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You’ve Found a Critter, Now What?

Posted on by in underwatermacro and tagged , , , , , , .

Read about how to find macro subjects.

You first 30 macro subjects are rather intimidating.

But first!

Stop and take a couple of breaths.  Relax.  Think, then act.

Mark the subject so that you can find it again if you drift away a bit.  I’ll stick my Lembeh stick into the sandy bottom in good visibility or drop a lit torch about half a meter (or less) away in bad visibility.  That way if I look down at my camera to fix a problem or have a hand conversation with somebody, I can go back to where the subject is.

Some things to ask about the subject…

Is it shy?  Some subjects like gobies retreat into their home (or just leave the area) when you approach.  They’re afraid that you’re going to eat them.  With these animals, you have to go slow and steady when you move around them.

Does it hate white light?  Shrimp and crabs are notorious for not liking white light.  It hurts their eyes.  With these creatures, you have to either use a red focus light or no focus light.  White lights are straight out.  This also means that it’s hard to get photos of them without a strobe.

What are its key features? Every animal has a set of features that really define what they are.

  • Shrimp and crabs: eyes, claws.
  • Nudibranchs: rhinophores, gills, eggs.
  • Seahorses and pipefish:  mouth, eyes, tiny fins, and sometimes a pregnant belly.
  • Gobies and other small fish: eyes, face fringes, dorsal fin.

Which direction is the animal facing and moving?  Most of the best shots are from the front of the creature.  This isn’t always the deal, but understanding where the “face” is can be a good start at how you approach the photo shoot.

Some questions about where you’re at…

Is there another subject nearby?  Sometimes, this happens: there is a better subject nearby.  Or sometimes your subject is in a bad location to shoot (usually facing down or in a crack that you can’t stick a lens and strobes in) but there is another one of the same close by that is in a location where you can shoot.

Where is the current coming from?  Ideally, you want to take pictures while you’re facing into the current to minimize sand in the shot.  Sand is backscatter and that’s bad, mkay?  Sadly, though, most subjects when you find them will be facing into the current, and this complicates life.  So you have to stop and think about where you and your camera can be located in order to minimize the dirt in your shot.

Is the bottom safe to you and itself?  Will you break off coral if you take this shot?  Will you be rolling around on fire coral?  Is there a scorpionfish sitting in the marl that will stick you with venom?  More about safety here.

Approach the Subject

Add or remove your diopter.  Match your diopter to the size of the subject.  I use a flip holder, so it’s relatively trivial to flip in and out on shots.  The one downsize is that I then have to change exposure settings, especially aperture, because the depth of field and amount of visible light change.  Some people screw their diopters in and out, and if you’re one of those people, be sure to mark your subject before you do.

Adjust your strobes.  If there isn’t enough room for you strobes on the bottom, then you’ll have to move them to the top of the lens like Mickey Mouse ears.  Or use a completely different style.  If you keep your strobes off while you hunt, turn them on now.

Get a focus lock.  Lock your focus on the sand or coral nearby.  Or use the focus gear on your housing to move the focus to the desired length away from the lens front.  This will help you find the subject better.  I’ll also make a test shot to wake up my camera and strobes if they went into sleep mode.

Go slow.  Fast means making dust in the water and scaring the subject.  Try to contain your excitement.

Shoot away!!

 

 

See You Underwater!!

–Mike

 

 

 

Behind the Shot: Baby Boxfish

Posted on by in behind the shot, underwatermacro and tagged , , , , , , .

This is the first of a new feature I’m adding called “Behind the Shot” to explain how and where I took the photo.

Have a look at this baby boxfish. They’re the cutest thing you’ll ever see underwater.

Location: Yap, Federated States of Micronesia

Dive Site: Slow and Easy

Depth: 14 meters

Story:

Even though Yap is known for its larger animals like mantas and sharks, it does have excellent macro in a couple of places. The folks at Manta Bay Resort can show you where.

On this dive, the outer reefs were beaten up by the waves in the afternoon wind. So we rigged from wide-angle photography gear to macro. After a very short boat ride from the dive center, we dropped into Slow and Easy.

Slow and Easy has a moderate sandy slope from 8 meters down to 25+ (I haven’t been that deep there). There are large boulders up top in the 5-8 meter depths and they have a lot of interesting life there like pipefish, blennies, and lizardfish.

On this dive, I was with Elaine, as usual. As soon as we finished our decent, she started working a hermit crab and I started to swim slowly and scan for things to shoot. You know, the basic beginning of a macro dive.

There was a 70-cm round depression. You’ll see this a lot on the sandy bottom, usually uphill from a rock and off to one side. I’ll scan these quite a bit because they collect floating materials like grass, seaweed, etc. This was no exception, and the name of the game that day was “eel grass”. There was quite a bit of it lining the depression.

I took out my pointer stick and started to look around under the eel grass, gently lifting up individual pieces. Some movement caught my eye. What really caught my eye was how everything was drifting away slowly with the current except for a 2mm pea which was holding its position and even going up-current.

With things this small, you don’t really know what it looks like, even with good light. But you can see it using your camera and a supermacro diopter: they turn your camera into a microscope. I got a focus lock on a nearby piece of sand and then held up the camera to view the green ball in it. All I could see was 2 big eyes staring back at me. So I turned on my strobes and followed the pea for a bit, taking photos as it moved around.

I moved the camera in and out until it looked like the eyes were in focus and then pushed the shutter. This was harder than you might think. The boxfish was moving. I was moving to chase it. The camera was moving because I had to hold it in mid-water.

I got maybe a total of 10 shots. Then when I looked down to refocus closer to the end of the lens, I couldn’t find the boxfish again.

After the dive I had to research on Google to find out what it was that I found.

Lessons Learned:

Take a test photo underwater as soon as you descend and adjust your exposure so that it’s good.  This will reduce the amount of time that it takes to start taking pictures when you find a subject.

Go slow when you dive and learn how to hunt.  Nothing beats time underwater for building skills and intuition at hunting.

If you know that a subject is rare, small, and moving, it’s best to take a handful of photos with your existing camera settings then make major adjustments like adding another diopter.

See You Underwater

–Mike