Tips and Techniques
14
NOVICE
KELP FOREST:
• Getting a great shot of the kelp requires a lot of
illumination! Not only does the canopy block the
sunlight, but the leaves themselves absorb quite
a bit of light. To get a wide view of the forest,
start with the sun at your back, use a mid-range
aperture such as f/8 and a slow to medium shutter
speed (start at 1/100s and adjust as needed). Get
low so that you can shoot towards the surface and
benefit from any light penetrating the canopy.
• If you want to capture sunrays, it’s often easiest to
start by choosing a small area
of kelp for your foreground.
14 Few underwater
Turn into the sun and select
scenes can rival the
beauty of a kelp forest
a young kelp stalk that ends
Equipment & settings:
just below the surface. Set
Canon EOS 5D Mark III,
your strobes on a medium
Sea & Sea housing,
8–15mm lens at 15mm,
power, increase your shutter
dual Sea & Sea YS-250
speed (a good starting point
strobes, f/14, 1/250s,
ISO200
is around 1/200s) and shoot
up towards the rays. Taking
15 Approach kelp as
a vertical structure:
multiple images as the
Inspecting leaves
foreground kelp stalk sways
during your ascent can
naturally in the water column
yield fabulous subjects,
such as nudibranchs
will help ensure that you
Equipment & settings:
capture an image with nice
Canon EOS 7D Mark II,
curve and movement. Bracket Sea & Sea housing,
your exposures, making small 8–15mm lens at 15mm,
dual Sea & Sea YS-D2
adjustments to aperture and
strobes, f/16, 1/250s,
ISO200
shutter speed as you shoot.
EQUIPMENT CONSIDERATIONS
SDTTL
122
DSLR/MIRRORLESS CAMERAS:
Get close! The probability of limited visibility makes
working close to your subject critical. For the best chance
of success, follow the “10-percent rule”: Shoot a chosen
foreground subject within 10 percent of the visibility; if
your visibility is five metres, you should be no more than
0.5 metres from your foreground subject.
For wide-angle photography, short focal length lenses,
such as super-wide fisheye zoom lenses, are necessary.
For macro photography, once again, the ability to get
close to your subject is a necessity: 60mm macro lenses
are the go-to for most California macro enthusiasts; if
you prefer a 100mm macro lens, a dioptre to help you get
closer to your subject is highly recommended. For many
situations, entry-level strobes or powerful video lights
are adequate, but for shooting fast-moving subjects,
especially mako sharks and sea lions, high-output prolevel strobes with rapid recycle time will give you a
better chance of capturing fleeting moments.
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