#BehindTheShot with #CanonExplorerOfLight @onnevanderwal: ““The assignment was to shoot Jimmy Buffet’s new sailboat in the Bahamas. He gave us the boat for two days and that was it. We had a short window to get it right. No extensions.
Ted Fontaine (@friendship_yacht_company), the boat’s designer, flew with me from Providence, RI to the Bahamas. Of course we got delayed and missed our connection from MIA to Bimini. What to do? Turn around and go home or steam on and charter a sea plane to get there? Expensive but the boat was ready and the weather forecast was perfect. As a photographer you don’t get these opportunities every day.
We eventually made it to Bimini where we had the perfect boat, location and weather, a 10 knot easterly with white puffy clouds and crystal clear Bahamian water. I picked a shallow 10ft deep area to shoot the boat in. This ensures that the sun bounces off the bottom and lights up the boat underwater, balancing the lighting beautifully. I jumped in with my trusty Canon EOS 5D Mark IV + Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM lens protected in an @aquatech_imagingsolutions waterproof housing. I switched off the autofocus and pre-set it to about 36” (this way you prevent focus hunting and not being able to snap the shot at the crucial moment). My F stop is set at F16 and shutter at about 1/500 with the camera set in aperture priority that way locking in tons of depth of field. I wanted a lot of depth of field so that everything from the drops of water on the dome port to the distant clouds on the horizon are sharp.
I got to work directing the action from my swimming director’s ‘perch,’ bobbing around on set with a height of eye at about 5” above the waterline. Perfect I thought as the boat sailed by me several times, sometimes just a few feet away while I’m barking orders for boat speed, sail trim and crew positioning. It worked. It all fell in to place and we got a ton of nice stuff.
Ted was very happy, as was Jimmy who let me know (via his people) that he loved the work and would love to have me shoot his other boats. Right on, ready to go. Where to next Jimmy? Key West?!”
📸 #Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Lens: EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM
Ciao, Nihon.