Advertisement
Advertisement
Read Next
Photo Of The Day By Kris Walkowski
Today’s Photo Of The Day is...Nature’s Colors 2020 Photo Contest Finalists
Our Nature’s Colors 2020 received...Winter Grandscapes Assignment Winner Denis Dessoliers
Congratulations to Denis Dessoliers for...Sigma Introduces Fast, Affordable 28-70mm F2.8 DG DN
Sigma today announced a new zoom in its...Advertisement
Featured Articles
Read More
Batch Resize Photos With Photoshop’s Image Processor
Have you ever needed to resize a number of images and you painfully go through the process one photo at...
Read More
Organizing Your Photos, Part 2: Using Keywords
In part two of a four-part series on organizing your photo library, we talk about the importance of using keywords to find photos instantly.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
Read More
The Best 70-200mm Zoom Lenses
Top models of this versatile “workhorse” lens for nature photographers.
Read More
Bonsai Rock
Photographing this iconic feature of Lake Tahoe.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
Read More
Wildlife Photography Gear On A Budget
While you can photograph wildlife with any camera and lens, some gear makes doing so easier and more productive.
Read More
Baxter State Park, Maine
Baxter State Park occupies about 210,000 acres of beautiful and rugged Maine wilderness.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
Behind The Shot: ‘The Piranha-eater’ by Marcelo Krause – The Pantanal, Brazil
‘The Piranha-eater’ by Marcelo Krause – The Pantanal, Brazil
The Pantanal is one of the largest wetlands on Earth. It is home to a wide range of animals and plants that live by the flood cycle. The main challenge in photographing underwater in the Pantanal is to find a place with reasonable underwater visibility.
Near the end of the wet season I was trying to photograph piranhas at a seasonal river that had formed with the floods. The bait I used attracted many piranhas and other small fish, causing a feeding frenzy. After a few minutes I noticed a caiman approaching to investigate the scene. He tried to grab some fish but at the same time was cautious with me. I took a few a shots and approached some more. It was then he opened the mouth. I took another series of shots. Part of the caiman was almost touching the dome port of the lens. A few times he tried to bite the camera housing, I guess to check what it was. After some time, a second and third caiman came to the scene, I took some pictures but found that it had become harder to track all three animals, especially with harsh shadows and strong lights. In a few minutes I went back to the small boat.
The camera was set to shutter speed priority with the speed at 1/250th (the maximum I could sync with the flash) to try to freeze some of the fast-moving fish. With visibility rarely reaching 6-feet underwater, using a very-wide angle lens is fundamental because less water will stand between the camera and your subject. I prefer the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye because of the ability to zoom in a little bit. With the D2X I tried to avoid bumping the ISO past 800, so I have set the ISO to 400, a good balance between performance and quality for that camera model. Since the sunlight was coming almost from behind, providing some nice sunrays in the water, I used a pair of strobes to fill up the shadows and illuminate the face of the caiman. – Marcelo Krause
Equipment and settings: Nikon D2X camera, Tokina AT-X 107 AF 10-17mm f3.5-4.5 DX fisheye zoom lens, Aquatica D2x housing, Inon Z-240 strobe – 1/250th at f/5.3, ISO 400.
You can find Krause’s work at MarceloKrause.com and this image is available here as a print through the Natural History Museum, London. Stay updated on his work by following him at Facebook and Vimeo.