More tiger shark videos, Bahamas (Photo, Travel, Video)
:: Monday, March 20th, 2006 @ 10:24:46 am

fill ‘er up! a tiger shark gets a taste to eat.

- Updated: March 25 - I’ve posted ten eleven videos of our time on the Shear Water in the Bahamas to give you an idea of what diving with large sharks is really like. We spent a lot of time in the water with seven different shark species: tiger sharks, bull sharks, great hammerheads, lemon sharks, caribbean reef sharks, black-tip reef sharks, and nurse sharks.

If you can’t play Windows Media 9 video files, have patience! When I get a moment, I’ll update this page with different versions of the video (I’m at the airport right now).

Video: the friendliest tiger shark of the week (the very definition of a "player"), plus tons of lemon sharks. i chose this clip because it shows how calm the sharks are and how close they come to relaxed divers [wmv9 - 7mb]		Video: a tiger shark named "kate" swims by with her entourage of cobia [wmv9 - 1.7mb]
Video: camera handling goes out the door when trying to keep tabs on two tiger sharks at the same time. at some point, we are just trying to make sure we’re always facing approaching sharks. lemon sharks are everywhere, and we ignore them because they’re so docile. oh yeah, the tigers in this video eat some fish and mouth a camera! [wmv9 - 25mb]		Video: tiger shark wrangling in the bahamas (shot from the swim step). always watch the shark even after it looks like it’s turning away [wmv9 - 7mb] [youtube]
Video: a large tiger shark makes a pass at dr. alex mustard. dr. mustard stoically does not show fear [wmv9 - 1.4mb] [youtube] [google vid]		Video: multiple tiger sharks come in to investigate us while we dangle on a line in 3 knot current. we’re at the surface and can barely hold on, which makes us feel very exposed… [wmv9 - 4.3mb] [google vid] [youtube]
Video: bull sharks buzz by in the shallows at bull shark beach, walker’s cay [wmv9 - 9mb]		Video: a black-tip reef shark at bull shark beach, walker’s cay [wmv9 - 2.5mb]
Video: the amazing maneuverability of a great hammerhead shark [wmv9 - 3mb]		Video: a tiger shark comes in on a bait line [wmv9 - 5mb]
Video: reef shark and grouper scene [wmv9 - 9mb]

You may also be interested in full-size (but compressed) screen grabs from the above videos. They’re interlaced because I haven’t figured out (yet) how to grab interpolated screen grabs in Vegas:

[reef scene] [tiger - fast motion at surface 1] [tiger - fast motion at surface 2]
And finally, Bruce Yates has graciously allowed me to use some shots he took of me with the lovely sharks we were shooting:

me, shooting a bull shark

me, surrounded by tiger sharks and lemon sharks

*UPDATE* Stephen Frink has posted an interview of me in Scuba Diving Magazine’s PMA 2006 report.

Popularity: 29% | West Palm Beach, Florida | link | trackback | posted @ Mar 20, 2006 10:24:46

:: 27 comments (rss)

1. posted by Dave P on Mon, March 20, 2006 @ 9:25 pm

   Wow, very cool footage. I’d definitely need to seriously rinse out my wetsuit if a monster like some of these came right at me while rolling their protective eye lids up.

   BTW, somehow I have the sneaking suspician that I’ll need to pack really light for my next trip w/you to potentially offset your even more extreme baggage weight overage. I can already see multiple video cameras, housings, lenses, lights, etc. in your future :)

2. posted by Dave P on Mon, March 20, 2006 @ 9:36 pm

   Was Jim Abernathy holding the bait crate while his strobe and arm was getting chewed on? (Strobe arm, not human arm :) Whoever that is, I think they may be completely nuts.

3. posted by echeng on Tue, March 21, 2006 @ 2:15 am

   That’s Jim Abernethy at work. :)

4. posted by Willy on Tue, March 21, 2006 @ 5:11 am

   As always, nice work. If people watched this footage, they might realize that sharks are not quite the dangerous, evil, man-eating creatures they are so often portrayed to be. That tiger shark appears as gentle as my fat yellow lab.

5. posted by bungholio on Tue, March 21, 2006 @ 5:57 am

   omg.
   you should watch “grizzly man” ~~ lol omg

6. posted by stchatterbox on Tue, March 21, 2006 @ 9:01 am

   The pictures are very lovely, very colourful indeed. Making a download link for the videos is good;quality wise, but convinient wise, a You-Tube or something we could play on the same page…….

7. posted by echeng on Tue, March 21, 2006 @ 10:56 am

   “If you can’t play Windows Media 9 video files, have patience! When I get a moment, I’ll update this page with different versions of the video (I’m at the airport right now).”

8. posted by fred on Tue, March 21, 2006 @ 12:12 pm

   *whistles* So beautiful!

   (BTW for mac users I recommend flip4mac for playing these.)

9. posted by Weiwei on Tue, March 21, 2006 @ 3:00 pm

   Wow, Eric, it’s cool…I hope I can join the trip sometime in the future…

10. posted by echeng on Tue, March 21, 2006 @ 3:36 pm

    Youtube doesn’t seem to want to honor my video sizes when i give them wmv files (it plays them back 4:3). H.264 .mov files work fine as 16:9 on youtube, but my tools don’t produce as good results when I export that way.

    grrr.

    i just watched the videos for the first time with proper speakers, and the hydrophone is great! i love that you can hear jimmy making noises to tell me that there is a shark approaching from behind. :)

11. posted by markus on Thu, March 23, 2006 @ 2:27 pm

    tigerbeach1 is shocking. the bumps, the strobe-arm-incident… WOW!
    incredible videos, eric!

12. posted by Alexis on Fri, March 24, 2006 @ 2:35 am

    very nice eric…i wish i was there with you guys

13. posted by Le petit journal sur le Net d’Alexis » [ECHENG.COM] Sharks on Fri, March 24, 2006 @ 5:02 am

    […] [ECHENG.COM] Eric Cheng’s Journal » More tiger shark videos, Bahamas […]

14. posted by the_shindogg on Sat, March 25, 2006 @ 7:54 pm

    Absolutely awesome footage. Makes me want to be reincarnated as a shark. I’ll have to remember to ask nicely in purgatory….

15. posted by Mike Echevarria on Thu, March 30, 2006 @ 1:18 pm

    Eric, nice video’s!!! I was on the trip the week before you. I however struggled with my manual white balance using a white slate and a red filter. If I used the surface to set the white balance, the level shots seemed red. If I used a level setting the surface seemed to red. What where doing for yours? Any thoughts?

16. posted by David Lindsey on Fri, April 07, 2006 @ 6:15 am

    Eric,
    I could see how you might be concerned dangling off of a boat with sharks. I’d say you probably looked a lot like the bait line we see in the other shots.

    David.

17. posted by echeng on Sun, April 23, 2006 @ 10:12 am

    Hey, Mike. When really shallow, I pointed straight up and white-balanced on the surface. But this was only for tiger beach. In blue water, I just tried not to point up. :)

18. posted by FiNS Blog » Blog Archive » Anatomy of a Shark/ Whale Dive on Sun, April 23, 2006 @ 10:26 pm

    […] Eric had exciting photos and videos to show from his travels with the most (in)famous predators of the deep. Besides bull sharks at Walker’s Cay, Bahamas and whale sharks in the Galapagos, Eric also shared photos from his trip to Isla Guadalupe, Mexico, where he got up close to some great whites. And if there’s one thing Eric has to say about shark photography, bigger really is better when it comes to cameras — especially when the camera is all that’s between you and the shark! […]

19. posted by Miguel on Thu, May 04, 2006 @ 7:21 pm

    you’ve got such a passion for life; your photography is a amazing. For long I’ve had this secret dream of starting a website from which I’d get funding (ads) and travel around the world documenting it. But boy, after seing your pictures I think you’re far more qualified to do such a thing. Thanks for sharing all of these great pictures. You’ve got a great talent!

20. posted by Nick Hope on Sun, July 16, 2006 @ 11:07 am

    Fantastic videos Eric. Respect to you guys for keeping so cool amongst these magnificent sharks.

21. posted by Dave Baird on Wed, August 09, 2006 @ 3:34 am

    I did the Shear Water trip after seeing some of your pics online and Jim Watt’s pic that was published in Sport Diver. The trip was incredible, and seeing some of the videos you have published has brought back some great memories. Your videos and photos are great - thanks for sharing them and inspiring people like me to get into the water with big fish.

22. posted by sara on Sat, September 02, 2006 @ 2:33 pm

    wow this is amazing!

23. posted by Siggy on Tue, October 24, 2006 @ 8:44 am

    Wow!
    Really the best tiger-footage ever seen.

    Congratulations.

    This year in Mexico I hadn’t luck, so I have to try the Bahamas? ;-)

    best wishes

    Siggy

24. posted by tim hawkey on Sun, October 29, 2006 @ 10:31 am

    eric,
    you can de-interlace your video while exporting in quicktime pro or in imovie, or after effects. Not sure what machine you’re on, but I’m a big fan and thought I’d pass this on.

25. posted by echeng on Wed, January 17, 2007 @ 10:37 am

    I’ve updated the entry with a few links to YouTube videos.

26. posted by jack wills on Fri, June 01, 2007 @ 6:09 am

    really great footage, eric. I tag sharks with IMS-UNC when I’m there and the boat is going out. I have been invited to give a lecture on sharks at University of Mary Washington this fall, and would appreciate it if I could use some of your images to enhance my power point presentation.

    Best Regards,

    Jack wills OD

27. posted by Mike on Wed, February 06, 2008 @ 3:56 pm

    These videos are just plain awesome. They make me want to return to the Bahamas for a few weeks or so. Keep up the great work!

:: leave a reply