Should I bring my strobe?

[2 Bar]

Saturday I am doing a shark dive off Montauk. The cage will be down 7 - 10 feet. I am fairly new with my strobe, I just have some dives with it in Bonaire. Since I will be very shallow, should I even use my strobe? Should I use ambient light / flash?

I don't want to bring the strobe if it won't even trigger, being so shallow, yet I want killer pics of some sharks.

 

[Warren_L]

Why not bring it along? You can always turn it off if you want to take some shots only with ambient light.

 

[alcina]

I agree with Warren.

I also have a question - why would being shallow matter to your strobe firing? Mine will fire whenever I tell them to

 

[2 Bar]

Well, I figured being so shallow a strobe simply might not be needed being close to the surface where there could be plenty of light. I was also considering the hastle of bringing it and caring for it on the boat being a waste if it's not needed.

Caveat: I am new to strobes. I only recently dove with it in Bonaire and I am still learning.

 

[Warren_L]

Keep in mind that it does not take much water for you to start to lose the longer wavelength colours like red. Also remember that with ambient light, it is the total travel distance from the surface to your camera that will affect the amount of filtering the light encounters - from the surface, to your subject, then to your camera.

 

[jeraldjcook]

Bring it. How bad would that suck if you didn't take it and you ended up really needing it. I wouldn't take the chance. Have fun, sounds like a blast.

 

[victor]

Just a sugestion, why not rig the strobe below the camera pointing in an upwards direction.
This would light the underside of the shark, maybe even the jaws, to give an interesting image.
Worth trying?

Post your pics.

 

[f3nikon]

Just a sugestion, why not rig the strobe below the camera pointing in an upwards direction.
This would light the underside of the shark, maybe even the jaws, to give an interesting image.
Worth trying?

Post your pics.

Good suggestion, why not leave the strobe where its at and flip the entire rig with camera 180 degrees? The strobe will be at the bottom and the camera could care less if its upside down or not.

I brought this up before when taking pictures of a school of fish near the surface, with the sunlight coming from the surface one does not need any more light from a top mounted strobe. The light is needed below the subject and flipping the entire rig will give you a more balance lighting.

In answer to the first question of to strobe or not to strobe...DO NOT bring the strobe! Just use HIGHER ISO settings and correct the image to perfection during post process! The obective is just to get an image...any image, thats the motto of the U/W snapshooter as they bounce from reef to reef, snapping away at what ever is in front of them.

Never mind the saying about "dull lighting yields dull photographs"

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=156355

Nice cartoon of the shark

 

[Chris Bangs]

If the sharks are going to be in your face use a flash. if you have a flash you can manually adjust I suggest that you use manual mode to force the flash on the camera.

but remember sharks are quite reflective therefore use very low settings on the flash and use a diffuser if you have one.

 

[2 Bar]

Thanks all. The boat was cancelled due to large waves from a storm. At least by the time we get to do this dive I will be more experienced with my strobe.