It was a calm, cool and beautiful afternoon and a full moon would be rising in a couple of hours. I decided I would set up a shot of the rising moon with an idea I had in mind. The winds were out of the west, which meant incoming jets to Palm Beach International would be approaching from the east and in-line with a big orange moon. Furthermore this time of year large flocks of turkey vultures congregate on the mangrove islands that lie between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach. At times when the wind is moderate to high and the air temperature dips below 60 degrees the vultures coast high over the intra-coastal waterway. My hope was to capture an incoming jet flying over hundreds of vultures that were silhouetted by a full moon.
First though I had time to kill and went for a swim in the Atlantic Ocean. I placed my camera inside a water housing and brought it along with me. I really wasn’t expecting to see anything other than pelicans flying in formation low over the surface of the ocean. But as I began my swim and was about one hundred yards off-shore I catch a glimpse of a large fish breaking the surface of the water. Right away I had an idea that it might be a tarpon and swam quietly and softly to where I saw the fish. As I make my approach I dip below the water and immediately see a school of a dozen or more tarpons.
All I wore were swimming goggles and thus my underwater vision was not very good. In addition the visibility of the water was no more than 25 feet and the late afternoon light penetrated the water no more than a few feet. The only chance for a decent shot was to swim outside the school of fish and photograph it with back lighting for contrast and overexposing the exposure for clarity. I was worried I wouldn’t have time to swim to the opposite side of where I was before the tarpons swam away. Luckily they hung out long enough for me to make two free dives and snap a half dozen frames.
I was using a 50mm lens and knew, with the goggles I was wearing and the lousy light, that I would not be able to frame the shot in the viewfinder. I was also concern with the auto focusing of the camera. The lack of contrast between fish and water could easily throw off the focusing. In the end I wasn’t sure I’d captured an in-focus image that was properly framed. Of course if you don’t try you have no chance and yes most the frames were totally useless but two of them came out tack sharp and decently framed. If I had been able to see I would have composed the images slightly downward but all in all I’m happy with the serendipitous photographs that came from this little excursion.
Back on land I drove to where I had envisioned the photograph of the full moon, jet and turkey vultures. Unfortunately the winds were light and the air temperature was in the high 60s and thus there were no birds. I thus decided to also forego the idea of the jets and instead concentrate on a spot were I could compose a nice image of a full moon rising. Overhanging branches, a bridge over the intra-coastal waterway and the tower to Donald Trump’s Mar-y-Lago estate were the elements I needed. The moon was on its way up as I was setting up the equipment and in the minute or so that it took I made a few technical decisions, dialed them in the camera and bracketed a few frames.
It was a good ending to an afternoon of surprises on both counts. It doesn’t need repeating but it’s always good to have a plan and then be prepared to break it as well as not have a plan but be prepared for the unexpected!
Technical details (fish photo):
- Nikon D3
- Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D
- Focus Mode – AF-C
- 1/60th @ f/7.1
- ISO 400
- Matrix Metering with camera pointed at dark water causing the overexposure I was looking for
- White Balance set manually at 5260K
- Nikon NEF (RAW) file was processed in Capture NX2 and contrast was boosted in Photoshop CS5
- Nikon D3
- Nikkor VR 70-200mm f/2.8G
- 13 seconds @ f/9
- Exposure Compensation -0.7EV
- ISO 200
- White Balance set manually at 3230K
- Nikon NEF (RAW) file was processed in Capture NX2
Technical details (moon shot):