Surrounded by Squid at the surface!

I recently got really lucky with some super neat images of squid in La Jolla.

The shoot involved following paddling my camera gear around on a kayak, and following a kayak fishing angler around from 3am till 3pm. We knew there were squid there, but I can't pretend to be an expert on their behavior- all I knew was that it would be easy to jig them up and use for bait to catch big white seabass and yellowtail. The latter fish were the ones that I had hoped to get photos of; I would never have guessed the squid would be at the surface, and I was only snorkeling when I was in the water.

Most of the time I see white seabass and yellowtail in La Jolla, they are in less than clear water so I wasn't expecting anything really spectacular. The angler landed a 45 pound seabass in the morning and then we decided to paddle around and see what else we might stumble across farther out in the clearer water. That day, the visibilty was great.

The fellow I was with is able to stand up on his kayak, so he can see really far. At one point he noticed a red ball of bait on the surface- very unusual! We went over to investigate and indeed, it was a frothing mass of squid. I had my cam in the hatch of my kayak so I had to get that out, don my fins and mask, and hope that by the time I prepped myself and entered the water, the squid ball would still be there.

They were and I had a really unbelievable experience!

The squid were so thick that I was able to reach out, calmly reach out and hold one in my hand, and then cradle it in my lips to take a self portrait. I then let the squid go, although judging by the amount of predators in the water (mackerel, dive bombing birds, big seabass and yellowtail, and sea lions) I'm not sure I did it much of a favor. I was probably the only thing in the water that wasn't feeding on squid that day.

Kind of a funny pic in that you can see me with my daughter's leaky 12 dollar mask that I found in the garage. The day before when I was prepping my own gear I noticed my mask had a problem with it so I had no choice.

If you have any interest the full story and pics are here

Thanks,

Jon Schwartz

Great squid! I love squid.

All amazing Jon, I'm loving the first one. Must have been a blast to be in the middle of that.

Cheers,

Steve

Thanks for the kind words guys!

Steve, it was a blast to be in the middle of it. I was so thrilled that they hung around long enough so that I was able to get my gear ready and hop off my kayak. I was worried that they'd be gone by the time I got in the water. I had given the settings on my camera a lot of thought the night before, because I usually shoot in tropical water. Local water isn't my specialty- or rather, I have been spoiled by gin clear water like Hawaii.

I use a surf housing and it doesn't have a lot of access to controls so it's all in the way I set it up hours before. I imagine you guys that have dive housings tweak your settings a bunch underwater to match the conditions. Am I correct?

Luckily I set it up so that my shots had enough depth of field. In the past I have blown a lot of shots by opening the aperture up to 2.8, but when the fish is moving and is large, much of the fish is out of focus. This time it all worked out. If it didn't, I would have had a hard time forgiving myself!

Thanks,

Jon

WOW!

Great story! Great fun! Fun pix!

Well done.

Happy indepependence day.

Thanks guys!!

My friend who took me out kayaking told me that since then the water has turned green. Good thing I got out when I did! Here's a pic of a blue marlin I got last summer. One of these days I have to get SCUBA certified so I can spend some more time, farther down like you guys.

Jon

Hi Jon,

a great pic from blue marlin and a interest story. Amazing!

Cheers, Imre

Thanks! I am looking into a new lens for my next trip. I would like a zoom and am thinking of the Nkon 16-34 ( or is it 35?) Time to get a new port made.

Wow!!! those are awesome.

Hi Jon,

I like the second squid shot, sounds like an interesting experience.

In terms of lens choices, have a trawl through the posts on the SLR forum here. There is a ton of info about lens, housing and port choices. I guess if you don't get a specific answer to your query, you may be best posting in there.

Thanks for sharing.

Adam