Red focus light and 'night' critters

I was in Bonaire last week and I got to use my new Solas 600 focus light for the first time. The focus light worked great however I noticed on all three night dives that the critters seemed to be as "offended" by the lowest level red light as they were with the lowest level white light.

I was wondering if other people have had similar or different experiences using a red focus light at night.

Thanks.

Link to first cut of photos from the trip: http://www.onewolf.org/Album/2011Bonaire/index.html (Note there are 3 pages of UW photos).

I find that the Red light is great for Echinoderms, Crustaceans and Molluscs(Including Cephalopods) but fish do still react to them, although not

as much as the White light. The Red light is also extremely useful at not attracting clouds of inverts such as Mysid Shrimps.

Cheers,

Jim.

I've had the same basic experience as Jim.

I will add that even though I find the lowest level of both red and white too bright. The red worked like a champ on mandarinfish in Alor recently. I got more good shots of them in 15 minutes then on all of my previous mandarinfish dives.

I did some testing on this recently. The test was simple and carried out at night: I illuminated the subjects with the red light, and then switched onto the white. Fish do seem to recognize the red light, but most do not seem to react too badly to it. This does seem to vary from species to species, maybe this is to do with the light receptors varying in different fish? Inverts seem to not react at all. Again this maybe to do with their eye structures.

What was noticeable was how much bigger the reaction was to white light. All animals had a greater reaction to it. There is no doubt in my mind that the red causes significantly less disturbance than the white.

Adam

Hey, maybe it wasn't your focus light at all?

It may have been Bill and Laura's wet suits????? http://www.onewolf.org/Album/2011Bonaire/s...s/IMG_4047.html

( Nice shots though.)

Andy.

I found with using a borrowed Sola600 that the red light actually brought Grey Nurse sharks in closer. Maybe just for an inquisitive look to see what it was but it was definately noticable. I know people want to use the red LED's for small shy critters but I was surprised by the sharks reaction. On the other hand using the white LED's had the opposite reaction.

I took series of shots with the Sola600 with the Red LED's on:

The Last shot showing the red light on the Trevally.

Regards Mark