Galapagos Photo Tour - Underwater photos and video!

I want to start this blog post by saying that I am no expert underwater photographer and have only taken photos under water a couple of times, but the following images also go to show that with decent photo knowledge and a small point and shoot camera, fun photos can be captured.

At first, I did not plan on bringing an underwater camera with me to Galapagos, but after talking to my contacts there, and seeing all the amazing sea life online, I thought that it would be a good decision. Canon no longer makes an underwater camera so I reached out to my friends at B&H photo who were nice enough to loan me a couple of the OM TG-7 point and shoot cameras to play with. I brought one for me to use and another to loan to my guests.

From the moment we jumped into the water with our snorkel gear, I was glad to have a camera in my hand. We saw a whole bunch of sea turtles and were able to swim with them for long periods of time. Knowing that the best photos would be captured close to the surface (where there was more light), I would typically wait until the turtles were closer to the surface before hitting the shutter button.

There were other times when I would dive down and capture photos a little deeper.

We could get within inches of these turtles. For this shot, I swam ahead of this turtle and let it come towards me.

We saw lots of different fish, and our guide (who was snorkeling with us) would help identify all of them.

We also saw some really beautiful starfish.

At one point, I swam up close to these rocks and saw some Blue-footed boobies that were hanging out. I raised the camera so that half of the lens was underwater and half was above the water line, to get this shot. I had to take at least ten photos to get the right amount of water and rocks in the shot. This one is one of my favorites from the trip.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we spent a lot of time with the Water iguanas. Most of that time was spent above water, but it was really cool to be under the water's surface and see them swimming around. 

They moved around really gracefully through the water.

I have snorkeled many times before (mostly in Hawaii) and have seen beautiful fish and sea turtles numerous times, but I have never been fortunate enough to swim with Sea lions. 

The Sea lions in Galapagos are really used to seeing people, so they will come right up to us and play, both with us and with each other.  That was really fun!

On our third time in the water, we came across a massive school of Surgeon fish. I dove down to get close enough to fill the frame with all of these beautiful fish.

Not long after capturing the image of the Surgeon fish, our guide pointed down and showed us four White tip sharks.

I followed this one around for a while capturing photos and video.

I was really enamored with the colors of the Parrotfish, and tried as best as I could to get a decent shot of one.

I had a great time capturing these images underwater, but had even more fun capturing video. Once again, I am no videographer or expert video editor, but I am still excited to share this fun video with you all. The video starts with underwater subjects, continues with some video on the islands, and then ends with some of my favorite still images captured on the trip. 

I captured all the underwater video with the OM TG-7 point and shoot camera, images and video on land with the Canon R5 Mark II, and edited the video using Apple's iMovie software. My good friend, Alan Waltz, saw the video and offered to score some music for it. You can check out that video HERE or by clicking on the image below.

I hope you enjoyed viewing all these photos and video from Galapagos as much as I did capturing it all.

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Galapagos Photo Tour - Day 4 - Land iguanas and more

On our fourth day in the Galapagos, we visited Fernandina Island and Isabela Island (morning and evening) and spent some time in the water in between. I will be sharing the snorkeling photos soon, but not just yet. 

While making our way over to Fernandina Island, we saw many species of birds flying around us.  I captured this image of a low-flying Pelican as it flew along the coastline.

We also saw the Flightless cormorant birds for the first time. You can tell by the small wings, that these birds have, over many generations, lost their ability to fly. Amazingly enough, they swim very well and we saw many of them under water.

As always, we were greeted by many Sea lions.

While on Fernandina Island, this was our first really good sightings of the Land iguana. Unlike the Water iguana, these creatures are much more colorful and larger. This was one of the first Land iguana that we saw, so we all took turns getting down low to get a nice portrait of the face.

As we walked around, we came across numerous other Land iguana.

We all had fun photographing them at different angles.

It was fun to get down low with the Canon R5 Mark II and RF 100-500mm lens, to get right into their faces.

This one was in nice sunlight and even posed for us.

This was also the first time that we had seen the Giant tortoises since day 1 of the trip.

Towards the end of the day, as we pulled away from island, I saw these two birds sparring in the air. I loved the late-day sunlight on them and fired off a bunch of frames to see if I could capture them interacting. This was the best "peak of action" shot of the bunch.

After our multiple land visits and time in the water, it was time to head off towards our next destination. Before meeting for dinner, we all had a chance to relax on the boat. I was standing on the bow, when I noticed that we were joined by a bunch of Frigate birds. They were riding the air current of the boat and stayed with us until the sun set. I had all of my guests (minus one) who were in the area, get together for a group shot with our visitors.

Stay tuned for more from the Galapagos.

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Galapagos Photo Tour - Day 3 - Blue-footed Boobies in Action!

On our third day in the Galapagos Islands, our group woke up to a whole new environment, even though we were still off the shore of Isabela Island.. As we came out of our rooms on the boat, we could see that this western side of the island was covered in endless lava rock.

After breakfast, we took a short zodiac ride over to the island and did a walk through the lava field to see the terrain up close.

After our walk, we got back in our zodiac boats and cruised along the shoreline in search of wildlife. We were all excited to see more penguins. 

We watched as this penguin hopped up on a rock and then jumped into the water.

Just like the days before, we were all captivated by the colors of the crabs, and had to get more photos of these creatures.

Weirdly enough, as we were cruising along the coastline, we saw this feral cat that swam from one rock to another. That is an animal I did not expect to see in the Galapagos. It turns out that people brought cats as pets many years ago, and now the Charles Darwin Foundation is trying to eradicate them from the islands since they pose a threat to the native wildlife. 

The subject we were hoping for the most was the Blue-footed booby. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is the bird that the islands are most known for.  We took photos of this one on the rocks, but hoped to see many more.

It was not long after we saw the booby on the rocks, that we came across an area where the Blue-footed boobies were dive bombing for fish.

Watching these birds diving in formation reminded me a lot of the US Navy Blue Angels flying in their formations. 

We watched and captured endless photos of these birds as they repeated this pattern over and over again. I really liked it when they exited the water, since it showed action and showed their blue feet really prominently. 

For all these photos, I was using the Canon R5 Mark II with the RF 100-500mm lens. I had the camera set to high speed burst mode and kept my shutter speed to a minimum of 1/2000 sec.

Capturing photos of them in flight was fun, but the most fun was hearing them splash down into the water just feet from us..

We captured photos of them flying in all directions...

...but one of my favorite photos was this one, when one of the boobies flew directly at us. The Canon R5 Mark II locked in perfectly on the eyes of the bird and I got this shot. I love the intense look on it's face, the wing position, and the water droplets that are flying out from behind the bird. This would have been a much harder photo to take with the old DSLR cameras, but with the subject and eye detection of the Canon mirrorless cameras, it allowed me to capture the eyes of the bird perfectly. 

More to come from Galapagos...including some underwater photos and video.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Alaska and more.

• You can purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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