AdmiralK
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CosmicCruiser wrote:
BEAUTIFUL!!
just curious what shutter speed you used
Thank you Robert!
They are all 1/160th of a second.
Blue sharks are generally pretty slow cruisers, and this shutter speed works well. Sometimes I go slower and try and get the strobes to freeze the pointy end and have some motion in the tail, it's an old trick but effective. Wide angle, underwater with strobes, I basically control exposure with aperture (mainly for the background water brightness) and manual strobe power (for the subject, it can be fiddly with the two small strobe switches on either side of long arms), and occasionally the ISO, but leave the shutter speed on a setting for the whole dive. I keep meaning to try panning too to introduce some nice motion, hopefully I remember the next time I encounter some sharks.
On a dive like this I would usually make a test shot or two without the strobes to get my initial ambient exposure after positioning myself (e.g. relative to the sun, other divers, bait particles in the water etc.) and then dial in the strobes as the sharks come at me. They do that a lot because they find the shiny dome port and electrical field of the strobes irresistible it seems! I also tend to get close to the bait to guarantee approaches. The downside is backscatter from the bait particles (see the last shot in the series), but I am conscious of the light and my direction to minimise this where possible.
I would get more keepers if I was more disciplined and methodical and took, say, longer distance shots first on a more powerful strobe setting, medium next with a lower one, and then my close ups with just a pop (probably the way to go as the sharks get increasingly bold as the dive goes on) rather than frantically trying to adjust and readjust on the fly as I react to each encounter. The excitement of it all sometimes makes me forget though. 
Blue sharks scour the open ocean looking for food, and go great distances without finding any, therefore when they encounter anything they investigate it in case it could be edible. Much as we like to think they are coming to be friendly they are only seeing if they can get a feed. That said, they are not normally aggressive, merely curious, spirited, and somewhat persistent. And a bit sneaky, they like to come unannounced from behind, but then they are highly skilled predators, but all they are doing is checking you out. I hope I have also conveyed their beauty, their form and colouration is quite amazing, and a little bit of their personalities. Diving with them does not require bravery, it isn't that sort of situation, it just needs some respect, knowing when and where to push them away, and experience is always helpful.
That was a very long way to say 1/160th! I hope you are asking because you are getting in with some of these beauties!
Edited on Feb 02, 2015 at 04:59 PM · View previous versions
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