Tarpon portrait, Bonaire
:: Monday, June 18th, 2007 @ 11:51:27 pm
:: Tags: Photo, Travel
big-ass tarpon at town pier, bonaire
It can be quite a surprise to see these suckers sneak up on you at night. At night, they hunt via our dive lights, and there is an audible “WHUMP” when they shoot forward and hit a small fish. This guy cruised with us for a full hour as we explored the town pier at Bonaire. A tug boat was waiting for us to finish our dive before it was allowed to dock (and it was LOUD!).
I shot this photo with a Canon 400D in a Seatool housing, which is on loan to me from Ryan @ Reef, Photo & Video. It’s a sweet little housing. There are a few trade-offs at the moment — a sacrifice between ergonomics and size, but I hear they’re stilt tweaking it. Using TTL flash exposure (actually, INON’s S-TTL via fiber sync) was perfect for such a reflective animal.
Also, I’ve been posting daily updates for the Digital Shootout over at Wetpixel.com.
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Watching them hunt sounds like fun. I love how they look like/are saltwater arawana. Very cool looking fish.
Creepy-lookin’ guy there. Reminds me of the evil fish in Finding Nemo that was way down in the darkness that Dorrie and Nemo’s dad bumped into.