The light was fantastic that morning, though. Strong, dappled, falling all over. With digital cameras, I’ve never had a flower come out so well saturated and so nicely balanced with light that it could justifiably be taken as is. Usually there’s at least a little bit of tweaking to contrast, shadows, and intensity that’s required.
Not this time.
Hibiscus in Morning Light
According to pretty much all of the divers I met on Maui, batfishes don’t technically exist in the Hawaiian waters. Pauline Fiene at Mike Severns Diving led the dive where I took this image, and she commented that it might very well be an “aquarium release” – someone with a salt-water fishtank might have released it into the local waters.
Apparently they started showing up a few years ago (curse my memory, I want to say eight years ago or so?), schooling in relatively non-traveled areas. Non-traveled by tourists, at least. They’re pretty territorial, however, and tend to stay in areas that are familiar to them. This guy had been hanging around in the cabin of the St. Anthony (opens in Flickr, click through for the larger image!). Locals weren’t believing the divemasters, even – at least, not until they saw video footage.
Non-native Hawaiian Batfish
Regarding the photograph itself: I wish, oh I wish… well, I wish I had been a bit smarter. Light was provided by the high power of the dive lights that Pauline carried. Image sharpness is decent, at least for underwater. So how did I manage to clip the tail?
Every photo had minor defects, this being the one with the fewest.
Damn.
Coming up for air
I’ve returned from a much-needed vacation, and will soon start this up again. It’s a remarkable thing, going from Alaska to Hawaii and back. I left the surf and sun for… melty snow, cold nights, and skiing.
After a week of sulking, I think I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. Maybe. I’m still struggling for direction here, but at least I’ve re-discovered the joy of making photographs.
A view from last week
Disappeared last week, on purpose. Some of this was to test the G11, but mostly it was a chance to get away and decompress. Above: one of our views.
You can see things under the sea. See?
Honu (turtle) under the sea
Taken in a little over 60 feet of water (a hair under 20 meters). At this depth reds, oranges and yellows are mostly gone from the light – you’re stuck with mostly blues and greens (unless you introduce your own light). This was taken at a deliberately sunken boat (to make a reef). Turtles like to gather here & hang out on the roof of the boat, where surgeonfish (in the background) pick algae off of them.
For this shot: I’m maybe two feet away, with the camera on wide-angle. He didn’t even twitch – no fear of divers. I ultimately got within 6 inches of the guy, but then left (and left him alone)
To Hawaii. Expect more photos and thoughts soon. In the meantime, enjoy this pic from my first scuba day:
Sunrise and Moonset
Building on the last five posts or so, the next few days will be examples of photographs taken by following my technique (more-or-less). I’ll describe the situation, the settings, and then display a photo for the day.
Today, I start with a picture from last November. We were on vacation in Wailea, Maui. If you know about the area, you know how nice it is. The weather was unnaturally windy, though – rough for that area. It even rained one day! And by wind, I mean “light breeze.”
So here we are, in a beautiful area, but there are clouds. Spotty clouds, mostly sunny. Going down to the beach, I have the sd500 in the waterproof case. ISO is pre-set to 50, white balance to daylight, EV to -1/3. At the beach (same area as the image posted on April 5th), I noticed a rocky area to the south, and some rocks stacked up by (assumedly) the locals.
Stack of rocks, setup by locals (I'm assuming).
A view from the ocean.
The beautiful thing about having the full case and camera package is the lack of fear. Here we have a mid-November afternoon, where I’m standing about 20 ft out. I’m about mid-thigh in the water, with occasional waves up to my waist. I wouldn’t be taking this picture with a DSLR. It’s well over a grand for the case on one of those guys, and walking in this without a waterproof case? Insane.