Picture: Moray Eels on exhibit in aquarium tank at SeaWorld, Mission Bay, San Diego County Coast, California
This is just one of those images that caught my attention as I was cruising through some photo files. I’d thought I’d share a little technique I use at times to get photos like this one. It’s called, “Play Tourist”. In other words, lugging around a tripod along with a big professional camera is a sure way to attract attention from security guards. It’s not just about the big camera, or being perceived as a pro that presents problems. Tripods are a legitimate safety concern for park officials (and the insurance companies) with you tripping up the wealth of folks walking around, most of whom are too busy trying to watch or control their little kids vs. watch where they’re walking.
So to get shots like this, I travel ‘incognito’ with my camera and a few lenses just shoved inside a regular day pack, resting on top of a couple t-shirts or a sweatshirt. Now, when I get into a situation like this dark aquarium cave, I try to use a wide angle, fast aperture lens, ideally my nikon 17-35 f2.8. Rather than raise the ISO and risk too much noise, might I choose a fast aperture like f4. But even then, with such low light levels, my shutter speed could be around 1/8 sec.. To overcome camera shake without a tripod, I’ll roll up one of the t-shirts from my pack, and place that on top of one arm, which is laying up against the glass. I’ll then use my other arm to press the camera against the glass, and at the same time, pushing downward on the camera into the shirt. This technique has allowed me to get tack sharp images of up to 1 second or more, and come home with an image that I couldn’t have gotten without using a tripod, or boosting my ISO to 400 or higher.
EDIT: Thanks to going back and checking the original metadata; I did use the rolled shirt technique, but I also did boost my ISO by 1.5 stops up from the lowest ISO of 100; the shot was taken ISO 250, which brought my shutter speed to 1/30th sec at f5 @ 28mm. For the Nikon D2x, the critical ISO range seems to be anything above 340 before increased noise levels become apparent. It’s fun to go back and realize I did things more correctly the first time, than trying to recall how I might have done something while thinking in retrospect.
You can see more of my San Diego Coast Area Photos in my online web gallery.
Interesting experience you had with the hand-holding in the dark because I’ve gone with the opposite approach. Increased ISO, wide open. Mainly because I find that no marine life stays still long enough for a 1/10 exposure. After using Noise-Ninja, the Canon files are very useable still. I’ve never used fill-flash for fish tanks though so maybe that is different.
Ha! Richard; I got myself, I went back to the original meta data; I did boost my ISO to 250; For Nikon, the critical level is below 340; the added boost gave me a 1/30 sec exposure at f5 @ 28mm
Wow, I wish my camera had some more control over ISO. I can only go from 100 to 200 to 400 increments. At Monterey, even after cranking the ISO did little good for slowing down the fish in the big tanks. 🙁