July 2007

Franco Banfi: Diving for Pearls

Franco Banfi has spent the last quarter of a century exploring and capturing the astonishing array of life beneath the planet’s oceans. Recently returned from an expedition to the Philippines, he talks to underwater photographer Helen Atkinson, about his career, his move to digital and some of his favourite images.

Franco Banfi remembers very well his first underwater shoot with a digital camera. Diving off the Socorro Islands in Mexico about 18 months ago with his partner Sabrina Belloni, Franco found a Manta Ray at the end of a shoot.

“We changed tanks and went in the water again,” he recalls. “Because we were not diving deep there was no problem, and I stayed with my partner who was modelling with the Manta. I shot 140 pictures with the 2Gb card. Because digital was new for me I saw that normally I should be able to shoot 109 frames. But after 109 it continued, 110, 111…and at first I had the feeling you get when you shoot film and you start doing 38, 39, 40 frames: you know that something is wrong. But in this case the file was not so big, because everything was almost blue, so there wasn’t too much information in the picture and I was able to shoot 140 frames. Of course this was my first experience with digital and compared to film it was incredible — when you try something like this, film is no more.”

There are other, more technical reasons, for Franco’s preference for digital. Last year, he was shooting the sardine run in South Africa.

“The big difference between digital and film, for this kind of picture — where you shoot in fairly shallow, blue water — is that on Velvia film everything was blue and now with the digital you can see the grey. You see more of the different colours. Usually I set the white balance at 5200K or maybe between 5000K and 5500K and I find it’s a good balance for underwater.
“You can correct the white balance in post production and make the water look clearer, but I don’t like to do it too much because in the end it’s not real.”

“One of the critical things underwater is the visibility and with the digital you see this more. If you have a lot of particles in the water with the digital you notice it more as backscatter in the pictures — this is a disadvantage. For this shot of a sea lion in green water I had visibility of just 3m, but luckily it swam in front of the lens and looked into the camera. I used two flash heads to minimise backscatter.”

Using digital, Franco can now see almost immediately what he’s doing.

“In the Philippines, recently, we were shooting the Thresher Shark. You have to dive at 5.30am and the light is not good. After the first day, shooting my normal settings, I could see I needed to push the ISO. In this way I was able to improve my images.”

Before his trip to Mexico 18 months ago, Franco tested his EOS-1Ds Mark II and Seacam housing in his local river in the Verzasca Valley in Switzerland. This freshwater river was also where he embarked on his underwater career in 1981, with a Nikonos film camera.

“Compared to tropical waters there is not so much to see in fresh water. In the Verzasca Valley there are granite formations so when you want to take pictures you have to look carefully at these formations, at composition, light, shade, and from the photographic point of view you have to be more creative.”

Attracted by both photography and travel, Franco left home for the tropical waters of the Maldives in 1983 with only a 35mm lens and one strobe on his Nikonos 4 — the focal length of this lens appears much longer underwater due to the refraction of light, so super–wide angle shots were out of the question.

“I shot a lot of pictures then went home to show to my friends and parents. From hundreds of pictures only three or four were any good. They were falling asleep and saying ‘this is good, this is good…’.”

From these early attempts, Franco, largely self taught, has travelled to many different locations from Antarctica to Hawaii, and gone on to win numerous prizes including the World Underwater Championship in Cuba in 1992. However, he says, modestly, that he is still learning.

“In tropical water, where you see a lot of fish, like these colourful clown fish, and coral, I think you can get a little confused, and have difficulty keeping your attention on one subject, as you have too much to see and photograph.”

“Franco believes the fundamental component of a strong underwater image is the light, and secondly, the contact with the animal. “Eye contact and expression is important,” he says. “It can take many years to understand the animal’s behaviour, and how it can react, to get the right picture.”

This is easier said than done, of course, and it can take many years to learn how to approach potentially dangerous situations in the right way. Franco is lucky in that he is naturally unafraid of most animals and which helps him to concentrate on getting the image he wants.

“I was shooting this tiger shark in South Africa. It was trying to bite the camera. The shadow on the shark’s nose is the shadow of the dome to which it was attracted. I have dived here many times with the tiger sharks and sometimes they touch me with their nose. I think to feel, to touch, is to understand what something is. The first time I experienced this I pushed the shark away with the camera, because I thought he wanted to bite me, but afterwards I understood the shark was more scared than me in this situation. In this instance, he came to me, opened his mouth and tried to bite the housing, so I shot three pictures. Maybe this reaction was because sometimes with the strobe you can annoy the shark. At the time I wasn’t really scared. I realised after, with the digital, and looking at the screen I thought, wow!”

Franco is a master of light, colour and composition. From the freshwater rivers and lakes in the Med to the teeming marine life of the Tropics and stunning soft coral vistas of Papua New Guinea, light is always at the forefront of his mind.

“Right now I don’t trust the TTL digital underwater strobe. I use the powerful Sea & Sea strobes on manual full and 1/2 power settings, which I find recycles faster, so I can shoot one shot after the other. With a subject like the greenland shark I use two strobes. Whereas the Chandelier Cave in Palau (above) was lit with two special 1,500 watt lights. You could not light this with normal light.”

“Franco shoots macro on the EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens, but prefers shooting wide angle: “I found that you have to manage the light when you create a panorama, and this identifies more a place and also the photographer. If you shoot a nice macro everybody can be a photographer.”

Utilising small f-stops, filters and dioptres Franco makes stunning split level scenes, and he is always pushing the boundaries of creativity in his work.“In fresh water you can get very good visibility in the rivers, but in the lakes sometimes visibility is very poor. You don’t need to go especially deep in the lakes because the fish are in shallow water.”

“One of Franco’s favourite images is from Cornino Lake, Friuli, Italy. It looks like a person is flying over green grass with a mountainous backdrop. “The maximum depth of the lake is 10m and it has very clear water with a visibility 30 to 40m, so you can see the bottom of the lake and the mountain outside.”

Franco is always searching for new places to dive — something different. One of his favourite locations is Papua New Guinea, the subject of two of his books.

“There you find everything: very nice reef, small animals, sharks, shoals of fish, coral and wrecks — a good mix of everything you can find underwater. The clear water with a good 30m of visibility depends on the season and the world is changing with the temperature growing, so it becomes difficult to predict the right season.”

Last year Franco was in Norway to shoot the Orcas, the killer whales. He stayed there for three weeks without once getting in the water. “It was very frustrating. I met other photographers and made new friends. In the first week you laugh, but by the end of the second week and nothing, you start thinking. They say last year was the first year not to see an Orca at that time.”

Looking back, Franco now knows that taking a good picture is not enough. You also have to be business-like and organised.
“Many people say it’s impossible to make a living from underwater photography. Right now I manage. It’s not easy, but when you believe in something you have a good advantage. I will never be rich with photography, but it’s my passion.

“In the beginning I wanted to travel. Now I don’t care too much where I go, I am most focused on what I see, and I want to see the animals and I want to have the contact with the animals and I try to put this in the image.”

TECH INFO

Franco made the big change to the digital EOS system less than two years ago, and he hasn’t looked back: “Before I use to run out of film, but now I run out of air,” he says.
“One of the biggest problems right now is travelling. It is no lighter without film, because I take the computer with me. I probably have 100kg and baggage restrictions are making the job harder.
“From my experience I have never had any problems with the camera in the cold. The problem with the cold is handling the knots and small things. Because you have big gloves and this makes it a little bit more difficult to change and do things underwater. I prepare my camera settings on the surface.”

Franco’s equipment

Bodies:

EOS-1Ds Mark II
EOS 5D

Lenses:

EF300mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF17-40mm f/4.0L USM
EF16-35mm f/2.8 USM
EF24-105mm f/4 IS USM
EF15mm f/2.8 fisheye
EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM

Extender:

Canon EF1.4x II

Flash:

Canon Speedlite 580EX

Other accessories

Lowepro DryZone 200 backpack
Pelican waterproof case
B&W circular polariser
Manfrotto tripod with Arca Swiss head
Various memory cards - Sandisk Extreme III, 2GB to 4GB
1 Apple PowerBook G4 Laptop 15”, 80 GB HD
Portable hard drive Lacie 80 GB
Energizer Lithium battery

Underwater:

Seacam housing EOS-1Ds Mark II
Seacam housing EOS 5D
Various domes: superdome, wide dome, macro dome
4 Sea & Sea strobes YX 300, 1 YS 50, 1 YS 30
Different TLC arms for the strobes

Diving Equipment:

Full equipment from Technisub: 3mm, 5mm, Semidry suit, jacket mask fins, regulator, diving computer Sunto.
Cold diving equipment: DUI dry suit with underwear, dry gloves cold water regulator

Franco Banfi: Diving for Pearls

TECH INFO

Franco Banfi

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