I've been a bit backlogged of late, but I heard some of you wanted a bit more insight on yesterday's dive at "ReefCam Reef".

Ken (of Ken & Lisa) came by for a dive at 2pm yesterday, and joining us were Tomas, a Czech friend of my father's and Rich, another local American.

First thing we noticed when entering was that the water was full of jelly fish. Fortunately, for the most part, these were Spotted Comb Jellies and Venus Girdles (only a few of those), which don't sting (there were a few small siphonophores which do sting however - my thumb smarted from a brush with one of these).

Anyhow, Ken and I participated in the "swap" - he took my video housing with my PC-100 DVCam, and he was gracious enough to let me use his housed Nikon Coolpix 995 so I could play with a digital still camera underwater for a bit (something I hadn't done up to this point). The results of my shooting are at: http://www.bonairediving.com/richter/20020315-ReefCamReef/

After having spent an hour with the digital still camera, I'm still not a believer - the images I captured, once I got the hang of the thing are reasonable (and yes Ellen, they too having been Photoshopped :-) ), but the slow focus is a killer. I do like having the ability to shoot over 100 pictures on a dive though (not that I did - I only shot about 30, I think), as well as being able to see instant results, but I think I'll wait a bit longer. Thanks Ken for giving me the opportunity to play!

Anyhow, in addition to cleaning the ReefCam and seeing gobs of Comb Jellies, we enjoyed a nice dive. Viz was done a bit, but that didn't stop the fish - clouds of chromis were everywhere, along with schools of various types of grunts, snapper, and a surpising number of soldier fish and squirrel fish. We spotted several eels of various types as well, and Ken video'd a midnight parrotfish.

Outside of the comb jellies, the coolest thing I saw were the tangs and doctorfish eating the comb jellies - one of my photos shows this - can't see the comb jelly bits in the water all that well in that image, but look right near the tang's mouth, and then also look for the blob in the lower left corner.

All in all a very nice dive!

Jake

Great Pictures Jake, loved the Tang pic and all the jellys. Thanks for the report!!!

I guess I'm too new at u/w photography Jake, because I think your pics are a LOT better than "reasonable". I especially like your bristle worm pic.

As soon as I get my pics scanned (tomorrow hopefully), I'll show you what my newbie results were with my Reefmaster at the end of Feb.

Thanks for the pictures Jake, some great shots! I'm thinking about upgrading to the digital and have heard the lag-time is a bit of a problem, but there's a lot of pros that I'm considering. I really liked the composition of the Venus Girdle!

Jake, great pictures, but you're still a die-hard. What do you want? Great macro shots without a framer and a bulky camera, you are hard to please. As further proof, here's a link to some above water digital pictures that look as good as scanned 35mm (Link). Very impresive stuff.

Gail, the lag problem can be minimized by pressing the fire button half way so the camera sets the lighting and focus, then press it the rest of the way (after framing) and almost no lag time.

Cecil, some beautiful shots! I'm a macro nut so I'm interested in how close I can get with the digital underwater. Do you have any digital macro shots underwater?

Those were great pictures, Jake, especially the vase and the worm.

I took my first Reefmaster pictures last week, and most of them did not come out well due to problems with framing. I was thinking about switching to digital next year so I can see exactly what I am shooting (ability to take several hundred pictures with microdrive is nice too).

Thanks, guys :-)

And yes, Cecil - I'm spoiled by the housed camera system I used to shoot with (and just sold a few weeks ago - started getting sellers remorse). But, I know if I'm patient and wait another year or two, my ideal digital camera will show up. Once nice thing on Ken's system was that he had an Ikelite strobe which shot TTL, handy while I was shooting manual mode on the camera.

My fire worm and venus girdle shots were not as planned, mind you. With the fire worm I had a nice shot framed but the current which had been slowly building was faster than expected so I got the fireworm shot in passing (I think a non-current shot would have been more in focus all the way through - nice colors though!).

The Venus Girdle was pure serendipity, and I really like the result, no matter how accidental it was (the green is the reflection off the botton - very shallow - I was maybe in 5 feet of water when I took it, with mild surge.

Jake

Gail, I don't but if you do a search for Ellen you'll find many of her awesome pictures many of which are macro shots. Her seahorse shots are to die for. The camera we use focuses down to 4", as does the one Jake was using. I still don't know if this is true underwater (4"), my guess is it's about correct. Next weekend, old story but worth repeating.

Jake,
Loved the pics. Maida & I saw comb jellies on our Feb. 2000 trip and couldn't identify them. Always wondered what they were. Thanks for clearing up the mystery.
Bob

By the way...... there's two of us, Gail's! I'll have to change my profile some how! We ran into a bunch of those jellies in Bimini last year, and didn't know what they were either, but we were able to determine that they were harmless. Thanks for posting and identifying! Gail R.!

Hey Gail Thomas#1...I'll change my profile since I was the last one in. Is the world and Bonaire ready for two of us???? (Gail Thomas #2)

Very nice pics.. love the cute jellies!..

Jake, your photos look great to me! MUCH better than captured video stills, right :-) ? Could it be that you have gotten lazy, Jake, capturing all the action on video and then grabbing stills?? The focus lag doesn't take very long to get used to, although you definitely will miss some shots because of it. Why did you sell your housed camera, Jake? You got some beautiful shots with that setup.

Cecil, my Sony performs terribly for macro shots. I do use the macro mode but most of my shots are closeups as opposed to macro. Maybe (hopefully) your camera will perform better.

Gail, there are add on lenses, macro and wide angle, available for the Olympus and Canon u/w digital camera setups. They are also available for the Sony but only in Japan, last I heard. HERE is an example of a macro shot by Jeff Farris using an INON macro lens with a housed Olympus C 4040Z and some INFO about the setup he used.

Thanks Ellen :-)

I sold the housing and camera bodies because I really want to spend more time doing UW video and digital video editing (of course, I've not been doing much of either), and figured if I let any more dust collect on the 35mm still housing, I'd not be able to sell it at all, considering everyone seems to be moving to digital cameras or if in 35mm stills, moving to housings for the better and newer N90s, N100s, or even F5 cameras from Nikon. I do still have my Nikonos V with a couple of strobes and a bunch of accessories in case the 35mm UW bug bites me again :-)

And yes, I have gotten lazy [blush]

Jake

Jake, thanks for the pics and the report...just the fix I needed as I have a couple more hours of work to do

Here is the correct link for the macro pic...
Spotted Cleaner Shrimp

Great work, once again, Ellen! Thanks for posting this fella...great stuff, really. CArole

Carole, I almost made the same mistake. I think the Shrimp picture is by Jeff Haris. Ellen talks about it above.

Ellen, you've got me worried now about the macro side. I will be seriously depressed if macro doesn't work. The experiments I've done to date all looked good. Here's my world famous Jelly Belly shot (which would have been alot better if the flash was on).



This is one from many that was actually sharp. The rest were blurred from motion, I think (and pray).

the nikon that I have (and the one Jake used)will focus down to 1 inch. The head on a dime more than fills the frame. Of course... if I hadn't handicapped Jake and not forgot to tell him about the macro setting... he would have actually been able to play with the macro capability.

Ellen.. Nice shot.

as soon as I stop being lazy I'll post some more pics. Josie and I saw 2 Octopus (octopi?) last night on her last dive. Got some good shots of him/her.

Ken and Carole, Cecil is right. The beautiful Spotted Cleaner Shrimp photo was taken by Jeff Farris, re: my first post, as an example of a macro shot using an add on lens.

Cecil, I wouldn't worry if I was you...the dpreview review for the P5 says it has relatively good macro abilities as opposed to the P1's poor macro abilities. You also have the AF assist lamp which the P1 does not.

Ken, the review for your camera says "closest macros of any other digital camera" !! Nice!

Jake,

I've not been to Bonaire (coming in September for the first time!) so I'm a bit confused. You are calling this the Reef Cam dive. Are the shots you took close by the Reef Cam? Just over the wall? Can you give us an idea where those shots were taken in relation to the Reef Cam?

Thanks!

Becky,

See http://www.BonaireWebCams.com/FAQ.php for details of where the ReefCam is located.

All the photos I took and posted on my site were taken within about 250' of the ReefCam, most even less than that. About 40' west of the ReefCam is a small wall (hence the Small Wall dive site being there too), rife with life.

I should mention that the ReefCam is about 170' from the edge of my "back yard" too - so those photos were taken on a dive where I simply walked down some stairs from my patio and went in the water. Ah, what a horrible life I have. Tsk

Jake

Nice shrimp pic. I will be bringing down my Olympus 2000 and new housing in August. It was some of those little crinoid shrimp that prompted the purchase, and I am looking forward to the macro setting and possibly even a macro lens before we leave.
That is a great dive by Small Wall. Jake, let me know if you want to trade for a house in NYC for a month. Your dogs seem to like me OK.

Seb,

Next time you need to say hi to us too :-)

Where in NYC do you live? And when are you coming down? We'll be off-island for the first part of August...

Jake