Shooting the Salmon Run // Pink & King Salmon Spawning in Canada [VIDEO]

Featuring Steve Miller

A majority of underwater photos and video are taken in the high visibility, clear saltwater of the Caribbean and Pacific. But we do love ourselves some freshwater photography. Steve Miller headed up north to Canada to capture this spectacle with his camera and Ikelite underwater housing. 

Steve discusses the techniques he employed for both hand holding and remotely shooting using his phone.

If you'd rather read, scroll down to view the article version of this video.

 

Catching the Salmon Run

Saltwater fish get all the glory, because everybody knows aquarium and reef fish are always full of bright colors and freshwater fish are just not quite as attractive. Well, there's an exception to that and I'm speaking here of one of my favorite kinds of trips, which is catching the salmon run.

1/200 • f/7.1 • ISO 320 © Steve Miller

The last time I went on a fly fishing trip I took my camera housing and I was pretty excited about being able to shoot these guys in these conditions. Now salmon will run up shallow, clear streams from saltwater or freshwater in the Great Lakes. I did a trip like this recently into Canada to catch the spawning pink and king salmon.

This is a good opportunity because the water is shallow, the sun is bright, the water is very clear, and these are pretty big animals - the average salmon is going to be 2-3 feet (.6-.9 meters) long. So the trick is going to be to get close to them. Now there's a couple ways to handle this one is to go out with waders or a dry suit and just be patient, you'll find that you're going to be able to get pretty close to them to shoot.

1/125 • f/5.6 • ISO 400 © Steve Miller

Solutions for Shooting in Turbid Water

Some of the things I learned are that the fish are very preoccupied with their spawning so you can really get in there with them. But you'll also find that the water is not as clear as you would think. You tend to think it's crystal clear when you look down and you can see the rocks on the bottom and 12-24 inches (30-60 centimeters) of water. Actually, when you get your housing in the water and shoot horizontally across the frame, you find that the water is not that clear; typically 4-5 feet (1.2-1.5 meters) of visibility only appears to be very clear water when it's shallow.

1/160 • f/5.6 • ISO 400 © Steve Miller

The other thing you have to worry about is kicking up the bottom because, especially if you're upstream from the fish, anything that you kick up is going to drift through the frame. So I wasn't quite sure the best way to approach this and I came up with a couple solutions.

One is to just wade into an area and be patient wait for the salmon to get used to you and go back about their business and shoot them from as close as you can. But I'll tell you a neat little trick that we learned on this last trip and that's that you can control your camera remotely with your phone (this applies to most modern DSLRs and mirrorless cameras). So what you can do is set up the camera, have it ready, then step away step out of the frame, let the current clear out the area from where you might have kicked it up a little bit, and now at this point you can be standing 20-50 feet (6-15 meters) away if you like, and trigger the camera from your phone once your housing has been sitting in the current by itself for a while. The fish will totally normalize to the housing. In fact, they will even hold behind your dome port.

1/125 • f/3.2 • ISO 100 © Steve Miller

Lens Choice for Shooting the Salmon Run

For this type of shooting these fish are pretty big - a small salmon is probably almost 2 feet (.6 meters) long - and since they're rutting and making beds I'm going to be able to shoot them from really close. For me this means I want to shoot with a fisheye lens. The fisheye lens works beautifully when it's just inches from the subject and it'll cover a very wide view. Since these fish are pretty good size and you're pretty close, you will actually fill that entire super wide lens with the body of the salmon even if he's only a 1.5-2 feet long (.4-.6 meters), let alone some of the big boys which can be even bigger.

1/250 • f/7.1 • ISO 400 © Steve Miller

 

Strobes vs Natural Light 

For this particular kind of shooting I opted to leave the strobes behind. There's a lot of reasons for this. One is that hauling a housing along with your fly fishing gear when you're wading along the stream is one thing, carrying your strobes and having some kind of stand or tripod to set them is another thing all together. Certainly using strobes could be an advantage, but I didn't in this case.

If you plan to bring strobes my suggestion is to mount the strobe out of water so that the strobe is flashing from air to water to create those beautiful dramatic light rays. If you're trying it for the first time you can keep it pretty simple and shoot natural light, on the other hand there's nothing wrong with a strobe if you can bring it with you.

If you're fortunate enough to have rivers nearby you where salmon run I would encourage you to get out there with your camera. There's a great opportunity waiting for you there.

 

 

Additional Viewing

Swimming Upstream: The Challenges and Solutions to Salmon Run Photography

Photographing the Salmon Run Underwater in Canada

Trout and Salmon Underwater Photography Camera Settings and Technique

Freshwater Underwater Camera Settings and Technique

Split Shot Editing // Balancing Exposure Underwater and Above in the Lightroom [VIDEO]

Chasing Light Rays

 

Ambassador Steve Miller has been a passionate teacher of underwater photography since 1980. In addition to creating aspirational photos as an ambassador, he leads the Ikelite Photo School, conducts equipment testing, contributes content and photography, represents us at dive shows and events, provides one-on-one photo advice to customers, and participates in product research and development. Steve also works as a Guest Experience Manager for the Wakatobi Dive Resort in Indonesia. In his "free" time he busies himself tweaking his very own Backyard Underwater Photo Studio which he's built for testing equipment and techniques. Read more...