Category Archives: Macro

Macro, swim throughs, Uncategorized, wide angle

Have you been to the Solomon Islands?

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Brian after navigating the Cathedral dive passages swims into the deep blue ocean

Our 10 days of diving in the Solomons with the Master liveaboard was amazing. Some things about the trip are quatifiable, 37 dives in 10 days is, a pretty big number of dives. The countless thousands of fish we saw was impressive. We saw large schools of jacks, fusiliers and barracuda. But the diving wasn’t just about the numbers. There were many story lines along the way that standing alone could make great stories. Consider one of the dives we did was named Simon’s dive site. Simon lives in the Florida islands and is quite a naturalist. He has among other things replanted coral on the reef on his property and has gotten the government to recognized his property as a nature preserve. His efforts have helped grow stag horn coral in places where it appears to have either not existed or which may have been in existence but needed to be reseeded. With growing reefs come critters. We did a night dive on Simon’s reef. Among the things I saw was a nudibranch that was enormous, almost 10 centimeters in length. Now I have shot this same species of nudibranch in other places such as the Philippines, but I don’t think I have ever seen one this large.

But the trip wasn’t just about nudibranchs or small critters. One of the things that stood out in my mind was just how healthy the reef was on all of the sites we dove. In paticular, the wide range of hard corals struck me.

But the soft corals were also quite abundant. Not since I dove rainbow reef in Fiji had I seen so many different colors of soft corals on any dives. Red, purple, yellow, orange and white soft corals covered many sections of the reef.

And of course there were a number of the usual suspects that you find in the coral triangle, such as clown fish.

Nemo’s eye

But of course the thing that keeps me coming back to diving is the friendships that are formed by diving with people from all around the world.

Coming up for a break in the Cathedral dive site
    Macro, Philippines

    Have you been black water diving?

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    From out of the deep

    I had been diving for nearly 20 years before I ever came across black water diving. When I first heard that to do the dive we would be out in very deep water at night (perhaps over 1000 feet deep) with video lights on a string providing light to the creatures that might swim up for the depths, I had a few concerns. Sure I had done quite a few “shark” dives over the years, but I had always done those dives in the daylight so I could at least see them coming. I talked to the dive leader and heard that in all the black water dives they had done to that point they had not been visited by any sharks. Then I asked about what I might see in the night. I then heard about the great vertical migration. The short version is that billions of larval size creatures swim up from the depths each night to feed at the surface, only to return to the depths before daytime so they do not become some predator’s breakfast.

    Like much in diving good buoyancy control was essential because unlike some places that do tethered black water dives we would be swimming fee without being tethered to the boat. Now controlling buoyancy plus controlling light for taking pictures sounded like quite a challenge. One of the tips I did hear and pay attention to was to listen to my ears. If I was having to clear that meant i was going deeper. So I thought that what I would do is have one eye on the string of lights and the pumpkin at the top, and have one eye focused on what was available to see.

    Some of the creatures are surprisingly long

    My first black water dive, I swam around a ton and my focus light had a very wide beam. I thought I was swimming in a snow storm. The closest I got to getting a usable image was a picture of the ink from a squid that had jetted away from me.

    Three years went by and I returned with the same camera rig except this time instead of a wide angle focus light I used one with a very narrow beam. Was it hard taking picture of the creatures I found on my second black water dive? In a word: yes. But I was more confident of what I would do and had a good bit more success in capturing some of the critters that had come up from the depths. Now buoyancy was still a big concern because even with having the string of lights as a reference point it would have been very easy to drop below the last light. What I can say is that black water diving is an advanced skill and if not tethered it is really a dive that should be saved until the diver has excellent buoyancy control skills.

    Macro, Philippines

    Do you like to see small critters?

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    I started doing blue water dives in the Caribbean almost 20 years ago. Clear water, a pretty good abundance of fish life and a number of species of shrimp, crabs and mollusks. Of the mollusks, sea slugs and other critters that had caught my eye, mostly did so because of their brilliant colors. Early on I did not spend much time searching for colorful critters. At least according to the critter books I have, it looked to me like there might be slightly more than a dozen nudibranch species in the Caribbean.

    Lettuce sea slug in the Caribbean

    Overtime, it appeared to me that I needed to expand my horizons and see some of the sea life in the Pacific. After several trips to various parts of the Pacific, I stumbled on to muck diving in the Philippines.

    Now mind you historically, my underwater shooting has been probably 90%/10% wide angle to macro images. So on my first trip to do muck diving, I was trying to get my mind around a very different kind of shooting plus get a sense of what the creatures might look like and how to capture them. When I got to the Philippines one of the comparasions that struck me was that unlike the Caribbean that has slightly more than a dozen different types of nudibranch for example, there were over a thousand different varieties of nudibranch.

    I learned a lot on the first trip, not the least of which was to see the benefit of controlling the light through the use of a snoot. The snoot I took on the first trip to the Philippines I had picked up a few weeks before I left. Yes, it constricted the light from the strobe that I attached it to. But, aiming the snooted light was a real problem. The set up lacked an aiming light. Frankly, the snoot looked more like a funnel that you might find in your kitchen than a light shaping device. So it was largely hit or miss unless the guide I was with helped me aim the snoot. When shooting the light worked, it was really helpful at lighting the subject and not lighting a lot of the background.

    Then I tried a snoot that had a focus light in it. For someone like me with relatively short arms, its still a challenge to get the snoot aimed well and then take pictures. Nevertheless having an aiming light did make it much easier to focus on everything else about capturing the image and worry less about getting the snoot aimed right.

    Armina grazin on the sub-straight
    Porcelain crab on sea pen: who knew they have blue eyes?
    Snooted frog fish yawning
    Snooted goby
    Green Jell-O shot?

    So I guess you could say I’m hooked on controlling the light with a snoot.

    Macro, Philippines, Uncategorized

    The Eye’s have it?

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    Eye of a pipe fish

    Sometimes I am pretty surprised by the level of detail I see in images after I am done shooting underwater. Now granted looking through a mask into a eye piece of my underwater housing, about an 3/4s of an inch, or the 1.3 inch by 1.3 inch screen is sometimes much harder than it ought to be. The combination of today’s digital cameras and available lenses can make it very clear how much detail some animals eyes contain. Add some magnification with a diopter and what was once less than a quarter of an inch across is now much bigger.

    For quite a while I was trying to shoot a pair of pipe fish that were hanging out fairly close to the bottom. One was red, one was green. Even though I had a 60 mm lens on at the time which gives a broader depth of field than a 105mm I was having quite a bit of trouble getting the two pipe fish in one image. I got a couple useable shots but then I decided to get a close as I could with the 60mm and added a subsee 10 diopter (wet lens) and see what the eye looked like. The image above is somewhat cropped but does give you a sense of the detail in the eye of pipe fish. The pipe fishes eye can swivel in all directions somewhat like a flounders eye.

    Frog fish eye

    For an animal that relies on camouflage to feed, it is somewhat surprising how ornate the eye of a frog fish is. Yes, it is more subtle than the eye of a pipe fish or a flounder, but its design is still interesting.

    Eyes of a mantis shrimp

    Mantis shrimp can see more bands of light than we can. Their eyes can swivel independently and move in different directions. Although I think it would interesting to be able to see as a mantis shrimp sees, I am afraid it might make me nauseous to be able to have my eyes go in different directions at one time.

    Macro, Uncategorized, wreaks

    Sometimes you just have to be creative

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    In north Texas it is hard to get excited about getting all geared up with scuba gear and an underwater camera to take pictures underwater when the water is in the 50s and the visibility is in the teens. Sure you can swim around and find a fish or two, but it seems like an awful lot of work, particularly for someone like me who is basically lazy. So as I was wracking my brain for ideas for what to shoot at this time of year underwater I came up with the thought of why not create a wreck or two out of legos and see what it looks like underwater?

    Well the first problem that had to be overcome was how do you get legos to sink? What occurred to me was maybe some water proof glue with some big washers or bolts glued to the bottom of a legos 10 X 10 sheet would work.

    As I found out, four large washers will sink a standard 10 X 10 lego sheet. And, I figured out that with just a few attachment points the legos figures I was able to build would actually adhere to the 10 X 10 lego sheet.

    The next challenge was how much do I want to spend on legos and mini-figures to create these submersible platforms. I found much to my amazement Legos really seem to hold their value. I was quite surprised that used mini-figures go for $5 bucks or more a piece at the local used lego store. I made a comment at the local used legos store about the mini figures holding their value, and the owner looked at me like: well duh! what planet did you come from.

    I looked at eBay and found that here and there there were a few mini figures that would cost about $2 a figure, but that still seemed pretty pricey for something that might or might not work.

    So it was back to the legos resell shop and buy an assortment of bricks and see if I could build a wreck or two out of the assortment of legos. It was a bit interesting to see what came in an assortment package. With some creativity I came up with a few ideas of how to put together a few figures that looked like they might be the remainder of a wreck.

    I have a few more mini figures on order so we will see if they arrive in time to be added before the next class.

    Bahamas, Macro, Philippines, Sharks, Uncategorized, wide angle

    Do you have a favorite undersea animal?

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    Grey reef shark at shark junction
    Grey reef shark at shark junction
    Drafting a whale shark
    Drafting a whale shark
    shark anado
    Yes he is in the scrum somewhere!

    I will admit that I have been a fan of shark week for as long as it has been on the Discovery channel. Sharks are smart. They have an incredible array of tools for finding prey. They have been on the planet for hundreds of millions of years and they have evolved to fit into many different sub-environments. For many years when I was asked what my favorite animal in the sea was, I typically would respond sharks.

    This is why you wear the steel suit
    This is why you wear the steel suit

    Of course when I was growing up, sharks didn’t always have the best reputation. Flipper, who I watched a lot as a kid, always prevailed over any sharks that strayed into the story line of the show. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Flipper and have always been fascinated by dolphins who also seem to have awesome skills as predators. I have always found big undersea creatures to be interesting. They are necessary to ensure the health of a reef. They typically go very fast through the water.

    But, sharks and dolphins share at least one trait, their relative amount of color is pretty limited. Grey and white and tan are excellent colors if you want to blend into the reef. But there are so many other colors that exist on coral reefs that I may have to change my thinking about what my favorite undersea animal is.

    Eye of a peacock flounder
    Eye of a peacock flounder
    Nudibranchs
    Never enough time
    Macro, Philippines, Uncategorized

    Have you been to Anilao?

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    After a 14 hour plane ride from Dallas to Seoul Korea with a few hour lay over, I was finally getting on the plane to fly to Manila. I had looked at multiple sites to tell me as much as I could digest about what to expect in Anilao in the Philippines. I was hoping I would be ready to shoot as many images as I could in 30 or so dives in 8 days. I’d watched video on youtube and vimeo. I had looked at images on several photo stock agency sites and I had read quite a few articles on diving in Anilao. I have looked at water temperature charts. I had gotten all the scuba gear serviced and had taken out and put together several times the underwater housing for my camera and strobes and lights. And, yet I was still not prepared for the substantial bio-diversity that I would find in diving in Anilao.

    Sure I had read that Anilao was within the few hundred miles of where biologists had determined was the highest amount of biodiversity in the world. Of course it is one thing to read it; its another thing to see it.

    Fortunately we had a guide Edgar who found the vast majority of critters that we saw. Edgar is outstanding at his job. After getting all set up and riding the boat a relatively short distance from the resort, we dropped in the water. My first thought: well now I see why we are shooting macro instead of wide angle; visibility was maybe 15 feet and where we dropped in was a sandy bottom. After making sure all of our gear was functioning we started to swim away from shore to deeper water — about 70 feet. The bottom was still sandy and yet Edgar was finding odd looking creatures and nudibranchs (Shell-less mollusks) quickly enough to keep four photographers busy shooting images. On the first day or so I was shooting a 60mm lens and going back and forth to a subsee diopter. I had only shot a diopter for less than 20 shots so I was really guessing about technique and how far or close I had to be to the subject. After a while it got easier to guess. And, with the 60mm my working distance to some of the creatures was really close 4-5 inches. Good thing most of the creatures are camouflage experts and don’t rely on speed to survive. They survive because unless you know what to look for they are so well disguised they are hard to see.

    At one point Edgar turned over a star fish. It was a pretty blue star fish but on the surface pretty ordinary. But, on the underside of the star fish was a shrimp which might have been about half an inch in length.

    Later in the dive Edgar found a blue ringed octopus hiding in an abandoned sea shell. Now I had read that they carry enough bio toxin to immobilized a small army. I took my chances and got in close with the diopter and snapped off a couple of quick shots and decided I needed to move away and not test my luck any further. (As I would see over the week, blue ring octopi are fairly docile, but are deserving of respect. No one had any problems with them but they still deserve a fair amount of respect and I would be the last one to hassle them). I do kinda like to develop the pictures I take and not just take them.

    Towards the end of the dive we came across a lemon goby who was going in and out of what looked like an old piece of a log. The log was also adorned with other sea life, but the goby was the star with his bright yellow color.

    We saw dozens of other critters during the first set of dives, most all of which I have never seen before. It was a pattern that continued the entire trip.

    Bahamas, Barbardos, Belize, Grenadines, Macro

    In search of small things

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    Much of my time spent doing underwater photography has been spent shooting through a wide angle lens, which allows me to capture some of the grandeur of what can be found underwater.  Shipwrecks, large reef structures, sharks, and substantial schools of fish have been interesting to me.   It has only been in the last few years that I have begun to start making images of smaller creatures found in the ocean.  

    wire coral shrimp
    wire coral shrimp

    The thing that strikes me about the creatures in the ocean is the extraordinary diversity among the animals.  

    For example, one of the animals that I have observed during my diving career is wire coral.  Wire coral like other coral is composed of colonies of polyps which live in a colony to form the length of the coral.   To me wire coral looks like a curly strand of coral, similar to a pigs tail, only much longer.  Generally wire coral is only found on deeper dives.  It was not until I stopped and looked at the length of several wire coral strands that I notice there were sometimes shrimp that were less than a couple centimeters in length living on the wire coral.  I started looking at all of the wire corals I could find, and  only in a small number of wire corals did I find any shrimp.  Put it this way, I have never found a “herd” of wire coral shrimp on a single strand of wire coral.  

    Wire coral shrimp are tough little guys to take a picture of.   Think of it this way, wire coral is often a centimeter or less in diameter.  So getting the camera lens to focus on a spot that is that narrow is not easy, especially in current.  Add to the complexity the fact that you have to put quite a bit of light on the shrimp just to try to acquire focus on them.  And, of course, the shrimp don’t particularly like my focus light so they tend to move all over the wire coral, which makes taking a picture of them even more difficult.  In the image above one of my dive buddies had to use the tip of a chop stick to block the shrimp from scurrying aware from my focus light.  

    When I have searched wire corals, which are often 6 to 10 feet in length, it is pretty uncommon to find even one shrimp on the entire length of the coral.   On my last dive trip we did about twenty dives.  I did not find more than a couple dozen wire corals.  And, only on two wire corals did I find even one shrimp.    And people say that hitting a major league fast ball is hard.  At least the batters know where the plate is and the plate is more than a hundred times larger.  What if baseball allowed the opposite team to move home plate around the ball park randomly?  That is what trying to shoot wire coral shrimp is like.  I keep telling my self patience is a virtue…

    On the other hand, sometimes sea critters act as if they are just walking out on stage waiting for some one to take a picture of them.  

    white spotted shrimp on red rope sponge
    white spotted shrimp on red rope sponge

    This white spotted shrimp was for much of the time I observed him hiding in the arms of the giant sea anemone which he claimed as his home.  But, much to my surprise he eventually jumped from the anemone to the red sponge which made it possible for me to acquire focus for the picture.  Sometimes patience is a virtue….

    Macro, wide angle

    Do you have a favorite crustacean?

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    The shell of this fellow was easily a foot across
    Channel clinging crab

    According to my critters book the crustaceans in the Caribbean can be divided into shrimp, lobsters and crabs. Now assuming we are just talking about seeing these critters underwater, I tend to find the variety of crabs to be the most interesting. Now that is not to say that I do not find the various lobsters to be interesting, its just the variety of crabs seems to be more diverse and that is interesting to me. There are about 45 varieties of crabs in the Caribbean. The largest of which tend to be the channel clinging crabs. I have seen them on quite a few dives in Belize, Mexico, Cayman islands and Dominica. That is not to say they do not live elsewhere in the Caribbean, they do. I just have not had the opportunity to see them.

    Now, it seems to me that hermit crabs are the most common crabs I have seen. I have seen them on just about every island or islet I have visited. There appear to be about 11 varieties of hermit crab in the Caribbean, and they range in size from tiny to enormous.

    a polkadotted hermit crab
    An enormous claw for a polkadotted hermit crab

    When I was in Cayman Brac this year, while I was diving on a night dive I looked up under a part of a coral ledge and found a plumed hairy crab. He was very shy and very quickly after I got a shot or two of him he crawled back into his hiding hole in the reef.

    plumed hairy crab
    plumed hairy crab

    Arrow crabs almost always make me laugh because they remind me of daddy long legs, but when they are hunting if they are very successful, they stick their prey on top of their heads and just keep hunting.

    arrow crab hunting for dinner
    arrow crab hunting for dinner

    For me, some of the most productive dives for finding crabs, have been night dives. I guess that is not surprising since that is usually when crustaceans hunt for food. Inasmuch as it looks like I still have about 30 varieties of crab to see, I am going to have to do alot more night dives. 🙂

    Grenadines, Macro, Uncategorized, wide angle

    Where are the turtles? Tobago Caye of course

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    In the Grenadines, the government has created a marine park in and around Tobago Cayes.  Although the park is not particularly large, it is well placed.  The marine park is bounded by several small islands and the depth of the water in much of the park is relatively shallow.  With  shallow water and a white sand bottom, this creates some amazingly pretty turquoises water.

    Sailing in to Tobago Cayes with just a hint of the turquoises water that we will see
    Sailing in to Tobago Cayes with just a hint of the turquoises water that we will see

    We had barely had time to anchor and we spotted several green sea turtles surfacing for air, only to return to the bottom to feed on turtle grass. We arrived in the afternoon and after lunch we were picked up by a local dive shot to go diving.

    I did two dives with a macro set up.  The first dive was horseshoe reef.  With alot of newby divers we had some challenges, particularly since the current changed twice in about a half an hour.  I did manage to get a few interesting critter shots.

    This banded shrimp almost reminded me of an old west gun fighter with her guns drawn; I guess you could call her "Two guns". I say her, because I think if you look closely you can see eggs.
    This banded shrimp almost reminded me of an old west gun fighter with her guns drawn; I guess you could call her “Two guns”. I say her, because I think if you look closely you can see eggs.

    After the second dive I switched the camera to a wide angle set up for the next morning when we would go to the marine park looking for green sea turtles.

    If you have to anchor somewhere, Tobago Cayes is pretty spectacular
    If you have to anchor somewhere, Tobago Cayes is pretty spectacular

    Unfortunately, no diving was allowed near the island where the turtles were, but on snorkel we were successful in finding sea turtles with which to swim.  Below is a video from our swimming with green sea turtles at Tobago Cayes.

    Grenadines, Macro, Uncategorized

    The Grenadines: A macro shooter’s paradise?

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    A relatively small percentage of my time is spent underwater shooting macro subjects. Why? In large part it is much harder for me to spot the small critters that are on a dive and most of the time we do not go to the same dive sites more than once. That means that if I am trying to keep up with the rest of the group of divers, I either shoot wide angle close focus and get quite a few shots, or I shoot macro and get very few shots many of which don’t turn out for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is I often rush the shot.

    peppermint gobey A peppermint gobey resting on star coral. Take a look at this at 100% and see the incredible detain in his pectoral fin and in the star coral polyps

    Nevertheless, I found when I was down in the Grenadines that the amount of small critters to shoot was quite substantial and I didn’t have to wait too long to find shots. Chrismas tree worms have fascinated me for years, so I do take quite a few shots of them. Their structure when spread out in the water allows them to gather the plankton on which they feed very efficiently. The extraordinary detail in each little branch is just amazing. christmas tree worms

    Fire worms also have amazing detail in tuffs which carry their venon which when you look, closely resemble small whiskers. fire worm-2

    If you want to get a real sense of what a fire worm looks like, look that this version of the image which is just a 60 percent crop; got to 100 percent crop and in addition to the fire worm you will see a couple legs of an arrow crab.
    cropped wormEach little fiber can pack a punch with its venom — look but don’t touch

    Of course, the dimensions of the creature can get very small. I found a secretary blenny who was not much wider than 1mm who made a christmas tree worm look large. The christmas tree worm is on the top right and the blenny is on the bottom left of the image.

    A secretary blenny hiding out in his hiding hold in star coral
    A secretary blenny hiding out in his hiding hold in star coral

    But as I mentioned in an earlier post on the blog, sometimes you see something that just isn’t a macro subject ordinarily, but because I can’t change lens underwater, I shoot it with the macro lens and see what we get. Hence, the next image is LOBZILLA, who deserved wide angle treatment because he was huge, think two dinner plates, but he was relegated to macro lens shooting.
    lobzilla At this range, LOBZILLA looks like something from outer space

    Thus, there is quite a variety of small creatures to shoot in the Grenadines. But, you should be prepared to shoot the big critters with a macro lens when the opportunity presents itself.

    Belize, Macro

    Do you see the details in the mundane?

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    Closed polyps on a sea whip.

     

    sea whip

    It was not long ago that I was diving in Ambergris Caye in Belize. What struck me was the variety of soft and hard corals.

    Nevertheless, on many dives, what got the attention of the divers in my group were the nurse sharks. Now don’t get me wrong, I find large animals, including nurse sharks, to be fascinating to see in the wild. Nurse sharks in the world of sharks are pretty docile and can be approached relatively easily. Keep your fingers to yourself and don’t harrass a nurse shark and you can watch them gracefully swim along the reef. I don’t think I have ever seen as many nurse sharks any where else as I have seen in Ambergris Caye.

    Even though the nurse sharks got top billing, the corals were quite intersting.   There were many healthy soft and hard corals which were also worthy of comment.

    coral pollups feeding

    (Polyps of a sea whip unfurled and gathering plankton).

    What is interesting to me is that coral are created by large colonies of very small animals. The texture and shape of corals has substantial variety. And, the means and types of food that they feed on can vary fairly dramatically.  Some of the corals unfold their polyps and feed on plankton that drifts within reach.  The most interesting feeding I have seen corals engage in I observed on a night dive on Grand Cayman.  Blood worms were swarming my dive light during the  night dive.  The dive leader pointed his light at a coral and the blood worms followed the light down to the coral only to be devoured by the coral.  It was not what I was expecting, but it was interesting.  After a while I started to feel a little bit bad for the blood worms because they were being eaten at a rather rapid rate.  But then I got to thinking about how annoying they had been a the beginning of the dive and it occurred to me that it was just part of the circle of life in the ocean.

    Star coral was also quite common in Ambergris caye.  For me star coral is interesting because it can become enormous.   I also find the individual shapes to be quite interesting.  Of course, the fact that star coral    glows green under blue light also makes it interesting.

    So next time you are diving in the deep blue sea and are templed to swim past the coral in search of other more interesting subjects, take a minute or two and look more closely at the coral, you may be glad you did.

    peppermint gobey
    perpermint gobey resting on star coral