Flowergardens Last Weekend (S2pro)

Hi Folks,

I'm just back from a weekend trip to the Flowergardens on the Spree. The weather was perfect this weekend and I was one of the lucky ones to "seize the day" and get out there! Conditions were VERY challenging for photography with 65-69 degree water, limited viz (50') deep water, and low light.

I was pretty tired when I got back, but I couldn't resist grabbing a few of my favorite shots from the trip to post:

Eye of the Amberjack

S2pro - 60mm lens f22@ 1/125th Strobes TTL

Male Manta

Nikkor 18-35 @ 18mm f8 @1/60th strobes at 1/2 power

Hogfish at 376A Platform

Nikkor 18-35 Strobes at 1/2 power

Dwarf Golden Moray at Stetson

60mm f22 @ 1/125th strobes in TTL

Hogfish at Stetson (one of my favorites)

60mm f22 @ 1/125th strobes at full

When we were listening to the dive briefing at Stetson Bank in the morning yesterday, I spotted a large group of hammerheads on the surface - more than 6 at least. Unfortunately, the surface visability was only 20' and the bottom viz was about 40' Since the hammerheads are so shy - I never saw any of them on either of my dives there. I did see some King Mackerel, Amberjack, and a huge school (>100) of Spanish Mackerel.

I'll let y'all know when I get the full gallery posted.

Cheers

James

As this is the critique section, you mention the conditions challenging yet I do not follow you. Those do not sound that bad. They are definately not the most preferred. Unless you were diving a 3mm wetsuit then, that would be challenging. LOL

Looks like a decent area to dive. I had never thought about that area but there seems to be decent life.

I.D. Police

Are you sure that's a hogfish? Looks a bit wrassey to me - Hogfish have rounded buck-teeth.

Dwarf Garden Eel - Whitemouthed Moray?

Looks like you had a good time with the manta, shame the hammer's were not playing fair.

Not knowing the place would I be correct in thinking it's an old Rig?

Looking forwards to your macro shots.

Hi Bob,

Hogfish (bodianus sp) are similar to wrasses. They swim w/ their pectoral fins, etc. They also have "big chompers" for eating crustaceans, etc.

The small moray is about 3/4" in diameter. It's a dwarf species called "golden" or "goldentail" - don't have the ID book handy to grab the genus and species. The shot is from the closest working distance on the 60mm micro lens.

Bob, the Flowergardens are 2 seamounts that rise from 400' to 65 feet in the Gulf of Mexico. They are the farthest north hermatypic reefs in the world. They also show the most hard coral cover of any reefs in the world at >50%

Todd: Conditions at the Flowergardens are usually 84f with 100 to 150' viz. Since it's deep (ave 70') it's hard to get good wideangle background exposures, expecially w/ low viz and greenish water. It's not as cold as Port Hardy, but it's a different kind of shooting. No mantas or giant Montastraea colonies to try and shoot wideangle there I'd imagine.

How about some critique guys? I think the manta shots would have benefitted a LOT from a darker backgrount to add some contrast to the shots. But then I was swimming my a$$ off to get those shots and couldn't fiddle w/ the camera as much as I'd wanted to.

Cheers

James

Oh, the photo conditions did not lend themself to wideangle. I thought you were complaining about the water temp and vis for diving. Nothing but ice here. My misread sorry. I'm just itching for the weekend. We stop in Houston on our way to Roatan.

No, no mantas in BC or for that part near where I live. But, if you like humpbacks, Orcas, Sea lions, Harbour seals, and Pacific Whitesided dolphins you can keep entertained. Depths generally can be walls of 300 feet. Vis can be great but, Emerald like background for wideangle. Conditions are all relative. I tend to avoid the wideangle and go for CFWA in BC.

As for the eel shot, I agree with your label. I seem to recall there was a on-line area that you could look this stuff up somewhere. Bob may be right on the hogfish but I don't have my book handy.

As for the manta, I am not sure given the conditions, that it could be shot a whole lot differently. You are correct in that the greenish background does not make the wideangle shot as appealing.

The amberjack eye is an appealing composition but may have benefitted from a slight bit more lighting. Only slight but, I always enjoy the eye shots.

ps I have yet to see a Manta in person.

Hi Bob,

 

Hogfish (bodianus sp) are similar to wrasses.  They swim w/ their pectoral fins, etc.  They also have "big chompers" for eating crustaceans, etc.

 

The small moray is about 3/4" in diameter.  It's a dwarf species called "golden" or "goldentail" - don't have the ID book handy to grab the genus and species.  The shot is from the closest working distance on the 60mm micro lens.

 

Bob, the Flowergardens are 2 seamounts that rise from 400' to 65 feet in the Gulf of Mexico.  They are the farthest north hermatypic reefs in the world.  They also show the most hard coral cover of any reefs in the world at >50%

 

Todd:  Conditions at the Flowergardens are usually 84f with 100 to 150' viz.  Since it's deep (ave 70') it's hard to get good wideangle background exposures, expecially w/ low viz and greenish water.  It's not as cold as Port Hardy, but it's a different kind of shooting.  No mantas or giant Montastraea colonies to try and shoot wideangle there I'd imagine.

 

How about some critique guys?  I think the manta shots would have benefitted a LOT from a darker backgrount to add some contrast to the shots.  But then I was swimming my a$$ off to get those shots and couldn't fiddle w/ the camera as much as I'd wanted to.

 

Cheers

James

The moray is a Goldentail Moray (Gymnothorax milaris) - their range is all over the Caribbean, into the gulf, Bahamas, etc. One of the more common Morays in the area, and with the some of the largest variety in shading. I have seen yellow on brown, brown on yellow, splothed, net patterns, etc.

The Hogfish is a Spanish Hogfish (Bodianus rufus) which has a similar range to the Moray. James is correct that they are from the same general family as Wrasses. Spanish Hogfish are one of the few wrasse family fish that do not have distinct juvenile/adult phase shifts. Adults look exactly like juveniles except bigger!

I have seen both these species in Florida, Bahamas, Cozumel, Belize, and a few other places. Nice shots James! Way to hold your S2Pro end up! I always love Manta shots!

Honestly - the Manta could have been shot a little faster - it looks soft on my screen. The other images feel very center orientated - which isn't a bad thing, but could be if the majority of your shots are. Be good to review and see if they are and start changing the composition a little. I like to bring up 30 images on my largest monitor from a couple of dives and see what I am tending to do - and then see if i can change the pattern next dive.

Felt good to get wet though - right?

M

That's a good tip actually. I am sure I too shoot in trends. Thanks for that.

It could be more of a "cropping problem" than a shooting problem. When preparing shots for the web, I tend to crop in pretty tight on the subject - that's a topic for another thread though.

Paul, I was shooting 1/60th to get the wideangle shots due to very low light - I could have switched to ISO200, but didn't have time. I was very close to the manta at the 18mm (28mm corrected) end of the lens, so the softness at the fin tips is probably due to less than adequate DOF.

Thanks for the ID help on those two critters. An excellent online source for ID's is www.fishbase.org.

Another interesting tidbit is that juvenile hogfishes act as a cleaner species. I have photodocumented it at the flowergardens, and in cozumel. In this case, I saw them cleaning large Amberjacks down on the reef.

Cheers and thanks for the kudos Paul,

James

Sounds like you've given yourself your own best critque - fill the frame. With a few exceptions, like the DOF trick Bob cited in another post, you should fill the frame to maximize the resolution of your shots. Otherwise, you'll be losing rez by cropping in photoshop. While difficult, this is a rewarding skill - its great to download your images and know that you captured detail beyond what your eye could resolve!

Hi James. You aren't going to get much sympathy about the diving conditions from the cold water divers in this crowd.

I noticed in the Manta shot that the blue background has discreet bands with jagged borders. Was this in the original? Or is it due to jpeg compression? Or something else?

It's highly compressed Herb. I just do a batch resize and save in Photoshop at a jpeg quality of 6. I also noticed that those lines went away when I changed my screen settings from 16-bit to 322-bit color...:-)

Kasey: I totally agree about filling the frame, and I do it when I can - but it's not always possible w/ palegics. That's why I opted to use the 18-35 on this trip, as opposed to the 14mm prime. I think the 18-35 will probably become my "standard" for shooting palegics. Another thing I worry about is shooting f4 and trying to fill the frame w/ a manta - I just don't have the DOF to get that wingtip close to me in sharp focus. I think you can see how it looks a little fuzzy in that shot.

Do you all have different "workflow" techniques for print and for web? I am MUCH more agressive with cropping when I know my image will be "web-only" There's no reason not to take a 800 x 1200 crop from a 6 megapixel file if it will make a nice web presentation, IMO.

More critique welcome! Had the HUPS meeting last night, so I didn't get to work up the rest of the images yet, but I'm getting there!

Cheers

James

It's highly compressed Herb.  I just do a batch resize and save in Photoshop at a jpeg quality of 6.  I also noticed that those lines went away when I changed my screen settings from 16-bit to 322-bit color...:-)

I hope you mean 32-bit, 322-bit is 2^322 or 8x10^96, that 8 followed by 96 zeros

I'm using a 32-bit display and the lines are clearly visible to me. Now I'm really curious. Can you post one that's less compressed?