Biodives

Another authorative and comprehensive free electronic resource is Coastal Fishes of the Western Indian Ocean. It is written by and for researchers but it is great for serious fish lovers and much more up to date than for instance the standard Red Sea fish ID books. And did I mention it is free 🙂 https://saiab.ac.za/publications/coastal-fishes-of-the-western-indian/

For cardinalfishes the best resource is Cardinalfishes of the World released in 2019 by (Rudie) Kuiter and Kozawa. There is a printed version but you can also download it for free as a PDF. One place to get a copy is via the link below. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335777894_ApogonidaeFishesLRs

Reef Fishes of the East Indies (Allen & Erdmann) has been mentioned before as a 3 volume book set. But you can also get it in digital form as an app for iOS and Android, and for macs with Apple silicon CPU. I use it on a Macbook where it occasionally crashes but is still my favorite travel resource. You can download one of the 3 volumes for free and if you like it, which I expect you will, you can buy the other two for US$18 each. https://www.reeffishesoftheeastindies.com/ If you were thinking to get the actual books then perhaps hold off because the second edition is at the printer. Hundreds more species have been added, some of them described in the appendix of volume 3, names updated and geographic distributions adjusted based on new data. Unfortunately I don't think an electronic version will accompany the books, at least not immediately.

I am another transplant from WetPixel where I've been active since 2005 as 'Glasseye snapper'. I am on a 5 month diving trip and hadn't realized much of the community moved here but look forward to continue what we had going on WetPixel. My dive and photography interest is in documenting and studying coastal fish biodiversity. I took early retirement in 2022 to escape Canadian winters by going on 5 month diving expeditions every year and use the nice Canadian summers to process the data and learn about fishes. Survey data, trip reports, and photography stories get posted at https://biodives.com. My current trip included 7 weeks in the Philippines (Dauin & Moalboal), 8 weeks in Raja Ampat and I am now in Bali (Tulamben). My current setup is a Oly EM1 II in Nauticam housing. My Inon Z330 II died in Raja Ampat and its replacement, a Retra Flash Pro Max, arrived just yesterday. Next year will be time for the big camera+housing upgrade so I will be picking your brains to decide on what to get.