One day last fall I had field trips for two of my Chester County Night School classes; one was in the morning and one in the afternoon. After getting a bite to eat I took a few minutes to do some shooting myself. This is may favorite image from the shoot.
The sunburst is a result of shooting a point light source with a wide angel lens set to a small aperture (large f-number), like f/16 or higher.
For this image I was more concerned with getting the star burst effect than with loosing a little sharpness due to diffraction and shot it at f/29. That resulted in a shutter speed of 1/20 sec.
One of the classes that had their field trip that day was my Digital B&W class so I created a B&W version. For the conversion I was going for a high contrast infrared effect.
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One last post of GWS. This time the sharks are really close. This first one was shot at 12mm. I’m not sure how the sea weed got between his teeth. I really wish it wasn’t there but I was not about to try and floss for her.
This one was shot at 22mm.
Here are a couple more Great White Shark images from our recent trip to Isla Guadalupe.
These two are from different days. I posted them together because they both show right-left movement.
It is truly amazing to see how graceful these big animals are underwater.
It’s also interesting to see how many scars they have on their bodies. For the females, most of them come during mating when the male bites them to hold on. Good thing sharks are fast healers!
A quick post today.
Thviagra is my favorite shark image from the trip.
As I mentioned in a previous post the cages we used for this expedition were submerged to 40 feet. There are a number of advantages to do this instead of only using surface cages. But there is at least one advantage and that is not having the opportunity to capture lines of light created by the water’s surface acting as a lens to that focuses the light on the shark’s back. So I thought I would start the shark close-up with some shots take either from the surface cage of early in a dive in the submerged gage, but while it was still on the surface.
It’s a time to reflect on and to be thankful for what we have and have accomplished. It’s a time for family and friends to share food.
For flowers that bloom about our feet;
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee!
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Enjoy this day with family and friends!
In the previous post I showed the gages used to protect the divers when Great White Sharks are around. So this time I’ll show a couple images where a shark swim between the two submerged cages. This way you get some scale as to just how big the animals are. This particular shark is about 15-16 feet long.
Many operations only use cages on the surface. These were submerged to 40 feet to allow view of the sharks in more of their environment.
Unfortunately we were unlucky enough to be the first group in the water when we arrived at Isla Guadalupe. We did see a Great White Shark but it was too far away for a picture. Most of the time we got to look at blue water.
However these pix will give you an idea a what diving in shark cages is like. My wife, Sue, and I were in the two person cage for the first dive. Here is my first frame, a “test shot” of her—both strobe fired. (Underwater you just never know.)
And here is a shot of the other cage, the four person cage.
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