Time2dive

Crab and Jellyfish

Larval Crab riding on a pelagic Jellyfish

Larval Crab riding on a pelagic Jellyfish
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NIKON D750

settings

Aperture 10/1 ISO 100 Shutter 1/100 Focal Length 1050/10

upload_date

Jul, 2016

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken about three miles off of the coast of Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. At the time of this shot I was in about 50' of water, the bottom was about 3000' below me....it was dark...and there was no one else around.

Time

I took this just after sunset, that is when the largest mass migration of life happens....and it happen every night. Billions of small pelagic creatures come up form the deep ocean to the surface every night, this was just one of the strange creatures that I saw.

Lighting

I shoot with two combination video lights/strobes, the extend out in front of the camera, one points down across the lens, one points form the left toward the center. I try and get the subject in the light where the two lights,strobe cross. I shoot at a medium f stop (normally around f11) this is so I don't have too much light and get too much backscatter.

Equipment

I believe this was shot with my Nikon D750 and a 100mm macro lens, it is one of the few lenses that will actually auto focus on semi transparent creatures in the dark. Sometimes I will have to manually focus the camera and actually move my body to focus on the moving creatures.

Inspiration

The incredibly strange marine life that comes up from the deep every night. I don't always see the same things or even really cool stuff, however I do always something different and worth shooting.

Editing

I do a lot of post editing. Sometimes removing backscatter, changing the exposure adding more black to the backround.

In my camera bag

For these shots I use my Nikon D750 and a 100mm macro lens, I used to shot a Cannon T2i with a 50mm macro lens, however the Cannon would not autofocus on the semi transparent creatures and I had to always manually focus. I use two Ikelite underwater strobes and an Ikelite underwater housing...the whole thing weighs about 10 pounds on land and about 5 pounds undewater.

Feedback

Be comfortable diving at night, don't think about the big critters that are out there, have good buoyancy skills and don't ever, ever let go of the camera.

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Time2dive

Crab and Jellyfish

Larval Crab riding on a pelagic Jellyfish

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow Time2dive

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