Bonaire

Here are a few of my favorite images from my first time out with the Oly 5050. I was using dual S&S strobes, and the PT-015 housing. Still have a lot to learn. These were taken in Bonaire, which is an awesome place for diving, but a pain in the rear to get to from Ohio (flew Columbus, to Atlanta, to Jamaica, to Bonaire on two different airlines). We only did one boat dive to Klein Bonaire with all of the rest being shore dives. Comments welcome.

Chris

I like your composition on the second shot...real nice!

It took me a second look to see the moray in the 3rd shot. Did he go after the fish? I wished you had been down along side them instead of over them shooting down. Shooting down on subjects often flattens the image and gives a less pleasing composition.

I love the 2nd shot.

Sandy

True, above-down is not so aesthetically pleasing, although I get the feeling he was trying to get the action shot of the eel getting a meal. I have some super-closeup shots of undulated moray eels from Hanauma Bay. They are really nice subjects. They aren't aggressive, although they will give you a wide mouth shot to play with. I usually set up level right in front of them and zoom in on the mouth. They are amazingly patient. I should post one sometime. I'm flying back to Hawaii from Japan in a few mins so it isn't possible now, but maybe after I get back.

My action shot of eels usually have a lot of kicked up sand, terrible composition, and a little blur. :-)

Great pictures, I especially like the second one. Did you use a special lens to capture these pictures? Thanks. Jen.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the comments. No special lenses used for these three. They were all taken in macro mode at the longest focal length possible with the Olympus 5050. I do have the Olympus wide angle lens attachment, but only used it a handful of times on this trip.

I agree that head-on shots generally are better, but in the case of the moray I think it makes for an interesting picture. I am still adjusting to swimming around with a larger setup than I am used to (two strobes, three arm segments, wide angle lens, camera), so I am extra conscious to my proximity to the reef. Also, a lot of the topography of the reefs we visited was gently sloping so getting down at eye level seemed to be difficult for me to do safely. I will just have to do a lot more dives to improve!

The fish didn't turn into a meal for the moray. It was probably swimming 12" above the moray and I think the moray was just on breathing mode (during the day) and not hunting. I have never seen so many spotted moray eels in my life. We must have seen 3 or more on each dive, while we only saw 3 green morays for the entire week. On our last trip to the Caymans we saw predominately green morays and only a few spotted. I don't know if it is Bonaire or just chance.

Chris

I know what you mean. I am contemplating getting an Ikelite setup, but am kind of holding back because of the bulk. I freedive(have all the SCUBA gear/license, but don't like to) and ALWAYS take my camera. To go with a huge bulky setup would be quite cumbersome, I fear. For example, yesterday I went out for a little over 3 hours. My arms would get too tired trying that with a full setup. I think I would need to use SCUBA gear just to handle all the equipment. But of course, that would GREATLY limit my water time, which is not acceptable. Ahh, the choices...

--John

Yeah, I don't think much more than a housed camera would work well with freediving. The arms would would probably flop on you each time you came to the surface unless you locked them down tight. I would also expect the drag while diving to be a hindrance.

If you stay in the 20-50ft range you can usually stay under the water for an hour + without much of a problem while scuba diving. In Bonaire, we would scuba dive from the shore for 30 mins - 60 mins, and then if there was something of interest relatively shallow (20-40ft), we would come back in take our gear off and go snorkel around the reef for a little longer (I never took my camera snorkeling).

Chris