An Auckland photographer has captured the "cool phenomenon" of bioluminescence in a series of stunning pics.
Grant Birley, who is based in the north Auckland suburb of Gulf Harbour, told 1News he has been into the hobby of night photography for two years now, and it's something he enjoys with his 10-year-old son Alex.
"Being a hobbyist night or astrophotographer, I am generally out at night capturing the sky and on lucky nights I get to capture this incredible phenomenon too," he said.
"Bioluminescence, or as we like to call it the 'Aurora of the Sea' or 'Blue Gold', has become one of my favourite night phenomenon to capture."
He said these shots were captured between 11.30pm and 12.30am on Sunday night at Big Manly Beach.
"We got down to the beach around 10.30pm and I started capturing images from about 11pm," he said.
"The beach was pretty full of people. As there was minimal swell and water movement it was best seen if you got into the water and splashed around but as the tide slowly came in so it started getting more blue and became a lot more visible to the naked eye.
"Bioluminescence needs movement so unless the water is disturbed either by waves or you, you will not see it. It is the algae’s form of a defence mechanism and they basically light up when feeling threatened."
Birley said he became interested in photographing bioluminescence in January 2020.
"From that first night I saw it and was lucky enough to capture it, it has been a big part of my photography journey to capture it."
However, he admitted that the phenomenon can be "quite tricky to capture".
"Capturing it uses a broad range of different settings at different times depending on the amount of bioluminescence, water movement, tides, moonlight etc etc," he said.
"A good start is an exposure time of between 10 and 20 seconds with an ISO of between 3200 and 6400 and depending on what you capture on those settings you can fine tune them from there. I use an aperture of f/2.0 so this will also dictate your settings depending on what lens you are capturing with.
"Bioluminescence is only visible when truly dark and preferably with no moon. The less artificial light the better it appears.
"I have been very fortunate to capture a good amount of bioluminescence over the past two years – some by sheer luck and others by lucky/educated guess."
Birley said most occasions, though, bioluminescence in real life doesn’t resemble the very bright, vibrant blue images seen online.
"The camera picks up way more light than our eyes can so unless it is a very big and vibrant algal bloom you generally see an off white, luminescent colour in the waves at best," he said.
"In saying that, when the big shows come to town the blue is so vibrant that your eyes can capture all the light and the blue is beyond belief."
View more of Grant Birley's photos here.
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