Free diving with manatees.....

"Political preferences aside, Texans are probably the friendliest people of all." As a diehard republican I was poking fun at my favorite Texan. It would be an interesting topic to have people post what they felt were the most friendly places to dive/vacation...and the least friendly.

I'm going with Bird's Underwater in about two weeks. I had never photographed the manatees before and my I would like to know which lens would be the best choice, the Nikon 16mm or the 10.5mm ?

Thanks

David.

I'm going with Bird's Underwater in about two weeks. I had never photographed the manatees before and my I would like to know which lens would be the best choice, the Nikon 16mm or the 10.5mm ?

Thanks

 

David.

David,

I use the Nikon 16mm.

I've posted a lot of "stuff" on manatee/crystal river recently - do a search and read it. It really helps to educate yourself on what is going on and conditions you may encounter.

I explained a little in this post about how I focus close with the 16mm, and the first "practice" pics I got with the lens/setup - I have better ones now, I'll post soon:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showt...&hl=manatee

Best, Carol

PS - Found this post/pics is still here, Ryan Canon posted pics he took of the manatee with the 10.5.

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10828&hl=

I found conditions for taking pictures challenging to say the least. I've been twice now and the next time I go I think I'll spend at least a couple of days with them. The first day always seems to be a re-learning experience for me.

My favorite composition of the day.

Here's another near miss. Great pose...photo not so great.

In most of my Manatee photos, I notice more grain and a lack of DOF to put it any other way when compared to some of the nicer shots on here. Is that the equipment, or the photographer...haha..or both. If I went with anything higher than f2.8 my photos really got underexposed trying to use natural light on a cloudy day. If I used my strobes, I got nice DOF and sharp pics but I also lit up the suspended particles (not backscatter just silt). Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

I think it's just tough for anyone when you combine less than 'crystal' visibility, and lower light (cloudy) conditions. Add to that, I assume you are setting to a higher ISO or the camera is, which means more noise. It's tough. You'll have to come again next year.

In most of my Manatee photos, I notice more grain and a lack of DOF to put it any other way when compared to some of the nicer shots on here. Is that the equipment, or the photographer...haha..or both. If I went with anything higher than f2.8 my photos really got underexposed trying to use natural light on a cloudy day. If I used my strobes, I got nice DOF and sharp pics but I also lit up the suspended particles (not backscatter just silt). Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Gary,

I haven't been able to answer your ?s in depth on the photos yet. It is a bit of a puzzle to me cause I got decent pics even with my point and shoot Fuji F810. I'm not familiar with your setup though. The conditions in the photos you posted above are really not that bad for Crystal River these days. I suspect it might have to do more with your equipment than the conditions, with the point and shoot I had to use flash because I had an "aperture deficiency", with the Nikon d200 I can use flash or not use flash. I suspect using 2.8 is a real problem, I never got it to work using that shallow DOF. But then I'm not a photography expert, I just learned what worked.

The pic below was shot in worse conditions that you had last Monday with my point and shoot Fuji F810/105 AD wide lens, etc. I'll have to dig up the original file to see what settings I used, but I'm sure the settings were around 1/100 and f4.5 with Inon strobes spread out and pointed slightly out and turned on to a lower setting.

I haven't gotten any really murky water pics with the d200 yet because I'm better at judging conditions now on when to go and even if I did hit it "murky" I have so many pics of manatee now I'd probably just skip the pics, enjoy myself and observe their behaviors!

Carol,

Thanks. I think what I struggled with was if I used my strobes, I end up lighting up the particles..I'll post an example. However if I turned them off in the overcast conditions, I had to keep my aperture wide open and my shutter speed low to get my camera to underexpose the shot by about 1 stop. Then I'd enhance them in RAW later. Here's the same pic in photoshop. A little better but not a lot.

Yes, I'd say you need different strobes on longer arms and pointed slight outwards if you use strobes. You have too much scatter for the conditions you had.

You will need a lot more light to photo with a higher f stop and not use strobes with your camera. But I think you would benefit from the higher f stop.

Just go again as loftus says......, it is a tough job but someone has to do it.....

It is really really really windy here right now so good thing you made it last Monday! I hope next week the viz isn't going to be like thick soup at Crystal River!! It is always a ? of "if" & "when" it might clear some after some of the cold fronts we get.....

Best, Carol

Just go again as loftus says......, it is a tough job but someone has to do it.....

I almost at the point where this will be an annual migration...

I will be returning sometime in the summer but I'll almost bet the Manatees won't be in the spring at that point. We're going to take the kids to Disney so a trip to the crystal river will also be in the forecast.

My setup is pretty versatile for a point and shoot. I have two 8" TLC arms segmented together on each side coming off of the top of the handles connected to the base. However the strobes maybe the issue. The FL20 flash is housed in an oly housing. It puts off a very narrow beam. The only way I've found to get pleasing light out of it is with the external diffuser. The problem is that the 2nd flash (sunpak g-flash with cable) will not fire at all with the diffuser attached. So I've got some work to do to figure that piece out. While I probably won't have different strobes for this year, they are on the budgetary plans

Thanks for your advice..much appreciated!

It has been since the early 80s since I was there. All the above advice is good. I would use a 7 mm suit which worked fine. No tanks. We rented a canoe to paddle around crystal river (which is really a lake). Now days I would use a sit on top kayak. Rainbow river is great also. You might want to visit Ginne springs if you have time.

 

Get on the water at the crack of dawn. That is what we did. Don't know how much more built up the lake is now. But we paddled to some of the smaller springs on the lake and had manatees to ourselves while larger groups motored around looking for them.

Ummmmm....Crystal River isn't a lake. King's Bay is a "bay" the water flows out the Crystal "River" into the gulf. I think maybe you didn't go far west enough to see the river part.