Photographing Manta Rays w/TG-5

[js1221]

My wife and I are visiting Oahu, Hawaii, in March and I talked her into going to Kona to do the manta ray night dive. I plan on taking my Olympus TG-5 with a Backscatter Air Lens. I have a single strobe for now (Sea & Sea YS-01) and a couple of video lights (a 1200, 1500 and 2500 lumen). I’m looking for input on how I should configure my camera, settings for the dive and any other recommendations. This is a bucket list dive for me and I really would like so good pictures to remember it by.

 

[Mike1967]

Videos - Backscatter

 

[js1221]

I've watched the Backscatter videos numerous times, I looking for someone who has actually done the dive and gotten good results.

 

[Tippytoes12]

I have taken Manta shots with my TG5 and they weren’t a success. I found that when there are particles in the water, and there often are with Manta dives, the camera picks them up. This was when using the incamera flash, strobes may be different.

 

[DavidFL]

I did the manta dive in May 2019, with a TG-5 and two large Bigblue 15K video lights. Having actually done the dive once previously, I sort of knew the layout and logistics of the dive. I decided to shoot 4K video almost exclusively rather than go back and forth from stills to video. The still photo below was taken by the ship's videographer, it isn't actually a still either, it is a frame capture from her 4K video. I am underneath the manta with my video lights set to red and also a deep blue Sola Nightsea light. A small sample of my video is in the linked YouTube. I used the colored lights primarily to see what it would look like and contrast to all the great white light videos and photos of the manta dive I had seen from other divers.

 

[Chris Ross]

I have not done the dive, though the issues are straight forward, Mantas are big animals and the TG-5 even with air lens is not very wide - 25mm equivalent focal length so you need to back off to get the whole animal in frame with resultant issue of more water with particles between you and the subject and long distance for the strobe to work with. You will want to shoot at f2.8, the wide aperture means it's easier for the flash, With the distant subject a long flash arm will help minimize backscatter. Watch out for over exposure and blowing out of the whites on the Manta's bell.

 

[DavidFL]

You may want to do at least part of the dive with no lights at all or your own lights turned off. The dive setup is multiple divers and snorkelers from multiple operators. Most of the diving operators bring at least one really big light in a crate, and those really big lights are put in the center of what our DMs called "the firepit". Divers kneel on the bottom in a wide circle around the firepit; the DMs will likely suggest you be a little overweighted. Snorkelers hanging on to rafts with their own lights are on the surface. The manta(s) will come from behind you and the other divers, over your heads, to swim over the light(s) in the firepit. Most all the divers will have dive lights and video lights, so the manta(s) will also sometimes fly directly over them. The lights illuminate plankton, small fish, and Crustaceans in the water; the mantas do their hydrobatic loops to come back to the same spot for another pass at the food.

As you can see from the video; lots of the action will be beyond the range of your lights anyway. All of this is from a TG5 with no wet lens, zoomed to the full "out" wide limit. In the video at about 24 seconds you can see what happens when I turned on my two big video lights. Lots more particulate in the water lit up. But, having my own lights on drew several of the mantas directly over my head; my dive buddy and I were repeatedly ducking and got surprised and thumped a couple of times as you can figure out from the video. I was the only person who tried red and dark blue lights, so when you see those colors, my lights are definitely on.

The TG5 doesn't give you a lot of control over the video; white balance matters less because whatever light there is in the scene is artificial (usually white) light from the various lights.

Your autofocus will occasionally drift, the auto-exposure definitely can't adjust fast enough when one of these white bottomed mantas goes directly over a really bright light. But despite all that, in a dive that is about an hour long (my average depth was 45') if the mantas show up you will get some really good footage from the TG5.

The still photo below is a frame grab from a pas-de-deux when two mantas pulled up to avoid a head on collision (see it in motion at about 1:20 in the video).

 

[Wurkkos]

I did the manta dive in May 2019, with a TG-5 and two large Bigblue 15K video lights. Having actually done the dive once previously, I sort of knew the layout and logistics of the dive. I decided to shoot 4K video almost exclusively rather than go back and forth from stills to video. The still photo below was taken by the ship's videographer, it isn't actually a still either, it is a frame capture from her 4K video. I am underneath the manta with my video lights set to red and also a deep blue Sola Nightsea light. A small sample of my video is in the linked YouTube. I used the colored lights primarily to see what it would look like and contrast to all the great white light videos and photos of the manta dive I had seen from other divers.

View attachment 556616

Hello, may i know how to cooperate with you of our wurkkos wk20 dive light? Thanks.
http://amzla.com/qxtcg5na2mhx

 

[stuartv]

@js1221 I have done that dive. Honestly, my suggestion is to leave your camera on the boat, really ENJOY the dive, and buy the photo package from whatever pro photographer dives with you.

Based on your OP, my guess is that if you try to take your own "pictures to remember it by", you're going to spend a lot of time on your dive futzing with your camera instead of really taking in the experience, and then you'll still end up with photos that really are not very good quality at all.

But, if you REALLY want to take your own pictures, I'd say that you need 2 good strobes AND you need to spend some quality time practicing shooting with 2 strobes in turbid water before you go to do that dive. If you know what you're doing with the strobes (intensity/exposure settings AND how they are aimed) you CAN get really nice photos, even in water with particulate. But, if that dive is your first time trying to do that, you are most likely going to be very disappointed with the results.

Getting good underwater pictures is something that takes most people a pretty good while of working at it before they start getting good results. Especially at night, in turbid water....

 

[Eyegore]

@js1221...my suggestion is to leave your camera on the boat, really ENJOY the dive.

But, if you REALLY want to take your own pictures, I'd say that you need 2 good strobes AND you need to spend some quality time practicing shooting with 2 strobes in turbid water before you go to do that dive. If you know what you're doing with the strobes (intensity/exposure settings AND how they are aimed) you CAN get really nice photos, even in water with particulate. But, if that dive is your first time trying to do that, you are most likely going to be very disappointed with the results.

I totally agree with @stuartv.

Having done this dive with a TG6, Kraken wide angle lens, and YS-01 strobe, I snapped a lot of pics, none of which so much as marginally good.