got the use of a higher F stop correct. You need some depth of field and you need to reduce the light getting to the sensor.

4. Ok, the tricky part, you have to prefocus the camera (half shutter push) on something that has the correct light/darkness to under expose the image, but still have all the backscatter show up. This may take some practice.

Here is an image taken by focusing on my knee (was wearing a grey suit), and then shooting the image at that distance:

Don't take many images like that (but should), but thought those fish inside the jelly were rather neat.

Note: The vis was about 15 ft, with very green colored water.

If you have "chunky" water, you will also get a lot of backscatter...so either crop or clean up...

Here is an out of the camera image:

Notice the fish inside the jelly are sort of glowing... the light went thru the jelly to do that.

I used my fin as the focus point for that image.

Back in my Nikonos days, did a lot of very small animals that way, with the macro lens and the frame...all you had to do is get the animal inside the frame and shoot the image... thinking about it, that would be ideal today... you make up a frame that is just a bit larger than your image will be... attach it to the front of the camera. The use a grey panel held at the frame to focus and set the exposure.(or complete manual) Then anything that you get inside the frame will be in focus... have to make one of those up. After a while, you will not need the frame.

Hope that helps.

 

[danclem]

Great shots. Two questions: what lens were you using, and how large was the jell?

I am pretty used to steps 1-3, but have not used prefocus in that manner. Will give it a shot on my next outing. 15 feet of viz?, why that way surpasses the three feet we had in Seattle over the weekend. Lots of run-off and plankton growth.

Thanks Again,

Dan

 

[Puffer Fish]

Great shots. Two questions: what lens were you using, and how large was the jell?

I am pretty used to steps 1-3, but have not used prefocus in that manner. Will give it a shot on my next outing. 15 feet of viz?, why that way surpasses the three feet we had in Seattle over the weekend. Lots of run-off and plankton growth.

Thanks Again,

Dan

I happen to be using a P+S for those (set at 90mm equv., in macro), but any camera and any lens works. Jelly was around a foot.

I have film images of things under an 1/8 of an inch done the same way.

The important part is the lighting. Take everything you know about avoiding backscatter and do the opposite.

We get really bad vis here, by the way... this guy was taken in something around 3 ft or less, but get close, have the object just lit by the edges of the strobe, hopefully have something solid behind it and it is pretty hard to tell (although the fact that the octo is about the size of a small coffee cup would help:

Just cross the strobes, bring them in closer and then get the focus and exposure and you will have anything in the water lit up. Most of the backscatter in the big jelly picture is small animals.

It actually works easier to shoot in manual.. you just pick a distance and set the camera at that distance and if you can, have something like a frame or even a small wire that shows you were the focus plane is.

However, I am very lazy at times, so if I am taking bottom pictures and see something interesting on the way up, will use the prefocus trick.

If you use a point and shoot, and take lots of close ups of fish, you have to learn how to prefocus. If you don't, by the time you push the shutter button the fish will be long gone. About half my fish pictures are pre-focus pictures to avoid any shutter lag.

Damsels and butterfly's are sort of the measure here for testing your timing. If you can even get one within a few inches, you will not have much time to get the picture:

I have lots of Jelly pics, just don't usually upload them...I like this one: