Shooting highly reflective subjects

[Clay Coleman]

Highly reflective subjects such as large reflective fish or schools of reflective fish have always given me problems. Not enough strobe and the subject becomes lost in the background; too much strobe and they blow out. Strobes set as wide as possible seem to work best. Here's a tarpon--everything worked except I didn't get any definition in the all-important eye:
http://claycoleman.tripod.com/ab1bdd00.jpg
Clay

[tarczy]

Highly reflective subjects such as large reflective fish or schools of reflective fish have always given me problems. Not enough strobe and the subject becomes lost in the background; too much strobe and they blow out. Strobes set as wide as possible seem to work best. Here's a tarpon--everything worked except I didn't get any definition in the all-important eye:

Clay

Yes, they get lost in the background if you don't have enough flash. My solution . . . gotta get some of the surface in the shot . . .

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i284/mongo255/Copyright%20Pics/Tarpon.jpg

[Clay Coleman]

"My solution . . . gotta get some of the surface in the shot . . ."

Good idea and well done. -Clay

[Jonathan Bird]

Yeah, silvery stuff is very hard to do well. You need just the right amount of light, and I agree with Clay that lighting it "off axis" helps a lot. The idea is to keep the strobe from bouncing straight back into the lens, forming hot spots in the image. I wish I had a really good example of mine to post, but I don't have anything scanned.

I was shooting in a school of tiny silvery fish in western Australia a few years ago and it was amazing, but very hard to reproduce on film. I would expect that doing it digital would be easier, only because the histograms would help you dial in the exposure.

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

Reflective schools look great on video, but they're awfully tough to capture with a still shot. We almost always see schools of lookdowns beneath the Louisiana oil rigs (not much ambient light and usually greenish water), and they are absolutely dazzling. I've never been able to do them justice with a still. Here's a recent attempt (Nik V/15mm, f8, Ike 200 strobe at 1/4 power, 1/30th, Proviaf 100 film) -Clay
http://claycoleman.tripod.com/af0bcd20.jpg

[Jonathan Bird]

Wow! I think it's a darned good attempt! What's interesting is how the water at the top of the frame is greener than the water towards the bottom, or in the "back". Is that what the slide looks like, or an artifact of scanning? (I have had images that did weird stuff when I scanned them).

[Clay Coleman]

Thanks, Jonathan, but, man, you should've been there (Jesse C. was there; I wish he'd show up so he could help me out). That slide is still on my light box, so I had a look. The green is more vivid on the slide, and the shade of blue is maybe a little bit more vivid on the scan, but the scan is a decent rendition of what's on the slide. The effect is probably caused by the shadow of the rig. Another possibility is the salinity disparity from the surface to about 20' caused by freshwater runoff from our coast--the deeper and more saline water is bluer. The distortion caused by the halocline also makes the green surface look a little funky. -Clay

[Jonathan Bird]

Another possibility is the salinity disparity from the surface to about 20' caused by freshwater runoff from our coast--the deeper and more saline water is bluer. The distortion caused by the halocline also makes the green surface look a little funky. -Clay

Ah, I'm sure that explains it. I think it's a cool effect! Must be wild to swim through that layer and down into the blue.

I did a dive on St. Croix last year where the first 120 feet of water was less than 10 feet of viz because of a hurricane, and we went down the wall blind. When we hit the "clear layer" at 120 feet, it was like we emerged from soup into gin. The viz was 100+ down there, but the light was terrible. Emerging from such low viz into such high viz was actually one of the most fantastic feelings. The situation was depressing because I was on assignment for a magazine and it sucks working in bad viz when you need to "produce" but the experience was cool.

Jonathan

[Clay Coleman]

The fresher water "murky layer" is amost always present off the Louisiana coast--especially in springtime when the Mississippi River and Atchafalaya Basin are at their peak. It results in a halocline and a mini-thermocline at the interface with the more saline Gulf water. Passing through it is almost like jumping into the water all over again, and it's really neat to suddenly see the rig jacket spreading out all around you. The filter effect of the murky layer plus the shadow of the rig make things pretty dark. The lookdown photo was taken beneath a rig about 50 miles out. Of course, the layer of fresh water dissipates at a certain point, and the line is usually prominently marked by sargassum grass and other coastal debris and is known locally as "the rip". As the layer of floating fresher water is blown around by the wind, the rip moves around quite a bit. Have a seat in any coastal Louisiana bar and you'll hear several converstions among fishermen about where the rip is.

[Clay Coleman]

One last shot and I'll leave this alone. Here's the most common challenge in the Caribbean. Horse-eye schools are all over the place and easy to approach, but there's always at least one that blows out. I've never gotten a completely clean one unless I shoot the school at an angle, which takes something away from the view, I think. Here's a broadside attempt. If it wasn't for that guy on the upper right side, well... -Clay
http://claycoleman.tripod.com/83dbdd30.jpg

[caymaniac]

Shooting highly refective subjects is a difficult thing, either it blows out the bright spots or really darkens the backgound
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k115/caymaniac/Underwater%20Images/File0183.jpg

[Jonathan Bird]

And you have done a good job at walking the line in the middle in that shot. You have to accept a tiny amount of "blow out" in a reflective subject otherwise the rest of the image is just way too dark. The trick in my experience (if you have time) is to bracket a little and try to find the right exposure. Of course if you are like me, you end up with one frame exposed right and another frame that has the best composition, and the two are never the same frame!!

Jonathan

[allison finch]

Sometimes I don't mind blowing out the shot a little. High reflective surfaces can be fun.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3038/2653565375_c156616d4a_o.jpg

Who cares if you lose some definition. The scale definition can be the whole point.

[sorvju-f]

And you have done a good job at walking the line in the middle in that shot. You have to accept a tiny amount of "blow out" in a reflective subject otherwise the rest of the image is just way too dark. The trick in my experience (if you have time) is to bracket a little and try to find the right exposure. Of course if you are like me, you end up with one frame exposed right and another frame that has the best composition, and the two are never the same frame!!

Jonathan

Maybe it is terrible to say, but it sounds like that also pro have to have some luck for a good picture:rolleyes:

Jukka

[Jonathan Bird]

True for sure. Underwater photography is as much about luck as experience! Being there in the first place is 90% of the battle.

[Clay Coleman]

Being there in the first place is 90% of the battle.

Amen to that! Hence the cliche, "f8 and be there".