Showing the scale of your subject?

[freedc]

How do you capture the scale of your subject?

I usually take pictures of unusually large or small things because they are interesting or I want to measure them for my fish tale later. (Size of the shark, turtle, barracuda, lobster, etc.) But often the backdrop gives little indication of scale. Reef rock, coral heads, and other typical backdrop materials come in all sizes. Even the fish can look the same whether they are silver dollar or dinner plate size, so an unusually large angelfish swimming into my shot of an unusually large turtle looks like two normal sized animals.

I'm not about to drop a ruler or a coke can, so how to people convey the size of what you're photographing underwater in reef environments? Do you get your hand in the shot or call another diver over to pose with the animal?

 

[scottfiji]

>> call another diver over to pose with the animal?

yes, this is the most common way, Interestingly, photos with an ultra-wide lens can be used to give a false sense of scale.

 

[PatW]

Well, I can see what you mean by scale.

For larger objects, having a diver in the background would help.

For subjects taken with a macro lens, putting a small object next to them works (like a coin). But I would just as soon not. I showed a friend a photo of an arrow crab. He imagined the crab as being enormous like an alaskan spider crab. The arrow crab, is of course, quite small and only about a 1 cm carapice if that.