Photographing Sea Lions

I was out diving Santa Barbara Island this last weekend. I was diving with the Sea Lions. My 5DM3 and my Ikelite strobes only will sync up to 1/200th or 1/250th I think. How do I shoot these guys when they are moving as 1/250th is to slow. I still get a lot of motion blur. Look forward to suggestions.

On my 7D with the tokina 10-17 I shoot them all the time at 1/250 and get minimum motion blur. That being said, you need to be patient and shoot when they are still.

Bill

On my 7D with the tokina 10-17 I shoot them all the time at 1/250 and get minimum motion blur. That being said, you need to be patient and shoot when they are still.

Bill

That is what I figured..just thought maybe someone had a suggestion.

Hi,

If your camera has this setting, sync the strobe for the second curtain. This way at least any motion blur will be BEHIND the sea lion and not in front of it. Might even give some interesting results.

Jock

If you're getting motion blur I assume it is because most of the light on the subject is ambient, not strobe. The strobe firing time is much less than 1/250th, so if all of the light was coming from the strobe you wouldn't get any blur. This may not be practical, but if you can crank up your strobe power and lower your iso or aperture you should get a little less blur because more light will be coming from the strobe. Of course this also means you'll have a very dark background, so it may not work in your situation. You'll also need strobes powerful enough to overwhelm the ambient light.

When I have shot sea lions this has worked because with our poor local viz the ambient light level was pretty low.

Have photographed them only twice as i live in India. But the first time was a learning process. Ideally its best to take shots while they are coming towards you. Not when they are moving away either side. Panning your camera as they move is also a help.

Hopefully these two images may help get an idea of what i mean. The eyes are in focus, but the background and body of the seal has some blur. To avoid this completely, one has to shoot when the seal is com ing towards you as higher shutter speed is not possible.