Shooting Slides of Slippery Salmonids

Hi folks,

I have a problem.

"We ALL know THAT!" I can hear you muttering under your collective forum breath. B)

Yes, but this is a photographic problem.

Please forgive the lengthy explanation:

A friend wants me to shoot a story he is writing on fishing for Murray cod and trout in some local rivers downunder.

I've never done any freshwater underwater shots, and I'm hoping it won't be too different from the marine game.

The shots he's thinking of are under/overs of hooked fish (possibly with boat in the background). Also hoping to get some hooked fish UW perhaps with river rocks in the background. Probably a few fish "portraits" of the poor little buggers underwater with a lure in the mouth.

Apparently the water vis is pretty good, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Now here's the kicker - I need to shoot on film (magazine request and personal equipment limitations - no housing for my D70, waiting to house a D200...which of course I'm waiting to buy...so much waiting ). So nailing exposure is going to be an issue.

So, I'll be using an F80 in an ike housing with the 6" dome, the Nikon 12-24 (I find it works well from 16-24 on film) and a single SB105 strobe. I'll also have a 60 mm macro with flat port available as well.

Here's my current thinking. I'd be delighted to be corrected and or have suggestions/recommendations made. I'm guessing that the fish will be pretty reflective/shiny, so I'll need to dial down flash exposure. I plan to expose using spot on the background/above water part of the picture and then shoot manual flash to illuminate the UW portion accordingly. I'll probably shoot Velvia.

In terms of equipment, I'm thinking it would be handy to have a fisheye for this kind of shoot, but I'd prefer to avoid purchasing one if possible. I already have a 10.5 for my D70 and don't really want to duplicate equipment that I'd probably just sell after the shoot.

Specifically, can anyone give me a ballpark to start bracketing the flash exposure around for a shiny fish filling the foreground? (ie. -1EV, -2EV?).

Finally, if anyone has some other ideas for shots I could try to pull off - I'd be delighted.

Lots of questions in there, sorry for the long post.

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer me. I know some of you out there could do this shoot with your eyes closed...

Attempting to correct for the strong reflection off a very shiny fish will underexpose the rest of the shot. Try using available light. If you absolutely have to use a strobe it should be off camera as much as possible so that reflection off the fish is not directed towards the lens. Good luck!

Tom

Ahh, ok - thanks Tom - much appreciated.

I guess that given I'll be pretty close to the surface, the exposure difference between topside and UW won't be too great.

The more I think about, the more logical your approach appears.

Thanks again Tom.

If anyone else has attempted similar shots - I'd be delighted to have your suggestions.

Further to this question, I wonder whether someone could take a guess as to how this shot might have been acheived.

It is linked from Ethan Gordon's website.

To me, it looks like it was taken with a rectilinear wide angle lens (not a fisheye - although I'm happy to be corrected) and also with some fill flash under water. My guess is a single flash off to the LHS of the picture with an ambient exposure off the blue sky in the background.

Does this seem like a fair analysis?

I would suggest metering for the sky and foreground and dialling down the strobes to something like 1/4 power or less to get just fill. Obviously shoot with the sun at your back.

Do you know anyone locally who has a housed digital? You could use that as a polaroid to get adjustments right.

Thanks for the advice Mike - much appreciated!

A digi polaroid is a great idea, but believe it or not, I only know one person with any kind of housed digi and that is the Fuji F810 I used to shoot another mag story on Piccaninnie Ponds. I'd have to do a test shoot to see how accurately the camera reflected true ISO/EV values. Probably not a bad idea though.

If anyone is reading this and has a housed DSLR in Melbourne, I'd be happy to pay you to borrow it! In fact, for your piece of mind, you'd be welcome to come along on the trip (we're going somewhere up near Bendigo) and maybe even catch a few fish if that is something you're in to.

Yes, that's how he did it. Probably used an 18 or a 14mm lens on a film camera. The upper part of the photo is available light and the lower part is completely flash lit.

You'll need to get your SS down to 1/125th if you're going to use an F80 :-( That may necessitate the use of a graduated neutral density filter on the lens, in order to get reasonable f-stop. Youll want to be >f8 though, to get enough DOF to get both the underwater fish and the above water face in focus.

Cheers

James

Its a little far to travel, but we are lucky in the UK with Capernwray (see www.dive-site.co.uk), its packed full of willing trout. Better than that it has a south facing view so plenty of sunlight.

Generally, with the group (see www.nupg.org.uk for some pics of the trout), the group seem to manage this easily with a variety of cameras (film/digital SLR or wet).

My own experience is to get the sun behind it and shoot in the shallows (2-3m), with say 1/125th a faster shooter speed on F8/11/16, to "touch" the fish with light, on a single strobe (at the bottom rather than top). This works for very silvery fish, whether trout, silverside, bogue or bream. You certainly need to meter but bracket (am still using Provia 100F film) and dont shoot the fish directly on if you can, a slight glancing angle is best.

I am sure some of our group particularly the takes of the excellent shots of trout on our website have some comment to make.

are you guys sure the underwater part is strobe-lit:

it seems quite yellow to me, and i think i can see surface reflections on his hand. That is impossible to achieve with a strobe (at least one under water)

gerard

Excellent suggestions guys. Really appreciate the helpful advice.

James - I would imagine topside exposure will be something in the order of 125/f11 given sunny 16. I'm hoping that will combine sufficient DOF with reasonable lighting UW when combined with strobe.

Tony - thanks for your advice - would love to come and play in your rivers in Capernwray, but I'll probably only be making beer money with this gig, so it might blow the budget a bit! Appreciate the suggestion of keeping the strobe at the bottom. I had been wondering about positioning. I'm thinking of shooting Velvia 100F, but maybe Provia might be better??

Had a look at http://www.nupg.org.uk and found this fantastic shot of a rainbow with sunburst, shot by Mark Thomas at Capenwray. Hope he doesn't mind me linking it. Very nice work.

Tony - also enjoyed your excellent work on the dogfish, clams, anemones and tubstrea btw (I'm assuming they're yours).

Gerard - I was wondering about the flash as well, but I just can't see any other way to have gotten that level of brightness on the fish. Happy to be corrected of course. I think the yellow tinge might be from the tannins in the water.

Also Tony - if you could encourage any of your trout-shooting mates from the NUPG to come and help me with some advice on here, I'd be thrilled!

No doubt about it trout are very easy to overexpose. I think the best shots I've got have been using available light. In Capenwray the trout congregate in an area that is between 1 and 2 metres deep, this vis is good so light levels are good.

This first attachment is 1/2 power on a YS120 1/90 at F4.8 ISO 200.

No doubt about it trout are very easy to overexpose. I think the best shots I've got have been using available light. In Capenwray the trout congregate in an area that is between 1 and 2 metres deep, the vis is good so light levels are good.

This first attachment is 1/2 power on a YS120 1/90 at F4.8 ISO 200.

The second attachment is available light using a manual white balance 1/30 at F5.6

Finally a macro shot on a 50mm Sigma with 1/2 power flash 1/15 at F11

I've used auto bracketing with some sucess on available light shots but it's no use with flash because of the recycle time.

Excellent Ken,

Thankyou so much for posting some shots. They are just the sort of thing I hope to achieve. Looks like an ideal spot you've got there in Capenwray - lovely clear water and some cooperative fish!

The first two appear to be wide angle. Did you use a 12-24?

Also, in the flash shot, how far away from the camera did you have the flash?

Spot on - first two were shot with the Nikon 12-24 zoom I use an Ikelite housing with the standard 6" port.

The first was shot at 22mm the second at 20mm.

I had the flash on a fairly long arm pointing straight ahead and about 1.5 ft from the lens.

Capenwray is a comercial dive site and the fish congregate in shallow water at the entry/exit point. I think some divers feed them and they feed when divers kick up the bottom. First thing Saturday the vis is great but you need to be pretty quick getting into the water. By 11:00 o'clock the vis is pretty bad because there's probably been 100+ divers getting in and out of the water, so second dives we have to find something else to shoot.