Redondo Sixgill

[derekB]

FANTASTIC PHOTOGRAPHS!

I'm so jealous! Diving with a sixgill shark would be a dream. But at 108' , they are slightly out of my freediving depth.

[DecidedlyOdd]

Thinking about it for a minute I realized what was wrong … when I put the camera in the housing, I forgot to pop up the flash … and without it, no strobes. I knew that was going to happen sooner or later. Here I am at 100 feet, in shark country, and carrying a useless camera.

Great video!

If this was with the Canon T2i you were talking about buying a while back, there's actually a trick for remedying this situation without opening the housing. If you turn the mode dial to Auto (or probably P too) when it's darkish then depress the shutter half-way to focus, the flash will pop up on its own. Usually it's plenty dark in our local waters, but you could probably cover the port if you had to. You can then switch back to M to continue shooting like normal.

[Grateful Diver]

Thinking about it for a minute I realized what was wrong … when I put the camera in the housing, I forgot to pop up the flash … and without it, no strobes. I knew that was going to happen sooner or later. Here I am at 100 feet, in shark country, and carrying a useless camera.

Great video!

If this was with the Canon T2i you were talking about buying a while back, there's actually a trick for remedying this situation without opening the housing. If you turn the mode dial to Auto (or probably P too) when it's darkish then depress the shutter half-way to focus, the flash will pop up on its own. Usually it's plenty dark in our local waters, but you could probably cover the port if you had to. You can then switch back to M to continue shooting like normal.

Oh, I'm going to have to try that. I wonder, though, if there's physically space inside the housing to allow the flash to come up (Sea & Sea Housing). I'm going to find out, though.

Thanks for that great tip (and yes, it's the T2i) ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Grateful Diver]

Got up early this morning and decided to head down to the Trough and see if anybody was home. Ran into Octoloco (Kathy) and her husband Larry gearing up for apparently the same dive.

Spend about 15 minutes kicking around the trough without any luck. Finally decided to head in. On the way I spotted three large sunstars piled on top of each other ... legs flailing all akimbo. Couldn't figure out if they were feeding or ... um ... reproducing ... so I decided to take a couple pictures. Got a few ... absolute crap, because the vis even at 100+ feet was just awful ... and when I looked up there was a sixgill staring at me. Got a few decent shots. This one was small ... maybe 3 feet ... definitely not either of the ones I've seen previously.

I think I've got something figured out ... if you want to see a sixgill, stop kicking. Find something to look at, or take pictures of ... and just stop. Wait for the shark to come to you. I've been down there five times in the past couple weeks, and all three times I've seen a shark it's when I stopped to do or look at something else. The two times I just went kicking around ... nothing.

Anyway ... here's today's pics ...









... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Tom Nic]

So so so cool. Thanks the report Bob.

[lundysd]

Awesome!!! After going 0/2 this week I was beginning to lose hope.

Just a reminder to you Bob and to everyone who has seen these -- please report them to the survey at:

https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/slundy/175980

I'm hoping to find trends that seem to help sight these guys (for example -- stop kicking! )



Scott

[Octoloco]

At long last we had a sixgill sighting!! Bob was good enough to stop us at 100' and showed us his latest
picture on his camera! Maybe this is just a baby step!? Thanks Bob its funny to at least say we
saw a sixgill at Redondo!