Red Sea November 08

I haven't posted anything on here for a while, so I thought I'd share some photos from my time in the Red Sea recently. I actually did two liveaboard trips, the first running a photo workshop in southern Egypt (you may have seen some of the photos from this in my Wetpixel D700 review), then a classic north Egypt itinerary of mainly wrecks, with a few reefs. As the trips were just 10 days apart I have combined them into a single gallery.

I shot the first trip with the D700 in Subal housing and second trip with D2X in Subal housing. The gallery intro page is here.

Below are a few of my favourites:

Red Sea anemonefish, St Johns. D700 + 16mm FE + 1.5x TC.

Hawksbill, Ras Mohammed. D2X + 17-70mm.

Forward hold of Chrisoula K. D2X + 10-17mm. Lee 21 filter.

Motorbike in Thistlegorm. D2X + 10-17mm.

Oh, have to go. Will post some more later.

Alex

That first one is beautiful Alex.

A couple of the bigger creatures. I had such a poor encounter with the oceanic that I amazed by this image. One close pass and managed to get something reasonable. D700 + 16mm +1.5xTC:

Dolphins on Giannis D. D2X + 10-17mm:

And this is a photo Ele took of me taking the shot above:

And a couple more of the wrecks. Kingston, D2X + 10-17mm:

Chrisoula K. D2X + 10-17mm. Lee 21 filter:

Alex

Really nice mix Alex. I've got to plan ahead for a Red Sea trip sometime..

Love the Whitetip and dolphins! Kudos to Ele too. Looks like she's been taking lessons. The two shots together are really nice. Alex that shot of the Anemone fish is extraordinary. Better save that one for the cover of the next book.

Cheers,

Steve

Very nice Alex. I'm with Steve in that the Anemone shot seems to be amazing. The colours are great. The first wreck shot is also very very good. I love looking at yoiur shots and am off to your website right now to get another dose.

Also good to see you got your Oceanic shot

All the best, Stew

7 weeks and counting and hopefully I will be chasing whalesharks

Yes, Alex, excellent! Nice model too!

Alex, do you find the 16mm/1.5TC on the d700 similar to shooting with the 10.5mm/1.5TC on the d300 or D2X? What is the working distance like? I don't know if I've ever seen you post a thread on this, and if you have please let me know.

Fantastic! Best, Carol

Impressive shots Alex - I love the anemone fish, but I also love how clean the Forward hold of Chrisoula turned out for you. Very nice

thanks for posting Alex

the 1st photo is amazing. which strobes did you use, with or without diffusers, and did you do any color adjustments in the post-processing?

thanks,

Scott

The red anenome photo is stunning. I'd love to learn the teleconverter/close focus wideangle technique. Having that touch of blue water, makes the drama of the shot for me.

Love the dolphin shots.

Going beyond your reviews, how did you like shooting your D2X after shooting with the D700?

Thanks for the shots.

the 1st photo is amazing. which strobes did you use, with or without diffusers, and did you do any color adjustments in the post-processing?

I am really glad that the anemonefish image is getting such a strong response. The image is pretty much straight as shot. Lit with a pair of Subtronic Alphas (undiffused, but with a good quality of light), with WB set on camera to 4300K to match them (curiously this comes out at 4200K in Lightroom). I think I only took out a speck of backscatter.

Here is a screen grab of the RAW file in Lightroom, as you can see this is how it looked as shot:

I have no problem with fixing images up in Photoshop and the following is a general comment and not one directed at your comment Scott. I think that there is a part in all of us that when we see an stunning image we like to say "must be Photoshop". The problem with this thinking is that it holds your photography back, thinking things can't be perfected in camera. I know that Eric does a talk comparing his RAW files and finished files - where most are near identical!

Alex

Love the dolphin shots.

 

Going beyond your reviews, how did you like shooting your D2X after shooting with the D700?

 

Thanks for the shots.

Interesting question, actually.

The D2X housing has a much better balance in the water. The buoyancy/trim of tall housings is noticeable nicer than small housings, even with buoyancy arms. Perhaps buoyancy on the arms never quite makes up for have a neutral housing in the middle of the system.

The D3/D700 AF is noticeably a bit sharper/faster, although much prefer the AF point layout in D2X. Disappointed that Nikon have not fixed this for the D3X. To me the 51 point better than 11 point is driven by the same marketing men as drive the megapixel wars in compacts.

The D2X screen is starting to look like a postage stamp after the wide-screen-o-rama of the D3/D700!

The final images from the D2X seem as sharp, detailed and colourful. I just think that the D700/D3 show more dynamic range. Hard to quantify, but I think it is there. 14 vs 12 bit, perhaps?

Curiously the darkest place I shot on both trips was the holds on the Thistlegorm. And typically had the D2X - fixed to ISO 100! But given the types of shots it is easy to shoot long exposures in there, so I didn't miss high ISO in the results (although it would have made them easier to shoot, I guess):

D2X + 10-17mm. 1/5 sec. ISO 100.

I also got many more better pictures with the week with the D2X. I think that this is main being able to concentrate on the photography (I had the D700 during a workshop) and partly to do with being used to the camera.

Alex

alex, thanks for the reply

>> Lit with a pair of Subtronic Alphas (undiffused, but with a good quality of light)

Interesting, my first thought was that your strobes might be a different color temp than mine, my S&S strobes white balance at 5500K, and my colors look slightly different. I didn't think anything was done in photoshop, but I just wanted to rule it out.

when do say "with a good quality of light", are you saying you thing the subtronics naturally put out a better quality of light than other strobes?

Hi Scott,

Yep, my Subtronics are very warm 4300K. Actually I think that 4800-5000K is ideal. Being too warm can cause problems at times. Ikelites, newer Subtronics, Hartenbergers are about this.

Most of the Japanese strobes (Sea and Sea, Inon) tend to be colder. 5500K. But of course you can add filters to them to warm them up. I recommend the Lee 444 lighting gel. Have a look at this article:

http://www.amustard.com/?page=pro&ext=...news&size=s

For me, the best "off the shelf" underwater light comes from strobes with ring shaped flash tubes, with a nice reflector behind: e.g. Subtronic, Seacam, Hartenberger and Ikelite 200, 160, 125.

All that said, my Subtronics are very unreliable. And a pain to get fixed, despite me not living far from Germany. For this particular shot i spent some time adjusting my strobes to get the quality of light I wanted, where I wanted. The hardest aspect of any very close focus image is getting the lighting quality correct.

Alex

Stunning and beautiful images Alex....The anemone fish being a favourite BUT i love all the other pictures. Especially the motorbike wreck with the model posing and the blue water on the right hand side is also one of my favourites. Love the shot of the dolphins-wreck and model. A great learning experince for me. Thanks for posting and sharing.

Cheers,,

Diggy

As a contrarian, can I say that the image from the Chrisoula K is my favourite? It has great composition and lovely contrast, a perfect monochromatic image.

I find the anemone & fish bit over-saturated for my taste (not that I haven't contributed my fair share of brightly-coloured images to wetpixel).

Tim

PS: this is posting as a displacement activity - I have scored a clean sweep: NO patients have arrived in my clinic this afternoon! I could have gone to play with my new lens in a pond somewhere...

Alex,

I see you use the 16mm with the TC, and I know you also have the 15mm Sigma. I'm toying with getting the Sigma because of the closer focus, now that the 10-17 is getting a rest. Any thoughts on the 15 vs the 16 with the TC?

Here in an excert from my D700 review:

Most subjects here, lend themselves to fisheye photography and having dismissed the Nikon 16mm as less desirably to the more modern Sigma 15mm in my D3 review, I decided to put my views to the test by taking the Nikkor to the Red Sea. In reality, under most shooting situations, there is little to chose between them. Both are sharp and work very well behind Subal’s FE2 dome. I feel that the Nikon resists internal dome reflections better, while the Sigma is marginally sharper a focuses noticeably closer. On one occasion when I was shooting an attractive red anemone with the 16mm + teleconverter, I was frustrated to run against the minimum focus. I was pleased with those shots, nonetheless, but felt there was a possibility for something different if I had been able to get closer still. I was already very close.

If you already own one then buying the other is not the most sensible use of money. I know Peter R made a batch of rear dioptres for the 16mm which enable it to focus closer.

If you are starting from scratch get the Sigma. I got mine secondhand from the classifieds here on Wetpixel.

If you are going to a lot of very close focus stuff then the Sigma might be more attractive. However if you are going to shoot into the sun a lot then maybe the Nikon is better. If you take the rear filter off the Nikon 16mm it focuses slightly closer.

On my last Red Sea trip I had the Tok 10-17mm on the D2X. So much better!

Alex

Astonishing images all of them! Particularly I like the turtle... Haven't seen a picture of an "angry" turtle before, but this one has a "I'll bite you'r head off" face.

Really neat!!! Thank You Alex for sharing these!

Cheers, Scubamoose