D80 Images from Papua New Guinea

I’ve just returned from 2 weeks diving around Loloata Island in Papua New Guinea documenting all the marine species for a new book that will hopefully be released next year.

I was fortunate enough to use the Nikon D80 in the new Ikelite housing and this was my first trip away with a dSLR; it was a rude shock when I weighed my carry on! I thought travelling with the old coolpix was bad.

It took some getting used to using a SLR camera but I am now converted… the Coolpix is now officially being retired. The Ikelite housing for the D80 proved to be excellent and the housing itself (without ports) isn’t to much bigger than my old Coolpix housing. My favourite feature is the TTL system control that is located on the back of the housing. Having full TTL functionality with dual DS125’s and being able to increase/decrease power output with the simple turn of the knob made it so easy to use!

All of the photography for this trip was aimed at species ID shots for the book but I still managed a couple of wide angle type pics – unfortunately the visibility at best was about 15 metres with lots of gunk in the water (so much wind!) so I didn’t get a chance to try out the 12-24mm. I only used the two lenses: the Nikon 60mm (occasionally with +2 filter) and the Sigma 17-70mm macro lens – I loved using the 17-70 as it is so versatile.

A small selection of pics can be seen here:

http://www.daveharasti.com/Loloata/index.html

My personal favs are these:

Leaf Scorpionfish (60mm)

Pai II Wreck (17-70mm)

Pygmy Seahorse (60mm +2)

Cheeklined Maori Wrasse (17-70mm)

Painted Anglerfish (60mm +2)

Lovely stuff Dave, I'll look forward to hearing more about/seeing the book.

Nice to know you are enjoying the 17-70, there are a few getting around now.

cheers

darren

Nice samples, Dave. This confirms my orignal assessment of the camera. Do you happen to have any sunburst shots? I think the D80 should handle those well...

nice, d80 images already....

oh and Dave... change your sig!! haha

Do you happen to have any sunburst shots? I think the D80 should handle those well...

Unfortunately no sunburst shots... I think I was to busy photographing all the critters to look up! I will try to give it a shot when I'm out diving next.

Mike - point taken! Signature is changed!

Thanks for sharing, those are superb macro shots. It looks like the 17-70 is a real winner. I wish my D200 Aquatica housing had TTL, I'm struggling with the manual exposures on my macro shots. Every time the background changes I have to adjust, a big PITA. I actually switched back to using my Fuji S2 as I get more reliable exposures without constantly fiddling.