St Leonards nudibranchs

I never look for nudibranchs these days. Seems I can't resist putting on the fisheye lens every dive.

But that doesn't mean the nudis aren't there, have a close look at the pink sponge in this shot of a pile.

Two tiny Noumea haliclona slugs snuck into the frame without me knowing. Didn't pick them up till weeks after I uploaded the shot to Flickr.

For such an un-assuming little fishing pier St Leonards provides wonderful photo opportunities, both macro and wide angle. 

Probably the best feature is that it's protected from SW winds, so when the ocean is a churning mess of swells this spot is a calm haven.

Video via towed diver

This info is mainly for my own future reference.

I have occasionally needed to record video along underwater transects (that's a scientific term for straight lines running across an area of interest). For transects of 100m or so it's OK to swim it (on scuba), but for longer distances I have been towed behind a boat. A scooter would be the best option but not within the budget.

For the video to be useable towing speeds need to be very slow. Firstly so the diver can hang on and have some depth control and secondly so the image is not moving too fast.

In the past a Panasonic Lumix LX3 has given reasonable results, but this time I tried the Nikon D7000. I wasn't using lights so did a Manual WB measurement off the sand, and that worked well. Max depth was only 4m.

Camera setup was Tokina 10-17mm at 17mm to reduce the fisheye distortion, pointing down and slightly angled forward about 1m off the bottom. 1/50th sec Shutter priority -0.3EV and ISO 400.
Here's an example of the footage captured.

Better results would be achieved with a faster shutter speed (so that single frames would be usable), say 1/125th, slower towing speed, 0EV, more distance to the bottom, say 1.5m, and/or angling the camera 45º forward.


It was interesting to see thousands of Elysia viridis? slugs over the entire area we surveyed.

Dive site aerial photos

Mixing two hobbies, UW photography and Kite Aerial photography, results in aerial photos of dive sites.

On a recent dive to Popes Eye in Jan's boat I decided to sling in the KAP bag just incase the wind was nice. I was a little concerned about disturbing the gannets and kite line tangles. Shouldn't have worried as we were the only boat at the site and the gannets are such good flyers and they tended to come in just skimming the water surface.

I used the Pilot 2m2 parafoil which stuffs into a small bag and the GoPro in its waterproof housing. Wind was just right, light and steady. Next time I'll aim to capture the whole rock circle.

Underwater the blue-throat wrasse were up for some posing and the water was clear enough for some decent shots.

Now my dive site requirements are calm clear water with just enough wind to lift a KAP rig. Unfortunately all subsequent dives have been in perfect diving weather with no wind at all.

3 inch strobe arms

It has recently dawned on me that my strobe arms are way longer than needed, and I have always thought the Ikelite handle posts were too high. It has always been more of a problem getting the strobes in close enough to light close subjects rather than out wide enough.

So with the help of Mr Leung from ebay here is the new strobe arm setup (lower image). Strobe positioning, shooting in tight spaces, carrying, fitting in the wash tub and storage cupboard are all now much easier.

Handle posts are 30mm and anodised red (previously 90mm), arm sections are 3" (previously 8") Apologies for the mixed measurement units.

Here's a shot from the first test dive showing that even with a 10mm fisheye and heaps of muck in the water the strobes could be positioned effectively.

Above and Below with Tokina 10-17 FE

Aha! This is the lens to use for split level shots.

I'm now getting consistently better shots using this technique with the wider fisheye lens and 8" dome.

Results are better on a sunny day but this shot was taken under cloud.