Surge and Photography

[xyrandomyx]

A question inspired by this thread -- http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/marine-life-ecosystems/467232-nudibranch-lovers.html -- which has many excellent macro shots: how do you deal with surge when trying to take photographs? Macro shots in particular, where even a bit of movement is enough to make your subject disappear from the frame entirely.

 

[Steve_C]

Two options.

1. Grab hold of a rock.

2. Do a duck shot. Namely try to time the shutter shot for when the target will be lined right. Note that this means you fire before it enters the field of view. Like leading the target except here the delay is not the travel time of the shot but rather your reflexes and the camera. Every once in a while this actually works which makes it fun if you do not have to make a liviing doing this.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I come home with a lot of bad shots and a couple of decent ones. I delete the bad ones. I try to use a fast shutter speed to get a black background on most macro shots if possible. If something is crawling on a rock or piece of algae I will hold it in front of my port in mid water, then replace it on the bottom when I'm done.

 

[danvolker]

There is a guy that shoots macro video at the BHB Marine Park, and has something that looks like a miniature scaffolding, with the camera hanging in the center --4 legs around it....

I shoot wide angle, so this is not my interest...but if I was to desire to shoot Nat Geo quality macro.....I would be essentially anchored to the bottom...and the real trick would be getting this negative, without causing any damage to the marine life on the bottom--this consideration must come first--quality second.

GUE style hovering, while a great skill for wide angle, will be poor as a solution for macro with a 100 mm lens and 7 or 10X diopter.....pretty much like trying to jog while looking through a long telescope..it is not practical...50 mm lens type macro I think is a short enough lens to allow a good hover to be enough to stabilize the camera sufficiently to not have the lens moving much....16mm to 35mm and it is almost a non-issue...easy to hover and shoot. A 100mm by itself, without diopter, is probably going to be much more useful for good shots if you can get it stabilized with tripod, bottom, something to prevent ANY movement of the lens.

So the surge issue, means hover is of no value....it means you need to be "an anchor". The question is how can you do this without damaging the life on the bottom?

 

[BUDMANOK]

Please wait

Not advocating there use but here is a link to a discussion on muck sticks.

 

[xyrandomyx]

Thanks for all the replies. To clarify, I'm a beginner photographer, so not looking to get anything remotely close to 'Nat Geo quality'. My hover's not as bad as it used to be, but there's still lots of room for improvement. I work on it when I can. But the replies here seem to confirm that there isn't any trick to stabilising yourself in surge aside from grabbing onto something, which isn't always an option if you care about the marine life. So I'm a bit relieved that it's not just my lack of skill.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

wear a lot of lead?

 

[xyrandomyx]

wear a lot of lead?

Does carrying extra weight reduce the amount of backwards and forwards movement from surge? Or just help you stick to the bottom to anchor yourself (when that's appropriate to do)?

 

[danvolker]

Does carrying extra weight reduce the amount of backwards and forwards movement from surge? Or just help you stick to the bottom to anchor yourself (when that's appropriate to do)?

The weight is only so you can get very negative on the bottom....like more than 10 pounds negative.....enough so that the surge or current will not move you around, and so that you can hold your camera dead still....again, to do this you have to find places where your lying on the bottom will not destroy marine life--you can NOT do this on top of a delicate coral reef....you can do it on blank sand just next to a patch reef with macro life you can shoot by being adjacent to it.
Muck diving it is much more troublesome than sand, because there is alot of life, even in the silty bottom that looks just like a mud bottom....
There are skilled photographers that care more about their shots than the marine life, that often do damage to a muck bottom---and there are good shooters that are very careful, and most likely do not damage the bottom at all.....And when you see the ones that tend to silt the heck out of the area each time they lie down, or ascend up to go to the next spot--figure they are causing plenty of damage with the poor control they are exercising...

If you are silting, you are showing poor control --which indicates you may not have the skill to be this close to a delicate bottom. If you are lying on the bottom, and heavy, you don't just swim up....you have to inflate your BC, being ascending to the point your fins are well off the bottom, and then get neutral and begin frog kicking if you are still any where near the bottom.....and you really need perfect trim--flat horizontal, so your feet are not down with head up, and this has you roto-tilling the bottom.

Here is a video of my friend Errol K demonstrating the proper trim and kicking techniques for a diver shooting macro in a silty and delicate environment. It does not show surge... or lying on the bottom, as his camera has a 60 MM lens so he can actually hover with it ( magnification is not huge as with a 100 or with an added diopter).

If Errol had to lie on the bottom for surge, the touch down would be gentile, in an area he felt he would not damage, and when he was done, he would ascend flat horizontal, with ZERO SILTING..to the point of regaining enough height off the bottom to begin frog kicking again..

[video=youtube_share;kWrlXJ_EL_k]http://youtu.be/kWrlXJ_EL_k[/video]

 

[Steve_C]

if you have a muck bottom AND heavy surge, I think the viz will be about zero.
The only pictures will have to be taken with sonar. :cool2: