Our sixth visit to Bonaire was the best.

I enjoyed diving with Debbi and Adam, Ellen, Rogier, Josie, Rick, Benny, and of course, my wife Charlotte.

I am fortunate that Charlotte (a.k.a. Carlotta Mondatta ) also shares my passion for the water. When diving, Charlotte is always watching over me, never far from my side. She's constantly in search of cleaner shrimp and flamingo tongues for me to photograph. Always content just to enjoy the moment, Charlotte has maintained the luxury of keeping her focus on diving simple.

One of Charlotte's highlights this trip was finding a seahorse camouflaged within a patch of soft coral that Debbi, Adam and I had all passed by. Another was conquering the Bonaire shore dive site aptly named "1000 Steps".

BTW, I think actually there's only about 67 steps from the top of the cliff to the shoreline at 1000 steps.
But take a close look at the size of that tank on her back!



f/6.3
1/400 sec
WAL
dual DS 125's with manual controllers and diffusers

Aperture chosen for lens "sharpness". This is not to be confused with focus. Some camera lenses have what's known as a "sweet spot". Typically with point and shoot digicams, a couple of stops wider than the smallest aperture available is where the optics for some reason are at their best. With my c4040, this is somewhere around the f/5-f/6.3 range.

f/6.3 combined with the chosen shutter speed (1/400 sec)captured a background exposure that enhanced the richness of the blue water. A slower shutter speed would have allowed more light to enter the lens, creating a washed out light blue. A faster shutter speed would have captured even less ambient light, turning the background water even darker. f/6.3 at 1/400 sec also allowed me to "freeze" some of the water's surface ripples seen behind Carlottta Mondatta.

imho, CFWA, or Close Focus Wide Angle exposures tend to be easier to control with manual strobe control as opposed to TTL. This is mostly due in part to water's poor reflectance properties. In order to work, TTL relies on strobe beams to reflect back to the camera's sensors in order to know when the appropriate time is to shut down so as not to overexpose the image. If a majority of the the light emitted by the strobe continues to head out towards Klein Bonaire, never to return to the sensor, the result is overexposure wherever the light does reach the intended target (in this case the orange sponges).

btw, in this image incorporating the use of a wide angle lens attached to the outside of my housing, the sponge is less than 1 meter away from the strobes and lens while Charlotte is closer to 4 meters away.

kbob