Swimming Whales As The Background

I am asked to take portraits in an aquarium tomorrow night. In the given

underground space, the only interesting scene is one large whale tank window. It

would be great if I could take portrait photos with swimming whales in the

background. Yesterday morning, I measured the light on the windows and it yields

125 and f/4.5 at ASA 400. The whale tank will be lighted up in evening and I am

told the light in the tank will be much weaker. Due to the low light on the

windows, it doesn?t seem to be possible for me to use swimming whales as the

background unless applying some PS post-processing methods. The ?dragging?

technique can?t be applied in this case since the whales are moving objects.

And, using strobes on the whale tank is not an option if it is permitted. Any

other approach, if there is one?

Set up tripod, take a number of exposures of the tank with the whales. Then pose the

people in front of the cam (side lighting and reflectors) taking care to underexpose the

background by 2/3 stops. Then merge in PP?

Is this the Georgia Aquarium you are asking about?

 

I shot there the other night for Habitat for Humanity there the other night and the light in the

tanks is very dim indeed. To get a decent exposure for the Whale Shark tank I was at f/1.8 @

1/2 second witthe camera at ISO 400. The whale tank was even dimmer. So you'll need a

tripod. Also you'll need to take care where you'll place your light(s) so you won't get

reflections of the light or of the backsides of your subjects in the tank glass.<div></div>

Mr. Smith,

 

What you said is a post-processing method. The aquarium uses this method as one of their services or income sources. It would be too much work for me when I am going to take a hundred of photos.

Ellis,

 

Not the one in Georgia. A half of second is too slow for whales. In regarding of reflections of the light, I already consider to use a polarizer filter. It, however, doesn't help for the weak light.

At the aquarium in Ga, I used a low ceiling and white wall in the viweing window of their ballroom to get this shot, bouncing a Lumedyne hand held @ f3.5 - 1/125 - iso 400... t<div></div>

Thanks for your sharing, Tom.

 

The background is quite sharp with the large aperture of f/3.5. What is the focus length of your lenses? Your subjects seem close to the window. I will turn down the main light to get a bigger aperture.

The Whale was pressed against the glass, you can see where his/her back is flattened against the window, which is probably 10 inches thick right there. And yes the humans were only about 2 ft from the glass. The small size of the image hides the shallow depth of field. The under water features in the background are quite soft, but who cares? It's a photo of the people and the whale, and even the whale need not be tack sharp to get the full effect of it's presence. Priorities of subject and content matter more than depth of field when it comes to selecting point of focus... t

I gave up the plan that evening. Other than the dimmed tank, to have a whale right in the front of window was not a controllable event.