F Stop for shooting big stuff

I am just moving into the SLR world and would like to know what F stop would be recommended when shooting things like whale sharks and sea lions.

Thanks

Generally you would want to use the F-stop that makes the water look nice and blue. It depends a bit on how sunny it is, but on an average day you'd be using something around F8 at 1/125th of a second. But it's not all that easy. It really depends on the circumstances. Point your camera at the blue (you can practice this on land), and look at the meter in the view finder. Try and get it in the center (or maybe 2/3th of a stop darker) and that should give you a nice blue background. Hopefully that also exposes your main subject correctly. If not you may need strobes (like with sea lions) and add some fill light for your main subject.

Generally you would want to use the F-stop that makes the water look nice and blue. It depends a bit on how sunny it is, but on an average day you'd be using something around F8 at 1/125th of a second. But it's not all that easy. It really depends on the circumstances. Point your camera at the blue (you can practice this on land), and look at the meter in the view finder. Try and get it in the center (or maybe 2/3th of a stop darker) and that should give you a nice blue background. Hopefully that also exposes your main subject correctly. If not you may need strobes (like with sea lions) and add some fill light for your main subject.

I agree. That's what I would do. Select ISO [110, 200] and spot meter 60-90 deg. away from Sun. I perfer - 1 EV for RPV (film) and mostly for my Nikon DSLR. Determin what shutter speed & apt. you what and then adjust the ISO for the desired exposure.

Bob

Just to expand a bit on what Cor said: I've found f8 at 1/125th ISO 200 is sort of my "default" wide angle setting, all things being equal. As Cor said, meter the water in the direction you're shooting and I've found about 2/3 underexposed gives a nice blue for me. Now, here's the tricky part - all things are rarely equal! You'll have to adjust from this ideal depending on the situation. It's all about how much light is getting to your sensor in order to keep that exposure in the ideal range. Each adjustment has it's pluses and minuses: a faster shutter speed will help stop faster moving subjects, but then less light is getting to the sensor so you'll have to compensate by opening the aperture or increasing ISO. Opening the aperture will decrease your depth of field and even sharpness depending on how far you have to go. Increasing ISO can lead to more noise. Shooting with the sun coming over your shoulder can help a lot with this balancing act.

1/125th might be fine for a "slower" moving whale shark, but I think a sea lion's going to probably need a faster shutter to stop motion.

If you can get close enough to your subject, then strobes will really help.

Welcome to the joys of an SLR!

Phil

A few months ago, I did a presentation with another photographer for a local club that was mainly w/a modeling shots. At the end, one viewer asked, "What settings did you use for those pictures?" This is tough to answer, like your question. The thing is, they can and sometimes should be all over the place. And my very first class with Mike Veitch taught me the importantce of BRACKETING, even if you think you have it right. This applies to all kinds of subjects, including big stuff.

Sea lions are definitely fast. To put it lightly, they are challenging on their own...and may not be accompanied by pretty blue water. Or water than can even be classified as blue in any way.

Another factor in shooting sea lions is strobe light, which will affect your chosen F stop. I rarely pull the trigger unless they are close enough that I can get strobes on them, but that may be a personal preference thing. I tend to use an F stop that will allow me to use the shortest possible strobe recycle time so I can shoot continuously (my strobes allow that when they're set below 1/2 power). Depending on depth, water clarity/lack thereof, size of sea lion(s) etc etc, this can range anywhere from F5.6-F11.

Phil is right on about shutter speed - I think I have done lots of shooting at 1/125th simply because of ambient light issues (and we go back to F stop here, once again), but the faster, the better for those guys - if I were lucky enough to be in conditions bright enough to allow, I'd go for 1/250th (fastest sync speed), but this is just not common in my local area.

(I almost always use ISO 320 in temperate water and 160 or 320 in bluer water)

I have not been in the water with whale sharks at all since I started with dSLR, so I think others can answer that better, but it may be a bit less complicated if you're in a situation where you're freediving (e.g., without strobes to worry about).

Good luck!! Practice, practice, practice. Oh - and taking a hands-on class really helped me to understand all this stuff a lot faster than if I'd tried to figure it all out on my own..