Photo & Video

I had the chance to capture three very different experiences on my first trip to Mexico in July 2017, all with their own photographic challenges.

Whale sharks in sunlit blue water

When filming whale sharks in the “Afuera” – their aggregation site off Isla Mujeres – I had some of the clearest, bluest and sunniest water I have ever seen in whale sharky places. More commonly, the water is green and full of plankton of all shapes and sizes, but in the Afuera whale sharks feed on fish eggs which are carried by the current into this blue water area offshore. This meant, that shots of whale sharks feeding at the surface were easy to get. Whale sharks also sometimes hung vertically in the water while gulping in mouthfuls of fish eggs. They would remain stationary, so I had time to position myself in the right spot and film the show. The major challenge in the Afuera were the numbers of boats and tourists. Usually, I prefer filming wildlife with only their habitat in the frame, so I just had to wait for right moment. As I lead science & photography trips with Rafael de la Parra and Aqua-Firma we stayed out longer and often hung around at the edge of the aggregation, or found sharks away from the main area where we had a more relaxed time with the sharks. I  filmed at 60fps HD and 1/125s shutter speed most of the time to have the chance to slow things down a bit afterwards, but then ended up using footage in real time, so next time I’ll probably shoot 30fps 4k.

 

Dark cenotes

The famous cenotes, or caves, of the Yucatán Peninsula offered a very different underwater experience to the whale sharks. The major challenges here were the light in those dark caves and the droplets on the dome when trying to get over-under shots in air-filled parts of the caves. The clarity of the water meant that my two relatively small video lights illuminated much more of the scene than they do when shooting on a reef. I also had a torch, but never used it for filming. The three shots I was mainly going for was to follow a diver through the cave, capture the stalactites and stalagmites, and show how the cave extends above and below the water surface. I filmed at 4k 30fps as I did not plan to slow anything down. I only did two dives, but was happy to have another chance for over-under video on a snorkelling tour of another cenote a few days later. That time, I smudged a cut potato on the dome port before going in, and that kept the droplets nicely away from the air exposed portion of the port.

 

Wild jaguars at night

My friends Barna and Elizabeth from Encounters knew place where we had a chance of seeing two young wild jaguars. They would emerge from the jungle in the early night near a hut where they used to be able to find left-over food. So even though they were wild, these jaguars had gotten somewhat used to being around lights and that’s what made filming them possible. My camera is not particularly good in low light conditions (see my gear post), but with the help of a torch I managed to get some footage. Focusing was probably the trickiest as the autofocus struggled in the low light. The jaguars were careful but came pretty close to us, and I also had time to put the camera down and just enjoy the encounter for a while.

 

I really like jellyfish! They move gracefully, there are lots of them and they are an excellent subject for pretty photos since they don’t swim away when you get close. Sure, I have been stung in the water before, but mostly by siphonophores like blue bottles (technically not jellyfish) and always because I was chasing after whale sharks rather than looking where I was swimming to. So the bottom line: jellyfish are awesome!

I had the chance recently to take some cool photos of jellyfish in Tanzania. I had plenty of time to shoot and improve because the jellies would swim around the mangroves in front of my hut every day at high tide. My main goals were to get an over-under photo that shows the jellies in their mangrove habitat, and to capture a nice “jellyfish in the sun” photo. The main challenge with the over-under shot was to get the top side in focus as well. I tried with a high f-stop but there is still room for improvement.

For the silhouette photo of the jellyfish with the sun in the background, it was more about the shutter speed. David Robinson gave me some excellent tips to bump up the shutter speed as much as possible after I showed him my first attempt. It worked really well and the sun rays came through nicely. Other than the camera settings, you just have to hold your breath for a long time, hold on to a mangrove root at the bottom and wait for the jelly to swim over your head in front of the sun.

EventualIy, I got that shot of a jellyfish in front of the sun among the mangroves – one of my all time favourite photos.

For video, things are a bit trickier since you cannot simply pick the best of many frames. Stills are also much easier to edit. But video is awesome and jellyfish are a good subject since you can try until you get the shots you wanted. I shot the clip below in the 4k Cine-D profile with the occasional HD 96fps slow motion. I had the camera in aperture priority and it turned out ok, but these days I would shoot at 60fps and prioritise the shutter speed at 1/120 to get nice smooth motion. If you don’t know what I am talking about, check out this quick explanation. With the camera ready, all I did was wait for high tide on a sunny, calm day to minimise water turbidity and then get the shots.

While watching the northern lights in Norway and Sweden in 2016 & 2017 (see my travel post), I managed to take some nice photos of the spectacle. Of course there is room for improvement, so let me share the insights from my first go at it.

Starting with the gear. I have a micro 4/3 camera that I got mostly to take video and photos underwater. It is not the ideal set-up for astrophotography. Compared to the GH4 (see my gear post), other cameras with a larger sensor and higher light sensitivity would be better, but then again there is always a better set of equipment out there.

Time-lapse of the northern lights taken in Andenes.

For the lenses, it is all about speed and field of view. On my first trip north, I had my 7-14mm wide-angle lens (great for photos of sharks) which covers a relatively large portion of the sky, but is slow at f4. Then I also have a 25mm with a limited field of view but a fast f1.4 aperture. When the aurora was strong, the f4 lens worked ok and for time-lapses the faster lens allowed taking a shot every 3 seconds to get a smooth transition between frames. The time-lapse above was shot mainly with the 25mm lens. You can see the section shot at 7mm where the frames “jump” more because of slower shutter speeds and associated processing time between shots. The northern lights above a snowy field (8mm, 30s, f2, iso 1000).

On my second trip, I borrowed Simon‘s 8mm fisheye lense with a fast aperture, and it made a huge difference. The wider aperture brings in more light, so you can have a faster shutter and more defined auroras, and the wider angle allows you to capture more of the sky. If I end up doing more night photography, I’d definitely get that fisheye lens.

Apart from that you need a tripod and use the 2 second timed-release function so you don’t blur the photo when pressing down the shutter button. Carry a spare battery with you as well, as they run out faster at -30°C. The last thing concerns the infinity focus. In a dark night and without a light-up object close by you will have to manually focus. I realised that simply focussing all the way to infinity doesn’t produce sharp photos after an amazing aurora show…so don’t make the same mistake and learn first where the infinity focus of your camera and lens actually is.

When the northern lights are dancing fast, a 2 sec exposure at f2 should about do, otherwise you start losing the structural detail and the beautiful lights become a big green smudge on your photo. So in dark nights, a more relaxed aurora can be better because you can leave the shutter open for 20 or 30 sec and also get a bit of light on the mountains and some stars in the sky. Generally, you’d want to avoid overexposing the aurora because pulling down the highlights during processing can only do so much, while there is more wiggle room with brightening the dark areas. Finally, in post you could of course play with the colours, and the colours of the aurora do vary depending on the strength. I tend to not adjust the colours, and my aurora experiences were often quite green, but we also had some lovely turquoise and purple.

One of my favourite shots took a little bit of editing to get the complete heart shape. I darkened the top right corner of the heart, and I reckon the result is worth the tinkering 🙂

Once the technical things are mastered, we can think about image composition. There are some great shots out there of a reindeer with the aurora in the back, or amazing reflections in an ice-berg filled lagoon. Staying in the same place for a few nights can help with composing a good shot since you can anticipate where the aurora likely shows up. Having said that, I composed my 8h time-lapse after 3 nights of observing the aurora and she ended up mostly dancing just a bit to the right that night 🙂

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Photographers probably spend at least as much time thinking & reading about the equipment they want to get as they do shooting. The most famous saying here is

“The best camera is the one you have with you”

I had some amazing wildlife encounters before I got a proper camera, but still managed to collect some reasonably nice photos then.

I now have a Panasonic GH4 camera that I got in early 2015. The strongest reasons for me were that the camera internally records 4k video and that it is still small enough to travel.

Micro 4/3 cameras benefit from a large selection of lenses, including Olympus, Panasonic and others such as SLRMagic or Voigtlander. I started with the Panasonic 14-140mm lens – double those numbers to get the full-frame equivalent. This lens spans a wide focal range and consequently does not have the most amazing qualities, but it is a good one for hiking when you might try to capture a photo of an arctic fox in the distance and then take a panorama photo of your tent next to the fjord. Apart from hiking trips, I don’t use this lens anymore. My primary underwater lens is the Panasonic 7-14mm wide-angle lens. The wide angle is perfect for whale sharks and other large marine animals. I chose this one over a fisheye lens largely because I think video with a fisheye does not look as good as with a rectilinear lens. I also have the Olympus 60mm macro lens for smaller reef creatures, and the Panasonic 25mm f1.4, a nice lens for low light situations, portraits and interviews and getting good time-lapses of the northern lights. My latest addition to the lens family is the Panasonic 100-300mm zoom lens to get closer to wildlife on land.

I take the GH4 and wide-angle lens underwater in a Nauticam housing and I have a couple of video lights (iTorch Venom38), too. The housing is fantastic and even though I ruined the dome by putting ethanol on it, I could rescue it (with some help – thanks Clare) thanks to its acrylic nature. Phew! The vacuum seal is also really useful to check for leaks and the feeling that your precious camera is safe inside the housing.

 

Other than that, I have a light-weight video tripod from Benro that has a nice fluid head for panning. I carry three batteries with me and four 64GB SD cards with the U3 classification, meaning that 4k video can be recorded onto it. I should probably spend more time on post-processing, which is fun, but then so is being in the water filming the world’s largest fish or hiking up some mountain 🙂

 

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