Capturing the sharks of Protea Banks

I'm off out to South Africa in May, and hope to dive Protea Banks to visit the sharks!

I would be interested to hear on suggested techniques for trying to get some decent shark shots. If anyone has dived there before and knows what to expect, I'd be very grateful for your advice.

I want to try and practice the techniques and get used to kit/procedures before I go as I'm just in the middle of switching from a fully automatic pocket P&S to a C5060.

I have yet to house the 5060, but already have the Olympus WAL adapter, so Wide angle could be a possiblilty depending on the housing I end up with. I only have a single DS-50 strobe though. So I'd like to know what I should try and do strobe, and what to stick to available light on.

Any suggestions or tips & tricks with the sharks? I guess I'll need to have a well practiced set-up to get those quick shots, otherwise it'll be back to a memory card full of big fishes bums! (or butts depending on your locale of English :wink: )

Anyone able to offer some advice? please..... :? :?

Paul, there are not a lot of folks out there with 5060's yet. That makes you a pioneer.

As for me, I use a 5050 with two Ikelite DS 125 strobes housed in an Ikelite housing with built in TTL circuitry with an INON WAL and dome port.

With this setup I can get close to light the subjects and I can shoot in sequential mode at about 1 shot per second in bursts of 3 or 4 shots. For samples of pictures taken this way see Group 5 on the following page.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...ple_gallery.htm

My setup also works great for close ups of turtles and Nurse Sharks. I suppose it would also work great on Great Whites but I haven't tried that yet .

For more on my rig and ideas on how it might relate to your 5060 and your plans see the following pages.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...aphy/index.html

Bottom Line: I think you need wide angle but there are real questions about the right way to provide this capability for the 5060. And for wide angle you need lots of strobe coverage like that provided by two DS 125s. On the other hand, if you are in shallow water e.g. 10 to 15 feet in a shark cage you might be able to get by with natural lighting. Or you can concentrate on shooting silhouette shots with natural light.

Thanks for the info Peter, I'm already familiar with your excellent site. I realise there aren't many 5060's out there now, but I was hoping for some general photography advice rather than camera specific stuff.

I will probably go with the Ike housing if I can get one soon enough, as that would give me Olympus TTL with my DS-50. I already have the WCON, and its a nice lens so an Ike dome could also be on the cards if its any good. As for more strobes, my budget doesn't stretch that far just yet Compromise Compromise. So, I realise that the single strobe is not ideal for good WA but thats all I have. I note some of your WA shots used a single strobe (albeit a DS-125).

As for the sharks, this is open water diving, NO CAGE :shock: :shock:

Fortunately, they say they don't see too many great whites (unless you're really lucky ). Only the Tiger sharks and Zambezis (Bull sharks) to worry about then! :twisted:

Will probably be shooting in about 15-25m of water, in near the reef slightly below the sharks.

I'm hoping there may be some cunning tricks to get reasonable pics with a single strobe. What are the best strobe positions for WA? Far out to the side, or high above camera facing dead ahead?

I read somewhere, that the strobe will be completely ineffective at more than 2m, right?

Anyone got any general advice on TTL for sharks & barracuda type subjects? I'm sure I've read that these can typically trick TTL systems into over/under exposing? In that case, should I use Flash compensation, Exposure compensation, or both?

On available light, I also think I read one of the dSLR boys talking about using the smallest apperture possible to get decent sharp sillhouettes. Would this apply to me?

Also, I understand the concept of a balanced light exposure by metering background water, using flash for fill. But had also heard that selecting a fast shutter speed has a 'freezeing' effect on the light rays as they penetrate the water. :? I can't see how this could work. So, true or false?

Any other tips, gratefully received!

You can get excellent shark photos with only one strobe. You have to be VERY studious about aiming it and it even helps a LOT if you handhold the strobe.

Cheers

James

Re "Anyone got any general advice on TTL for sharks & barracuda type subjects? I'm sure I've read that these can typically trick TTL systems into over/under exposing? In that case, should I use Flash compensation, Exposure compensation, or both?"

Too often I don't have time to set strobe power and some shots are hard to light.

The attached pic illustrates both points i.e. Spotfins are almost always in pairs but not always lined up and lighting them is tough as they are shinny and tend to burn easily.

With TTL power management I can concentrate on target acquisition and composition and let the camera do the rest.

Note: I never had any luck using Ikelite TTL slave controllers. So I went to manual controllers. But the Ikelite TTL conversion circuitry is a home run. I don't know why it works so much better. But it may be because the Olympus preflash circuitry driving the external strobes works better than bouncing the camera preflash to a TTL sensor that controls the external strobe. Anyway, for whatever reason the new TTL conversion circuitry really does work.

To help matters, I use spot exposure metering for all of my shots just as I use spot focus, the assumption being that what I am shooting is in the center of the picture.

As to EV and Flash Compensation, I leave EV at the default of 0 and have found that FC of -0.7 works for all cases. YMMV.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...up_settings.htm

Here is the pic.