cocos-malpelo lens

Hi all,

I''m heading to cocos and malpelo in a couple weeks. I need to buy a wide angle lens, should I get the 10-17 (I like what people have done with it),or buy the 12-24 (more versatile, land use) or should I rather go for a zoom 17-70 (if I recall correctly)? It is OK if I miss some picture opportunities due to lens restriction as long as I get a few pictures, as sometimes I feel like one's become so obsess with taking a picture that one's forget to look around and just enjoy watching.

Thanks

Sylvie

I think if you only had one lens out of those three it would be the 12-24, but honestly, for a trip like that I would have the 10-17 as well and a topside lens of choice. I would hate to be on a trip like that with only one lens to choose from. The 18-200 is going to cover most things topside, though there are sharper lenses if you are prepared to spend the money like the 70-200.

I did Cocos last year and had great success with a Nikon f5 film body in housing and a 24-50mm lens. The sharks get close but not 2-4 feet close for the most part. You will be spending your time hiding behind rocks and my guess at an average shooting distance would be about 4-6 feet so you will want a little reach. Any of the 3 lenses you have mentioned will allow you the iconic wide angle silhouette shot of hammerheads schooling overhead at Alcyone. You may also want to think about some macro at Cocos as well- frogfish opportunities and red-lipped batfish reside there as well.

We got back from our second trip to Malpelo/Cocos 3 weeks ago. 80% of the time I shot the 17-55mm. The 12-24 would be great if viz is with you and you are getting good schooling action. It's a little wide for most solo hammerhead shots due them being so shy, IMHO.

The 12-24 or 10-17mm could be used for some of the fish schools at Malpelo if shark action is slow. For the Eel Condo the 10-17mm or 12-24 would be great. I had the 17-55 and it was not wide enough. Sadly we only got one dive there. Otherwise those two lenses will be home runs or total strike outs. There are dives where you might have to give up solo shark shots in hopes of getting good shark or jack schooling shots. I wish once I had some decent solo shark shots I had risked the 10-17mm for some of the jack schools. Still working on gallery for this trip but there is one for our 06 trip at our website, most shots there taken with the 17-35.

A few taken with the 17-55mm

i'm going to cocos end of june/beginning of july. i went last year and used a 17-40. i think it worked well because you do want a little reach ... those hammerheads don't come close. however, i am considereing a fishewye for some of the spots where you can get close to white tips, frog fish, batfish etc. but for the hammers, unless you're diving a rebreather, you'll need a little reach.

I've been on two trips to Cocos (one was to Malpelo as well)...

The first time I shot exclusively w/the 12-24 (w/a D200) and I wasn't really thrilled w/the results.

In Malpelo the water tends to be a little murkier, and the hammers a little more distant (mostly because there are fewer places to hide behind and wait in Malpelo). The "eel condos" at Malpelo (multiple to many eels in one hole) are great subjects, but shooting them w/the 12-24 also means you get some of the soft edges in your pictures (not shooting against a water background)

The best results on that trip came from someone shooting w/the Nikon 10.5 - some really outstanding stuff.

My second trip (Cocos only) I brought along the 10.5 and the 10-17, and I ended up shooting the 10-17 almost exclusively - much better results than my previous trip.

Part of this I do attribute to the lens - the 10-17 was a great fit for most of the subjects (hammers, silvertips, marble rays, the plethora of white tips, and the occasional manta).

The other thing I attribute this to is that unless you have spent a significant amount of time shooting sharks in close, the first time to Cocos you really don't get a feel for how close you should be to get a good result. Between the surge, sea urchins, other divers in/around the cleaning stations, and the many beautiful hammerheads meandering by (all while you are likely holding your breath) it's (really) hard to get an idea of how close you need to be to get the really excellent shots.

Shooting w/the 10-17 (usually set somewhere around 12-14) it took me a few days even on the 2nd trip to realize that the best shots are going to be taken extremely close in (like within 5-7ft away from the hammers coming in to be cleaned). You're usually going to be hunkered down behind a rock (note the locations of the urchins - they are usually in the spot you want to be in , and then managing your breathing until the last possible moment to take a shot (or two...).

Other lessons learned:

1. Shoot up (duh!) - the problem is that there are likely going to be hammers below you, but the background is dark rock/substrate so there isn't a lot of contrast to get an appealing image. You get so tempted to shoot the ones that look close (below you), but in most cases the resulting image won't be great (unless it's really close).

Note on "shooting up" w/the Marble Rays - maybe it's just my strobes (dual Z240's) but shooting a Marble Ray from above (w/out a real contrasting background like sand) was like shooting into a black hole - these things seem to eat up your light. Shooting where you can get some white of the underside of a marble ray is a necessity (from my experience).

2. The fewer divers on a cleaning station the more likely you'll be able to get close. It's not that everyone isn't trying to control their breathing, it's that eventually everyone has to exhale. This means that while you're holding your breath the person to your right/left or above you will likely be exhaling, thus keeping the hammers a little farther away.

My favorite spots were the 2nd and 3rd cleaning stations on the backside of Manuelita. While the rest of the group was hunkered down at the first cleaning station, my buddy and I would head off to the 2nd or 3rd spot. With only a couple of us there, the hammers came in really (really) close (I had one or two that I could have touched as they swam straight over the top of me).

If you're diving a rebreather you can practically sit in the middle of the cleaning station and not scare the sharks away (the sub pilot, Smulek (sp?) did this a couple of times - amazing images).

Alcyone is another great spot - but it's harder to get underneath & close to the sharks here (and it's deep). Great place to get the "schooling hammers" image though...

Damn - just writing about this makes me want to go back - I'm trying to talk the wife into letting me again next year. I'm hooked, it's such a unique place...

- Matt

i used a similar strategy ... move away from the other divers. i would get the best images when the sharks were spooked by the other divers. i picked up the "rebound" when the hammerheads swam over to me when the others blew a bunch of bubbles.

i still plan to use my 17-40, but keep hearing of other people using a wider angle lens. i'm just afraid that i won't be able to get close enough with a 10 or 14 mm lens. any advantage to a fisheye of this length?

Quite a few people are likely to disagree with this, but I think the old Nikon 20mm lens works beautifully with scalloped hammerheads. I've been to Cocos, Malpelo and Galapagos, and if I were to return to any of 'em I'd pack the 20mm for portraits and even schooling shots if the viz was okay. It's fast, sharp as anything and the discipline of having a non-zoom is that you will develop your own stealth skills (and you're less likely to miss a shot while fiddling with the zoom). For schooling shots, the Tok 10-17mm is good, or the old 16mm fisheye could do the trick. As NW Diver points out, you can get carried away trying to shoot hammerheads - if you're on, say, Dirty Rock you've got one of the best bigeye trevelly sites in the world, so plan to shoot everything is my advice. Have a great time!