{"id":73475,"date":"2025-08-16T20:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T20:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/73475\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T20:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T20:30:10","slug":"photographing-the-sardine-run-in-south-africa-changed-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/73475\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographing the Sardine Run in South Africa Changed My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

For as long as I can remember, I\u2019ve chased moments that remind me how small I am; the moments that make the world feel big again. The sardine run is one of those moments \u2014 a crazy spectacle of survival, chaos, and connection all at once. I went all the way to South Africa to see it with my own eyes and to feel what it means to be a part of something this wild. <\/p>\n

What Is The Greatest Shoal In The World? <\/p>\n

Every year between May and July, cold water currents push huge shoals of sardines northwards, bringing with them hordes of dolphins, sharks, whales, and seabirds. The Sardine Run is often called the greatest shoal in the world because of its sheer scale and ecological impact. Nowhere else in the world do this many fish move together in such a vast, visible, and predator-filled migration. <\/p>\n

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The run encompasses millions of sardines forming huge bait balls to create this chaotic feeding frenzy, with predators attacking from all sides. It\u2019s one of nature\u2019s most extraordinary phenomena, and for anyone in the dive community, it\u2019s a huge bucket list experience. <\/p>\n

The natural behaviors are incredible. Common dolphins will blow bubbles to herd the sardines from down below up to the surface to form a tight bait ball. Dolphins will start feeding on the bait ball, and the kinetic energy will attract Dusky sharks and Bronze Whaler sharks to join in on the action, attacking the bait ball from below. From above the surface, diving Cape gannets will shoot down into the water to collect their own fish. And if you\u2019re lucky, a Bryde\u2019s whale will come charging through and swallow the entire bait ball, and then the cycle begins again. <\/p>\n

For some reason, this year, all of the bait balls we saw were actually Atlantic Mackerel rather than sardines. We don\u2019t know why this was the case, but considering it was a rare occurrence, we still had a great time. I loved being able to shoot mackerel as they\u2019re much larger than sardines, and they have intricate designs on their body which make for super interesting photos. <\/p>\n

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For that reason, though, we mostly only saw sharks and dolphins feeding on the bait ball. I was really excited to see and photograph the diving Cape gannets feeding on a bait ball, but since mackerel are much larger and difficult for the Cape gannets to eat compared to sardines, we didn\u2019t see many while we were in the water. <\/p>\n

Photographing the Sardine Run <\/p>\n

The wild coast is not for the weak. One thing I didn\u2019t anticipate was how rough the conditions could be, and how difficult that would make shooting underwater. Some days it rained constantly, while others were nice and sunny, but with huge swells and white caps. Most of the passengers on the boat got seasick on multiple occasions. <\/p>\n

When you\u2019re in the water, not only do you have to deal with strong waves and currents pushing against you, but you have to be locked into what\u2019s happening beneath the surface the entire time, constantly adjusting your camera settings when the lighting changes, and also not forgetting to breathe. If you were already seasick on the boat, being in the water when it\u2019s that rough doesn\u2019t help much. <\/p>\n

When it comes to any underwater photography expedition, the priority is always to find the wildlife itself. Once you have that figured out, the next most important factor is visibility. <\/p>\n

One of my favorite dives from the run was when we were able to scuba dive on a huge static bait ball. It was by far the biggest bait ball of the entire week, but visibility was so bad that it became spooky and somewhat dangerous to dive. Dolphins and sharks would appear out of nowhere, shooting through the bait ball right at you. It still made for some pretty cool shots after proper editing, but I can only imagine what these could\u2019ve been in clear water. <\/p>\n

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When shooting at the surface, I typically prefer free diving down a few meters to get eye-level or below the action, but there were some days this felt nearly impossible with the currents and everything already happening. I was so overwhelmed on the first day that many of my photos didn\u2019t turn out. As a result, most of the pictures I took were on the third and fourth days, when we had more action and favorable conditions. <\/p>\n

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The Gear for the Job <\/p>\n

The Sardine Run was my first underwater expedition since February 2024, and I\u2019ve significantly upgraded my underwater photography rig since then. <\/p>\n

For this trip, I used my Sony a7R V<\/a> and 16-35mm f\/2.8 GM II lens<\/a> inside of a Marelux underwater housing<\/a>. This was the first time I\u2019ve used a Marelux housing, and I\u2019ll be writing out a more in-depth review of it in a separate article later. Spoiler: I had a great experience with it!<\/p>\n

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I also tried out a few of Lexar\u2019s new memory cards and workflow gadgets during this trip. My Sony a7R V was equipped with two Lexar Professional Gold CFexpress 4.0 Type A cards<\/a> at 1TB each, which I was incredibly thankful to have because I didn\u2019t have to worry about my cards filling up. I was shooting RAW photos on high burst modes and could easily fill memory cards if I wasn\u2019t equipped with enough storage. <\/p>\n

After each day on the water, I used Lexar\u2019s new CFexpress 4.0 Type A card reader<\/a> and 4TB SSD<\/a> to offload footage\/photos, and I have truthfully never had a workflow this quick\/smooth\/easy before. I was offloading hundreds of gigabytes of data in minutes, literally! It helped save so much time so that I could go to bed early and wake up early the next morning. <\/p>\n

In addition to my Sony camera, I typically like to mount an action camera to my housing so that I can simultaneously capture behind-the-scenes (BTS) video of whatever is happening. I recently acquired an Insta360 X5 and was super excited to use this as my BTS cam for all the reasons people tend to love 360 cameras (don\u2019t have to worry about framing, can capture myself as well as the action I\u2019m seeing, etc.), but I ended up learning a lot about why this wasn\u2019t the best choice camera after all. <\/p>\n

First of all, the Insta360 X5<\/a> is an incredible camera on land. That doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t also a great camera underwater, but I found it to be extremely conditions-dependent, with many additional factors to consider when using the X5 as a dedicated underwater camera. Something weird happens with the video stitching when you bring the X5 underwater, which then means you have to use the invisible dive housing, which then increases the size of the camera overall and makes it clunky. If you don\u2019t mount it correctly, stitching gets messed up. If you mount it correctly with an invisible selfie stick, you now have a foot-long pole sticking out of your rig, which doesn\u2019t stay submerged underwater when you\u2019re shooting at the surface. <\/p>\n

I could write an entirely separate article about all of the things I learned when it comes to using a 360-degree camera underwater, but I\u2019ll leave it at this for now: I\u2019m currently in the market for a DJI Osmo Action 5<\/a>, which I think works best as a dedicated underwater BTS camera, out of all the action cameras presently on the market. <\/p>\n

Aside from these two primary cameras I used underwater, I also brought along a Panasonic Lumix S1 II<\/a> for topside video shooting, a Leica Minilux 35mm film point-and-shoot, and a Kodak Pixpro WPZ2 just for fun (photos underwater from this actually turned out so well!). <\/p>\n

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How Does One Dive The Sardine Run? <\/p>\n

When it comes to underwater expeditions, there are tons of tour and trip companies dedicated to organizing and hosting trips like this for small groups of participants. Being in the dive and underwater photography community myself, I\u2019m lucky to have friends in the industry who host trips like this all the time, which is how I found the specific group I signed up with. <\/p>\n

This particular trip was organized by ImmersivExpeditions<\/a>, with Offshore Africa being their local operators based in Port St. Johns. I highly recommend this trip to anyone interested in an adventurous week immersed in underwater chaos. Full disclosure, though, underwater expeditions like this are not \u201cvacations\u201d in the traditional sense. Getting to the wild coast was an adventure in itself, with my personal journey lasting over 25 hours to get from New York to Port St. Johns in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.<\/p>\n

The sardine run is unpredictable, but your odds of finding bait balls are higher the earlier you go out on the water. We woke up at 5 AM every day to get ready and depart on the boat at 6:30 AM, and we often stayed out on the water until 3 to 4 PM. After showering and rinsing our gear, we\u2019d usually embark on a short land excursion, like beach combing for treasure or visiting the picturesque airstrip overlooking Port St. Johns. Dinner at the lodge opens at 6 PM each evening, and we\u2019d usually be in bed by 9 PM to wake up and do it all over again the next morning. <\/p>\n

So, is photographing the sardine run the right experience for you? Well, it depends. <\/p>\n

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We joked on the trip that it takes a special type of weird person to dive the sardine run, because it really is quite an intense and challenging experience, and yet it can also be the most magical and rewarding experience of your life. <\/p>\n

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The reality is, you could end up spending an entire week on the water and not see a single bait fish, or you could end up going on the water for a single day and see more action than a sardine run veteran who\u2019s visited for the past three years. You really never know what you\u2019re gonna get, but if you\u2019re open to the chase and understand that its unpredictability is part of the magic, I think you\u2019ll find that the sardine run is a uniquely special and worthwhile experience. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For as long as I can remember, I\u2019ve chased moments that remind me how small I am; the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,2929,1379,2270,5036,57162,128,57163,13093,29340,446,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-73475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-conservation","11":"tag-features","12":"tag-nature","13":"tag-ocean","14":"tag-sarahteng","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-southafrica","17":"tag-spotlight","18":"tag-underwater","19":"tag-video","20":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}