Václav Krpelik captured this amazing image of a whiptail stingray (Himantura fai) surrounded by a school of schooling bannerfish (Heniochus diphreutes) whilst freediving in the Maldives. He was kind enough to share it on the Wetpixel Facebook Group.

Václav describes the shoot:

“The place is known as “Fish factory” because the real fish processing takes place on the island and leftovers are thrown to the sea. However this image was captured a long time before fish feeding, when only one stingray was checking the area and shoals of fish were behaving naturally.”

He used a Canon EOS 550D with a Tokina 10-17mm set at 10mm. It was housed in a Sea & Sea RDX housing with an NX compact dome port. Lighting was with a Sea & Sea YS-D2 strobe in manual mode, triggered by a home made triggering system.