Photographing Schooling Fish: A Comprehensive Guide for Underwater Photographers

Photographing schooling fish underwater is an opportunity to take images that scream to the viewer a real story of the world we see as divers. There is no better subject for showing people the magic of the ocean, demonstrating what the seas are capable of and for giving a story of hope. The images you can capture are powerful, they resonate and they are really what people want to see when they think of the ocean.

But as divers, we are all very aware that it is relatively hard to find large schools of fish, even amongst some of the best dive locations on earth. That’s a sad reality of diving today, but makes it more important as shooters that when we get the opportunity we need to try and make the most of it.

The schools are fluid, with dynamic patterns and as a result they can be difficult both to shoot and also to predict.  To make captivating images you will need to master your camera and lighting, understand the ambient light from the sun, and control your diving behavior all at the same time in an ever changing scene.

This guide will cover various aspects of photographing schooling fish, from balancing ambient and strobe lighting, lens selection, camera settings, and composition. Additionally, we will discuss diving behavior, post-processing techniques, and highlight some of the best global locations for this type of photography.

Diving Behavior: Approach and Positioning

Your diving behavior plays a significant role in whether or not you get the shot. Schooling fish are often sensitive to divers, especially large or fast movements. Approaching schools cautiously and positioning yourself strategically can make all the difference.

Move Slowly and Steadily

Move slowly and avoid sudden or jerky movements that might startle the fish. If the school is moving toward you, it’s often best to remain still and let the fish come to you. If you need to approach them, do so gradually while minimizing any disruptive movements.

Position Yourself for the Best Angle

The angle at which you shoot can drastically change the impact of the image. Try to position yourself below or level with the school to capture its grandeur against the backdrop of the blue water or the sun’s rays. Shooting from above or at awkward angles may result in flat, less dynamic images.

Know Where the Sun Is

In the next section, we’ll discuss ambient light, but as you approach the school, it’s essential to be aware of the sun’s position. My general preference is to have the sun behind me, allowing it to light the scene over my shoulder. This method is easier and more straightforward. However, shooting into the sun can create much more dynamic images, though it’s far less forgiving. You’ll need to balance it with more challenging settings and powerful lighting adjustments.

Snorkeling and Free Diving

Some of my best images have been captured while snorkeling with a pair of freediving fins in shallow schools. The freedom from bulky dive equipment makes you more agile and quick, allowing you to react swiftly to the movements of marine life.

Balancing Artificial and Natural Light: Achieving the Right Exposure

When photographing schooling fish, the balance between ambient (natural) light and artificial light is crucial to create an image that appears natural and immersive. As we always say in underwater photography “The best lighting is the lighting you can’t see” as then you have natural looking shots.

Just because we have fancy strobes and a wide range of advanced equipment, sometimes a simple camera setup can work perfectly—especially if there’s enough ambient light. While this article also discusses using strong artificial lighting, ask yourself if it's really necessary, particularly when snorkeling in bright, clear water. The sun is an incredible light source for these types of images and can often be all you need.

Managing Natural Light in Underwater Photography

Natural light underwater is filtered and scattered based on depth, water clarity, and time of day. Light intensity decreases significantly as you descend, with colors such as red, orange, and yellow disappearing in the first 30 feet (10 meters), leaving only the blues and greens in deeper water.

To achieve a natural balance between ambient and strobe light, you’ll need to expose for the background (ambient light) and selectively use your strobes to light the foreground or nearest fish in the school. This approach helps in capturing the scene’s depth and detail without over-lighting the entire image.

Techniques for Balancing Light

• Strobe as a Fill Light: Your strobes should be used primarily as a fill light for the foreground. The rest of the image, particularly the mid-ground and background, should rely on ambient light to maintain the natural feel of the underwater environment.

• Exposure for the Background: Set your exposure so the background is the correct color blue; typically this is done by adjusting your shutter speed. Then, use your strobes to light the foreground fish. This will ensure that the photo captures the scale of the school while maintaining detail in the foreground. Your main exposure should “expose for the blue”.

• Shooting with the Sun At Your Back: This will be the easiest approach since it allows you to use less extreme settings. With the sun providing natural illumination, you can opt for slower shutter speeds, higher ISO, and wider apertures without overexposing the background. This gives you more flexibility and lets more light into the scene, resulting in well-balanced images.

• Shooting Against the Sun: This involves shooting directly into the sun, which requires lower ISO, faster shutter speeds, and narrower apertures to control the ambient light. It also makes it more challenging to get sufficient strobe light onto the scene. Be cautious when shooting into the sun to avoid overexposing your image or capturing unsightly sunballs in your composition. Proper exposure balance is key for maintaining a clean and dynamic shot.

Lighting the Subjects: Strobe Placement and Power Adjustment

Lighting a large school of fish can be tricky because the school may span a wide area, and lighting the entire scene with strobes is impractical. Instead, focus on lighting the portion of the school closest to you, allowing the strobe light to fall off from the front to the back of the scene.

Strobe Positioning for Wide Coverage

• Wide Strobe Placement: Position your strobes as wide as your arms can reach to provide even coverage across a large scene. Normally, when we get closer to a subject, we bring the strobes inward toward the camera. However, for wide scenes like this, you want to light as much of the area as possible, so keep the strobes spread wide, even as you move closer to your subject. This will help maintain balanced lighting across the entire scene.

• Full Power and All In: Since you’ll likely be more than 3 feet (1 meter) away from the school when lighting a large scene, it’s best to use full power on your strobes. Keep in mind that full power will slow down your strobe’s recycle time, so pace your shots accordingly. Instead of rapid firing, wait for the ideal composition and the peak of action before capturing the image. This will ensure your strobes are ready when you need them most.

Lens Selection: Best Lenses for Capturing Schooling Fish

Choosing the right lens is vital when photographing schooling fish because it determines how much of the scene you can capture and the perspective you bring to the image. For schooling fish, wide-angle lenses are preferred because they allow you to capture the vast size of the school while still getting close enough to highlight individual fish.

Fisheye and Wide-Angle Lenses

• Fisheye Lenses (8-15mm range): A fisheye lens is the best option for photographing schooling fish due to its ultra-wide field of view. These lenses allow you to get close to the school while still capturing the entire scene as they can often shoot with a 180 degree field of view.. The curvature of fisheye lenses also gives a dynamic perspective. This distortion pulls from the middle of the frame and gives a wonderful bulbous effect.

• Rectilinear Wide-Angle Lenses (16-35mm range): Rectilinear lenses offer a wider field of view without the distortion of fisheye lenses, making them a great choice if you want a more natural perspective. These lenses are especially useful when you want to emphasize the environment around the school of fish, such as coral reefs or rock formations.

Camera Settings: Optimizing for Schooling Fish Photography

The right camera settings will vary depending on the conditions and desired results, but the following guidelines will help you start off with optimal settings for photographing schooling fish.

Shutter Speed

Schooling fish can move quickly, and a faster shutter speed is often required to freeze their movement. For clear, sharp images, a shutter speed of 1/125 to 1/250 is recommended. If you want to introduce a sense of motion, you can experiment with slower shutter speeds, but this is a whole new technique to master.

Aperture

A wide-angle lens naturally provides a deep depth of field, however due to the optical effect of the dome ports you will still want to stop down the aperture to ensure corner sharpness. An aperture of f/13 works well for ensuring sharpness across the school while allowing enough light into the camera to balance ambient and strobe lighting.

ISO

Start with a low ISO setting (100-400). If you’re diving in darker waters or deeper environments, you may need to raise your ISO. However, be cautious of introducing noise, especially in blue water or low-light situations. If you have a camera that performs well at high ISO, such as a full-frame DSLR or mirrorless, you can push it higher without sacrificing image quality but generally you should not need to raise it above 400 or so.

Composition: Making Your Images Stand Out

Composition is key to creating visually striking photos of schooling fish. With large groups of moving subjects, it’s easy for images to become cluttered or lose focus. The goal is to create a sense of order and lead the viewer’s eye through the image.

Lead the Eye with Natural Lines

Schools of fish often create natural lines and shapes as they move in unison. Position yourself so that these lines guide the viewer’s eye through the image, from the foreground to the background. This adds depth and dynamism to your composition.

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is particularly useful in schooling fish photography. Placing the densest or most interesting part of the school off-center creates a more balanced composition and avoids the static appearance of placing the school in the middle of the frame.

Negative Space

Using negative space—such as open water—around the school can enhance the feeling of scale and isolation. By giving the school room to breathe, you emphasize its size and the open ocean environment, making the fish appear more majestic and dominant in the scene.

Patterns and Silhouettes

Capturing patterns in the fish’s movement can make for visually engaging images. You can also experiment with shooting into the sun to create dramatic silhouette shots of the school against the backdrop of the sunlight filtering through the water.

Sunrays

You can use the sun in shallow shooting environments to capture sunrays from the surface, this technique works well in very shallow water early in the morning and in the evening when we get softer dappled light coming in from the surface. It can add a golden tone to the image.

Post-Processing: Enhancing Your Schooling Fish Images

Post-processing is vital for image making, particularly when photographing schooling fish. Here are a few key steps in post-processing to ensure your images are polished and impactful:

White Balance Adjustment

Even when shooting in RAW, underwater photos tend to have a blue or green cast due to water’s filtering of light. Adjusting the white balance in post-processing will help restore natural colors, especially for the fish in the foreground. You can also use tools like Adobe Lightroom’s auto white balance dropper to fine-tune the white balance to bring out more vibrant colors.

Exposure and Contrast

Fine-tuning exposure and contrast is essential in balancing the light between the foreground fish and the background. Sometimes you will need to drop the highlights from your strobe light and boost the blues a little using the shadows. Increasing the contrast can also help to separate the fish from the background.

Clarity and Sharpness

Underwater images can sometimes lose a bit of sharpness due to water particles, so applying sharpening techniques or increasing clarity in post-processing can help bring out details in the scales and movement of the fish. Clarity works very well in underwater images, much better than land shots. You may want to only increase the clarity on the school and not the blues, you can do this using a mask. If you increase clarity too much on the blues then you will highlight any backscatter.

Dehazing

If you’re shooting in waters with low visibility, you may notice a haze or soft fog over your image. The dehaze tool in post-processing software can help cut through this haze, adding more contrast and clarity to the image. Be careful not to add too much dehaze into the image, use it subtly.

Cropping for Composition

Sometimes the original composition might need tweaking. Post-processing allows you to crop your image to improve framing and focus more on the most interesting part of the school or correct any off-centered elements. Cropping can also help emphasize patterns or shapes in the fish school. In addition to a standard crop, you can crop the scene wider (using Photoshop’s Content-Aware Crop tool) adding in additional negative space.

Best Locations for Photographing Schooling Fish

While schooling fish can be found in oceans around the world, certain locations are renowned for their massive congregations of fish. Here are some of the top destinations to photograph schooling fish:

• Sardine Run, South Africa: The annual sardine run along the coast of South Africa is one of the most spectacular marine migrations on the planet. This phenomenon attracts not only vast schools of sardines but also predators such as sharks, dolphins, and seabirds, offering incredible photo opportunities.

• Palau: The famous Blue Corner in Palau is home to swirling schools of barracuda, jacks, and other pelagic fish. The strong currents in this area create the perfect conditions for large schools of fish to gather. Palau also has monthly spawning events where Bohar snapper and bumphead parrotfish aggregate in the tens of thousands.

• Sipadan, Malaysia: Sipadan is known for its large schools of jacks, barracuda, and bumphead parrotfish. The schools here are often dense, providing ample opportunities for dynamic and dramatic images.

• Raja Ampat, Indonesia: Raja Ampat offers incredible biodiversity, and schooling fish can often be found in abundance near its reefs. This region is ideal for wide-angle photography, as schools of fish often congregate around stunning coral formations.

• Red Sea, Egypt: In June, large schools of fish aggregate for spawning. Particularly at Shark and Yolanda Reef where you’ll find schooling barracuda, Bohar snapper and batfish among other species.

Conclusion: Mastering Schooling Fish Photography

Photographing schooling fish is more than just about getting a technically perfect shot—it’s about telling a story. Each school of fish, moving as one in the blue, represents the rhythm and pulse of the ocean. As an underwater photographer, your goal isn’t just to capture the scene in front of you but to create an image that resonates with the viewer, one that tells the story of the ocean’s beauty, fragility, and power.

The challenge of balancing light, getting the right composition, and using the best camera settings is all part of this process. But at the heart of it lies the intent: you’re not just documenting marine life, you’re inviting others into the world below the surface. The images you create should stir emotions and awareness in those who see them.