Whale Sharks, Isla Mujeres

[jdandvalerie]

We traveled to Mexico this past summer to spend some time with the whale sharks. My wife is a teacher and we were "googled" by an ABC New York producer who asked about doing a story. The concept was a High School Marine Science teacher who swims with sharks and uses the media to teach her class. And yes, I know, whale sharks are harmless, but we routinely do shark dives (Tigers, Reefs, Bulls, Hamerheads etc...) which is what caught his eye. So, the producer and a correspondent joined us for a few days in Mexico, and then spent a day at my wife's (Valerie) school later on for follow up. Awesome experience. We are still waiting for a air date but it looks like Nightline will be the vehicle (still up in the air). Local news even picked up on the story which is also quite cool: Jensen Beach High School teacher who swims with sharks featured on 'Nightline' | Video » TCPalm.com.

The correspondent (he's the guy in the life vest who looks petrified and very uncomfortable in the water), has never snorkeled before, and is quite afraid of sharks. I suppose it would be a bit nerve racking if its your first time in the water and you happen to see a multitude of massive whale sharks.

I shot the underwater portion for ABC and the video I set up for her school is all our stuff. It was narrated by my wife for her classroom but I removed that for scubaboard and left in the music. I definitely appreciate more of the production value/time having done this. At the end is a "teaser trailer" for her students for reactions.

If you want to skip the b roll stuff, start at about a minute in.

Shot with Canon SLRs (7D, T2I, 60D, and 2 go pros). Ikelite housing, ambient light white balanced (underwater stuff)

Enjoy:

 

[ronscuba]

Great video. What frame rate and shutter speed did you use for the DSLR ?

 

[jdandvalerie]

Thanks Ron,

720p at 60 fps. Shutter speed varied through 2 days and a few hours of shooting. Through comparison, I found that bumping up to iso to allow for faster shutter speeds produced better results than a "properly" exposed image at ISO 100, f8 (for example). To be honest with you, each clip was probably shot at a different shutter speed but if I had to nail down an average, the best stuff came out at over 1/320 sec (IMO). I have not shot whale sharks before so I was experimenting, plus I wanted to give ABC some options. What you are seeing on the smugmug account is probably 30fps with some color correcting done on gopro files.

Interestingly enough, I had 2 gopros side mounted on my slr rig as did Valerie, and I really couldn't tell much of a difference in the final result compared to the SLRs. Obviously if I had to delve into correction or modification a bit more I think it would have been more noticeable but at only a few feet in depth, they performed very well. I keep them like that even when I'm doing stills, but generally just erase the card completely with anything deeper than 40'.

JD

 

[ronscuba]

I was surprised at the quality of the GoPro too, but like you say, it goes down hill fast when the light drops as you drop deeper.

Interesting about the shutter speed. What made the faster shutter speed work better ? Were you overexposed at slower shutter ? I have a DSLR, but only use it topside. Shutter speeds for DSLR video seems to get a lot of discussion on the film maker forums.

 

[jdandvalerie]

At slower shutter speeds I dropped my ISO to accommodate, so the exposure per the light meter was the same. I bumped of the ISO to over 400 at some times. My guess would be position of the sun overhead and particulate in the water played a role, or, quite possibly it's just in my mind. Could just be my individual preference but I shoot at higher shutter speed in shallow depths when doing stills as I feel the sun's rays are captured better. As to video, Valerie's rig stayed at 60-100 fps throughout. Some clips were great, but overall the higher fps performed better at those conditions (looking at the .mov files). The finished product narrowed the gap even more. Lenses were different as well so that thorws the comparison off, but I have 2+ hours of footage from my camera to compare.

 

[ronscuba]

The whole shutter speed, ISO, framerate, aperture thing for DSLR video thing is confusing. I kind of have it figured out for topside. I leave my shutter speed fixed at a value close to double the frame rate. Adjusting ISO and aperture to control exposure and depth of field. Works well so far and makes the motion blur more cinematic/less video-like.

UW may be different. Especially with the constantly changing light conditions and movement.

 

[jdandvalerie]

May be on Nightline tonight...they put up the teaser trailer today:

Shark-Diving Teacher Brings Underwater Wonders Into Classroom - ABC News