Black Tipped Reef Sharks

You were very fortunate with the moment you got these tree captured. Exceptionally fine threesome positioning to each other and my eyes wander eagerly around the shapes and contours, how well they are composed. Icing of the cake, naturally, is that small green fish with it's body pointing to the greenish eye of the master shark. Wow!

Gord, you look even more frightening with your equipment pic and the shark!;-))

 

It is very well photographed and the light is so good that all his details and colors are well seen ( and the other two as well). I know you enjoyed his "company", but for me, I'm better off on solid earth... ;-))

Markku;

 

Getting a good shot underwater when the fish are moving and the photographer is drifting around and the crummy P&S camera has a time lag on the shutter, is fairly much hit or miss. I got lucky with this one :)

 

Pnina;

 

And I thought the new bio pic was less scary :-)

 

I know a lot of people would consider swimming with sharks unappealing but it sure gets the adrenalin pumping when one of these girls comes up and looks in your mask.

They were all pregnant females and were hanging around the coast waiting to give birth.

Yeah, I figured out your gear while reading the details, and good for us; it was you the lucky one, not the other way round ;-)

Yikes!

 

There would have been much screaming and very little picture taking had I been under water there.

 

Great job!

Just looked at your new bio pic. I think you might have really given these guys a scare ;)

Yeah that's my secret weapon, looking scarier than the sharks. Of course I end up scaring off the other divers but that's the price I have to pay for safety :)

Awesome shot Gordon. I like how all three flow into a nice curve.

What the heck crawled into the left side of your goggles??? I mean that pic's scary enough without any further suggestion of alien life! I think I'm gonna have bad dreams tonight!!

 

 

Oh, yeah, this pic... really nice, and I know what you mean about the frustration over the shutter delay in non-SLR digitals. You obviously anticipated that just fine, and your undersea composition abilities are impressive... sharks willing, of course. BTW, you really think the 5700 is crummy? I know it's not a 20D, but for shooting through Plexiglas and water, it seems to have done an admirable job.

That was my favourite aspect of my latest bio pic. I was holding the camera at arms length pointing the lens back toward myself. What you are seeing is a reflection of my left hand caught in the glass of the mask.

 

To answer your question I have to say I find the Coolpix annoying to work with. The only good thing I can say is that the optics seem to be good. I won this camera in a Dogs Annual magazine photo contest. Once I realized that it had no manual focus and no way to manually set either the f. stop or shutter speed, I tossed it in a desk drawer and there it sat for a year. Because it has a underwater setting and a case for it was inexpensive, I took it diving. The auto focus is painfully slow and often completely fails to achieve a lock, it even does this out of the case on land. In fact the auto focus is only reliable in bright daylight, in any other situation it roves around forever trying to lock focus. The other two large annoyances are the fact that it takes several seconds to wake up after touching the shutter button and even after that, you get a delay after you push the button all the way down before the shutter actually fires. I have quite a collection of photos of the place were a fish had been a few seconds earlier :) On the rare occasions when it achieved focus while the subject was still in the frame it did an adequate job of recording the image. In the above situation I pushed the button when the shark first turned to come toward me. It also helps that sharks move in a relatively slow and predictable manner when they are cruising.

Thanks,these girls kept circling around us playing follow the leader.

Taken two miles off the coast of Roatan at 74 feet down.

Thanks for any comments or advice.

Great shot.

Exceptional capture.

Reading your tribulations with the P&S gave me a good laugh... needed that today! Not that I was laughing at you, but you did write in a very amusing way. And I completely relate to the delay thing... I had a Fuji S6000 that must have been related to yours. It did do better in the darker times, but took two to three secs to wake and I also have many shots of where somethingorother just was. That's why I got an SLR... ohhhhh what a relief that was!

Way to deep for me. I mean what do you expect a street guy to comment here. Let's try this then. When I was an adolescent we got acces to the Discovery Channel. At the time we called it the Shark Channel over here because we got inundated with documentaries of sharks. Let's just say that I was inadvertently exposed to shark images to a dangerous extent. What I like, and you got right here is that little pilot fish. While usually all attention goes to those mean looking eyes and/or jaws they are one of the most fascinating phenomena that accompany sharks. The swimming pattern of those three ones seems rather natural and relaxed. As a image I think it would benefit of a bit more contrast.

 

And there was me thinking that I was the one who visited strange places ;-)

Gordon, You are a man of many parts. And after seeing this, I'm glad you still have them all. That lead guy looks like he's giving you the Bogart sneer. Fine work. Warm regards...

I'm not a shark. I'm just a dolphin. Just a sweet little dolphin looking for love in all the wrong places.

 

 

Candy-gram.

 

 

Great photo.

Those Blacktips are gentle as a kitten. Just steer clear of the Tiger's.

Jennifer;

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

Richard;

 

Thanks

 

David;

 

The humour was intentional :)

 

Ton;

 

It has been a while since I worked with a P&S camera or tried to work on a jpeg. I agree about the contrast but when I try to boost it the shadows block up and the highlights disappear. I'll keep trying.

 

I too like those little remora fish. They are fickle hitch hikers. A few of them tried hitching onto the bare legs of the divers.

 

Mr. shark;

 

You can't foll me Mr. Land Shark, I've been around the pool a few times and I know what a dolphin looks like...... OH but I do love candy.... come on in.

 

Those Land shark skits on SNL used to have me rolling on the floor.

 

Marc;

 

So long as you do not pull their whiskers they will curl up on the sofa and have a nap.

 

I hear the bull sharks and white sharks have a bad attitude and a less discriminate menu than reef sharks.

 

 

I note the lack of camera motion with interest (and admiration--I'd have been shakin' like a leaf. Terrific photo! And, yes, that lead dude does seem to be eyeing the 'green' (probably really yellow?) fish with gustatory intent.

Oddly enough for a creature this large with a tiny brain they seem to be fairly predictable. If they find something they want to eat they go into a frenzy. Everything they do not want to eat is an obstacle to navigate around. Everyone else on the reef seems to know who is on the menu and who is not. I saw all sorts of small and even some medium size fish swim right up to these sharks without provoking any reaction. These sharks would swim up to me, size me up and reject me as too bitter, jaded, sarcastic or whatever criteria they use :) See above for how they react if something IS on the menu.

Regardless, I'll stay on shore - or at least on the deck of a good Clipper.

Arghh!! I have an extreme phobia of sharks for some reason, so imagine how I FELL OFF MY CHAIR when checking out your portfolio! Aside from the fact it scares me to death, this is a wonderful photo. Chris

Nice shot Gordon. Gotta love those little Nikon P&Ss. Regards, Bernie