I just wanted to brag a little - at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale at the end of July, some of my photos from Bonaire did pretty well at the symposium's contest - and that's a compliment to Bonaire as well as to me since by far most of the entries came from Indo-Pacific areas where the life is more diverse and bizarre.

In the Macro category, this picture took first place: This is a peppermint shrimp in a branching vase sponge taken at Margate Bay in 50 fsw

In the Reef Inhabitants category, this picture took first place: This is a juvenile French Angel taken at Margate Bay

In the Reefs at Risk category, this picture took second place: - This one shows a peppermint goby on the white line (caused by necrosis of coral tissue from bacteria) between healthy coral and dead, algae covered coral - taken at 45 fsw at Cliff (Capt Don's Habitat).

Of course there are reduced quality pics.

They look great to me! Congrats!!!!

Come on Dave these are Leslie's right You can't write AND take photos,,,,,,,,these are wonderful and we had better see more of where these came from and soon...PLEASE!!!

Well Freddie, we love you too, but Dave Goodwin, as wonderful as he is, is not related (at least not closely - wait, there was that fling Bill had in Costa Rica back in the 60s...) - Glad you like the photos. We'll be back on-islnd Oct 18th. We'll see what the pixels in our lil' cameras produce that time.

there ya go box wine at its best... sorry Donna and Bill..!!! can you see me blushing?? I knew that Dave could not possibly be a great photographer AND a great writer as well.. there was a catch!!! these photos are quality!!!! the first one is fabulous and I would like a copy of this one for my walls..fabulous absolutely fabulous .... thank you!!! so do you have MORE to share??? winners or not, let us be the judges..ok let me put down the wine glass!!

Bill the photo with the peppermint shrimp is one of the best photos I've seen, period. It will be a very happy day for me when I am able to shot a photo half as decent as that one.

I can only imagine what the full rez photos would look like.

I would love to learn more about the setup (camera, lense) and, most important, the light configuration. Do you have some time to share the info?

(Message edited by lgreco on September 11, 2008)

Bill, really great pictures..must have had some La. Tech inspiration from Donna

Very nice - congratulations

Way to go Bill! Very good Flick's... Ron

Gorgeous - just gorgeous. Now hand over the wine Freddie and no one will get hurt.

Wow - thanks for the kind words. It's so nice to be appreciated.

For Leo and others wishing to know the procedural details (btw Leo, I was looking at your profile and the link to your photos didn't work for me - maybe it's my Firefox, of maybe it's yours :-p

Camera - a 10 meg p&s (Sony DSC N2), macro function, stock Sony case - but here's where it gets fun: we mostly shoot movies so we've rigged it up with a flexible arm attaching the Underwater Kinetics Light Cannon (w/ diffuser), a super bright HID lamp. Fot this shot, the arm was twisted to bring the light beam across the line of sight of the camera at a point about 6 inches in front of the lens. Now, the sponges with the shrimp open upwards, so you need to come from above, you buoyancy and trim perfected for hanging head down without sinking or floating up (almost impossible if there's a current) - then you exercise your patience, hold your breath (I know, I know), wait for the lil' bugger to hold still at the right distance, cover the internal flash with a finger (or not, depending on the effect you're after), and shoot away.

So here's another couple of shrimp shots:

First one - I call it "a ghost of her former self" - is a recently molted peppermint shrimp standing beside its cast-off exoskeleton

Second one - a moody face-on of a p.s.

Two p.s. in a branching vase sponge - unusual in my limited experience with shrimp in sponges...

Bill, thanks for the tech info. Wow, all that with a p&s!? How in the world do you control depth of field in a p&s? Or does the macro setting take care of the depth?

I consider myself an accomplished photographer, above water. This year I tried underwater photography for the first time. Rented a p&s with a flash on an articulated arm, from Fish Eye Photo and off I went for a few dives. I deleted 60% of the photos I took and I did not attempt any macro except for one. As beginners luck would have it, the result was decent:


I learned that underwater photography has nothing to do with land photography, except perhaps the fact that both use cameras. You need to train your eye in a different environment where technically you exist as a disabled body, learn to focus and frame while floating around the subject, create a light plan on a moment's notice, control your breathing, and master your fear (the eel's teeth look so sharp!).

Seemed fun enough for me to make sure that I'll have my own uw camera when we return to Bonaire in a few months!

(PS: I don't have a link to my photos on my profile; the only link there is a link to my professional website. Some of my photos, however, are listed on Picasa.)

Leo,
The way to control Depth of Field with any camera is via aperture. Smaller apertures, (larger f-stop number) produce larger depth of field, just like on land.
If the camera does not allow you to set the f-stop, like in Aperture priority or Manual modes, then you are at the mercy of the camera's brain.

The bad part about that is that cameraa are programmed to think they are shooting in air, not water. Some "unverwater" modes on P&S cameras do a decent job, but without manual control, I was continually frustrated in my efforts.

T-shirt, thanks but I knew that. My question was meant to express surprise at DOF control with a P&S camera. I shoot macro with dSLRs but the lenses I use close all the way down to f/22 or even f/32. Most p&s cameras I've seen have a meazley aperture range that rarely closes beyond f/8, thus my amazement at the DOF management in Bill's photos.

Are there p&s cameras with really decent f/stop range?

The choice to go with a good quality P&S was a conscious decision. Having shot with several different SLRs over the past 40 years since I seriously got into photography, I was aware of what I was losing by going with a point and shoot - a lot. But I gain the ability to "shoot from the hip" and move with a high degree of freedom coupled with the really quite good pictures I can get from a 10 meg camera (even with its measely controls and tiny lenses - although I do carry Inon wide angle and c/u wet lenses on a caddy - starting to get to 18 wheeler size!). These considerations balanced out the deficits for me, especially for movies.

I've caught a number of critters on pixels that my friend with his "18 wheeler" (as I facetiously call the big rigs) missed, but then again the stills he gets are generally superior in technical merit than mine. It's a trade-off, and all the more attractive if you don't want to be saddled with all the stuff (a nod to George Carlin) while cruising the reef.

You would be surprised at how many cover and inside magazine shots come from P&S cameras!

thank you--your photos are beautiful!

Oh, and I've added an arsenal of 4 and now 8 gig micro cards to handle all the stills and movies from a day of diving - then I immediately download them into a portable hard drive back at the camp. All batteries are rechgs of course to prevent all that toxic stuff going into Bonaire's landfills.

Bill,

What I find amazing in your pictures is the lighting. I would have to believe that you are using a single strobe, but I really don't see how you are getting the lighting that you are with a single strobe...

Keep up the good work!

TED

Leo, the other factor that many forget is that the negative or sensor size also impacts Depth of Field. Because digital sensors are smaller than 35mm they give you a larger depth of field. I don't completely understand why, but a very detailed explanation is available:
http://www.wrotniak.net/photo/tech/dof.html#FIG1

If you have done any medium or large format photography you might remember that they have even smaller DOF on their images.

Very nice Bill, thanks for posting.

Gord that was a nice little article. Still, I am amazed. Even with a smaller form-factor than the standard 135 film, DOF flattens out for small distances. Bill is shooting from 6 inches! At that distance even your breathing affects the focal distance. It requires extraordinary concentration and buoyancy control to shoot under these conditions.

Bill, hats off once more.

And I am with you on the 18-wheelers: I am not taking a dSLR down. A nice Sea&Sea with a strobe on an arm would be quite sufficient. Add a large memory card to accommodate RAWs and I'll be ready to go. Now if I could only stay still for 10 seconds, at 6 inches away from a translucent shrimpy...

mmmmmmm sea&sea??????????

Wow! Great shots of those peppermints.Looks like you moved in with them.

Leo - Cool that you caught the breathing factor. As a matter of fact, that's partially how I focus those shots. Find a sponge with a cooperative shrimp, set up light angle, prefocus (button 1/2 way down) on anticipated distance, then get vertical over the sponge, sloooowly maneuver into position (touch the sponge by accident, even a little touch, and the shrimp is gone!), then descend or ascend an inch at a time by exhaling or inhaling a bit ... maybe you get the shot, maybe you don't. It's my secret how many are keepers and how many get the DEL button (roughly 1:6 I think).

The shrimp in the sponge thing has become my one-trick pony - time to find some other unexploited visual niche now that they've won a third place (OWU 2007 - camera and printer), 2nd place (OWU 2008 - trip to the Red Sea), and first place (2008 Int Coral Reef Symposium - trip on Peter Hughes liveaboard). Those little shrimp have been worth about $4,000 to me, but it's time to move on to something else...