Anilao Nudibranchs EM10, 60mm

My first trip to Anilao, or any place in the Coral Triangle for that matter. My main goal was to find lots of Nudibranchs. Here are the results of my efforts:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bmorejojo/albums/72157660744098167

I was able to successfully ID 52 different Nudi species. I'm including flatworms just because I feel like it

Olympus EM10, Oly 60mm macro lens, NA-EM10 Housing, CMC Diopter (most for Shaun the Sheep), 1x YS-D1 strobe. I shot the first day with 2 strobes, but quickly realized I'm more comfortable with just one when shooting macro.

I welcome any comments. 2 resources really helped in the IDs. This site and the Nudibase Facebook group.

This was with Bonnie Pelnar's Photo Workshop group at Crystal Blue resort. One of the main pieces of feedback I got was that my images were too flat, too much like ID photos with uninteresting composition. I tried to keep that in mind, but I also realized I enjoy well done ID images, so...

Samples:

Sweet! Nice job.

Nice shots. I especially like the third one of the flabellina as they are usually entangled in something and hard to isolate visually.

Composition with nudis can be tricky. Shooting down at the reef almost guarantees distracting backgrounds. Often though you can find them in a spot that allows you to get lower and eliminate some of the background. I've also been trying larger apertures to blur the background. Here's two examples from last weekend (also at Anilao) that are not particularly brilliant but show what I am trying:

Thanks for the feedback. I definitely tried to work their suggestions, like shooting head on:

and then also your suggestions, like shooting wide open:

into the shots. I was so excited to finally be seeing all these things. I wish I had even more time. Going to be awhile before my vacation builds up enough to go again.

I like that last one, don't know the species, in fact after more than 10 years of diving Anilao I've not come across it! That's the great thing about this place, the diversity is mind boggling. I still find things for the first time after hundreds of dives here (and still have a few on my "must find" list).

That one is Hypselodoris sp. 23 (from the book Nudibranch & Sea Slug Identification). I'd be in heaven if I could dive Anilao hundreds of times!

We are indeed lucky to be able to go to Anilao any time we like. It's a 2+ hour drive, and we share a house on the beach. The down side is, since we dive so much here, that Management wants variety on vacations so I can't talk her into dive trips anywhere else!