Macro with the 150mm + Diopter

Hi Gang,

I went out to the Flower Gardens this weekend to put the finishing touches on my macro setup for my upcoming 3 week Bali trip. I shot

I was very happy with the Sigma 150mm + Canon 500D diopter. It's incredibly sharp. I shot all of these w/ the MkII and the Seacam housing with magnified viewfinder.

Here are a few samples, from 1:2 macro to almost 2:1

1:1 Orange Cup Coral:

Greater that 1:1 Feather Duster - this one is slightly cropped:

1:2 Frogfish:

More photos here:

http://www.reefpix.org/gallery/album122

Cheers

James

Yey! Another froggy on the flower gardens.

Nice stuff James. I am very interested in this lens. Although I don't think I will be able to afford it before I go to Bali! Glad to hear it is sharp. I keep threatening to take my camera to shop to try it for myself - but I am afraid I might come back a lot poorer.

Best advice I can give you about Bali is not to get carried away with the awesome subjects - and try to put together well composed and interesting images - as if these amazing subjects were your normal friends from the Gulf. A lot of people spend their first few trips to Bali and KBR (etc) just shooting ID shots as they are so overwhelmed by all the crazy creatures!

Alex

p.s. Nice cave bass and juv rock beauty in the gallery! Alex

Very nice James...great detail.....nice find on the frogfish....it this the same one from last year?

I really like this shot

How did Sarah do with the 20D?

Karl

Hi Guys,

Thanks! I posted some more thoughts on the Sigma 150 in another thread.

Karl: That baby rock beauty was hell to try to photograph. Talk about trying to shoot a thumbnail sized fish swimming back and forth behind a fire coral about 20 mph! This head-on is a 50% crop so ~ 4 megapixel. Sarah likes this shot the best as well.

RE the frogfish, he was on East Bank, and the one I saw last year was on Stetson, so I think they are different fish. I think they both have the same drab coloration because they were both hanging out on fire coral. Maybe next time I should pick him up and move him onto an orange spongs. JUST KIDDING!

Sarah was sick so didn't get to make this trip, which is a shame because her Ike housing just came back with the 90 degree bulkhead fitting installed.

Alex, thanks for the tips about composing shots. This weekend's trip was a bit of a practice session for me. I shot a lot of x-mas tree worms from odd angles, and a lot of small darting fish.

Cheers

James