[vatek]

Silent running, keep your speed to 1 or 2 knots, and watch out for the sub nets. Try to make your entry and exit during the night as it will prevent the harbor patrols from spotting you at long range. Resist the urge to use the active sonar to get a max depth reading, as it will give you away. I find the external cam (F12) to be very useful for spotting sub nets and getting a rough idea of how shallow the harbor is.

Unfortunately the only good way to get past a sub net is to surface, but if you surface, go over the net, and drop back down right away, you should be okay, provided you do it at night. Keep a wide berth from the destroyers and harbor patrollers. It may help to stick close to a merchant to disguise your propeller noise.

Only raise your scope if you absolutely have to. When you get in range to take the pictures, lock your scope onto the nearest photo target (usually a carrier), take the picture, and take your scope back down. One photo has done it so far for me, although I've heard around the boards that it can be up to five photos of five different ships.

You MUST resist the urge to start blowing things up. Most of the time the carriers you have to photograph are stationary sitting targets, but if you fall into the temptation to launch torpedoes at them, the harbor patrols will be on you like white on rice.

I've had the misfortune to get the same photo op mission in the same port twice in a row, and using everything I've listed above, I've made it in and out with no problems. (except for hitting the damn anti-sub nets like five times in a row before I figured out what the heck was destroying my sub)