Philippines Scuba Photos

[Rusty Heap]

Thought I'd share a few of my scuba dive adventures in the Underwater Philippines.

The micro scale of some of these critters, is what makes challenging super close up photography. Spot on narrow focus is everything. The black/white shrimp is the size of the Question Mark on your computer Keyboard. The Spiny Ornate pipe fish are mindblowing in texture. The Cuttlefish actively rapidly strobed his ink around and changed his skin color. For most these pics, just think tiny, then 1/2 that size again so then go tiny tiny, other than the 5 foot long sea snake (VERY COOL), everything else in these photos is less than 1-3" long, for reference, that is very fine grain of sands in many of the photo backgrounds.

No photoshop of even brightness or color adjusts on these, only a small crop to trim size. Mass Photoshop and extensive post-processing is for cheaters (grins - some divers rely too much on that, in my humble opinion.)

If one word sums up Philippine Diving, it is Diversity. Sooooooooooo many things that I've never seen before, from Hawaii/Fiji/Caribbean diving.....typically 1-2 new critters popped out on each dive site. I got in 38 dives in 2 weeks of diving. The Sea Snake was awesome, other stuff you stare at through a magnifying glass and say "what the heck is that little orange lump?. The Mantis Shrimp was a major major highlight for me....

Enjoy the pics, and Happy Bubbles to all present and future divers. I appologize in advance for any critter mis-identification or spelling.



TRIPLE Ornate Pipe Fish - awesome shot, rare to see them bunched up this close, and it's one of my favorite shots:




3/8-1/2" long black/white Crichnoid Shrimp




Cuttlefish was in Disco Mode with ink patterns strobing through his body.




Pretty Rare Green Ornate Pipe Fish. Only one we saw in 3 weeks of diving.




Psychodelic Manderin Fish, they come out at Dusk to mate wiggle wiggle rub rub squirt! ARGGGGG if it would of only been in razor sharp focus! I hated focus and shutter delay on the Manderin Dusk dive and physically "middle finger flipped-off" my camera numerous times! Time for a new faster focus camera with no shutter delay!!!




Banded Sea Snake, followed him along the bottom for a couple minutes while he was hunting, then he went to the surface to breathe.......I had one shot to get this photo, and I nailed it perfect. Thank you dive gods for the fish-eye wide angle lens, the snake was only about a foot in front of me!





Nudibranch, mindblowing stunning colors! Photoshop is for cheaters!




Another of my top favorite 3 shots, my first free roaming Mantis Shrimp. Stunning Powerful Clubbing front claws. Only saw this one fully out in the open during a zen-moment solo morning dive of just me and the shrimp.




Think Teenier and Tiny Tinyier!!! maybe only 1/4" - 3/8" long body, in 1/2" diameter bubble coral polyps. (crap, polyp isn't the right word, what is the swollen portion of a bubble coral called? not an arm, a bulby thing?........grins)





Another Ornate Pipe Fish, youngster with a wine bottle neck/openning for scale...fine fine sand...........cute little fishie wishie.






BTW, these shot were taken with a cheap 8-9 year old point-n-shoot 8 meg-pixel Olympus camera (SP-350) and wet-mount INON macro lens and Ikelight DS-125 strobe. Nothing fancy or expensive here at all. It's not the equipment or camera, but the person behind the lens that makes the magic happen.


Hope you enjoyed the virtual dive, Thank you to the Philippine areas of Cebu, Dauin, and Apo Island for showing me a very diverse macro and mind blowing muk diving world.

Diver Dave

[masraum]

Very cool. Those macro shots are hard enough to do standing, kneeling, laying in your back yard, much less under water. Fantastic job!

I assume this guy "3/8-1/2" long black/white Crichnoid Shrimp" was on a starfish/sea star of some sort?

[bivenator]

Diver Dave, thanks for sharing. Those are beautiful. Hard enough to take a picture of that quality on land much less underwasser.

[ODDJOB UNO]

stunning pics from another unta-wata pikker taker. outstanding.

[12own911]

Can I borrow your camera? I am going on the Disney cruise this weekend and would love a good underwater camera for my snorkling and best bud dives. Pretty please.

[LeeH]

Going to Belize in December - any recommendations on really cheap underwater cameras for snorkeling?

[livi]

Brilliant pics!

[pwd72s]

wow...thanks

[billybek]

Before we went to Grand Cayman this summer we picked up a new compact Lumix waterproof camera that functioned very well underwater and had many preset features.
The only down side is that I found myself guessing at what I was shooting at underwater as the glare didn't allow you to see the view screen.
Nice photos, Diver Dave!
How is the body holding up since the accident?

[Baz]

Wow Dave.....not only really nice shots, especially with the equipment you were using, but it was nice to have your descriptions of what we were looking at. NICE WORK! And thanks for sharing.

FYI, I vacationed in Tahiti in 2003 - (stayed on Moorea) - and took a couple of those disposable underwater film cameras and got some shots like these while on our "Motu Picnic"...







I've since bought a cheap underwater housing and digital camera set but haven't tried it - but your post has provided inspiration to pull it out and try it so thanks for that as well!

[motion]

Wow! Beautiful!

[ODDJOB UNO]

remember all you jr. dolphins and dolphin-ettes......................


the best time for unta-wata pics is from 10am-2pm due to lighting.


also change yer batteries after EVERY DIVE including yer strobe(s) if using them.


a camera(any),strobe, was never designed to go unta-wata. oh sure you can drop a wad of cash on the baddest azz camera rig and not believe me.


well you WILL BELIEVE ME IN FREEKING SPADES when ya finally FLOOD IT!



and YOU WILL FLOOD THEM! ask me how i know!



just getting (1) pic to turn out decent is a FEAT IN OF ITSELF!



you aint been diving long until ya flood a camera or strobe.



and thats why ya buy.............................3 of them and bring 3 of them and spend hours and hours cleaning every damn sand particle and salt crystal off of them so they DONT FLOOD!



yeah.................unta wata cameras.....................their FUN!



ask my amigo at southern nikonos repair how many flood.

[Rusty Heap]

Thanks all for the comments....

As a scuba instructor, I get questions like "what camera should I buy" often...........and I answer "do you want to be a picture taker, or a photographer?"

Picture takers leave their camera's in auto mode, maybe use the "underwater" pre-program setting mode, and sometimes can get a fairly decent shot but most often blurry washed out. When you think you're close, get twice as close and reduce the water column between you and your subject.

My biggest gripe, is that people want to take good pictures, while being a crappy-diver.........such as holding onto the reef coral with a gloved gorillia grip, having poor buoyancy skills, banging into the reef with fins, or worse of worse is becoming a combat diver throwing elbows to hog the subject to themselves, while 4-5 other divers behind them patiently try to wait their turn.

Diver photo polite manners = come in slow to your subject, take your 3-5 shots, then peel off and let the next person in line grab some shots. WAYYYYYY too often divers say "man what are you talking about, I never touched the reef, I swam in fast, got out fast"......and in the mean time, poor little sea-horse got hammered by water current from you back paddling with your hands/arms, or the viz got silted out by your fins hammering the reef as you're laying on it...........oh I could go on and on, and am self-admitted guilty as charged of most all above offenses, but many people don't even know they're doing these things, until you point it out to them........sigh.

Underwater Camera work is all in technique. get low and shoot up if you can, shooting straight down makes for a 2 dimensional shot, shooting upward with a slow shutter speed 1/60th-1/100th gives a deep blue background, Fast shutter speed provides black background and more contrast with the subject. I shoot 99% in manual mode, setting shutter speeds / f-stop and sometime manual white balance. Example the post above Shark and Ray photos, a simple $20 Red Filter and manual white balance would have brought out all the true colors instead of being washed out blurred baby blue. YOU DON"T NEED STROBES to fill in wide angle deep depth of field photos!

Couple of suggested readings / products:


WEALTH of good tip info here:

Underwater Photographer Stephen Frink - Underwater Photography Tips and Tricks

Guide to Underwater Photography | Underwater Photography Guide


For Compact Camera's, these filters do truly work magic: (but nothing replaces a good strobe and getting close and closer to your subject.)

M A G I C - F I L T E R S


New point and shoot camera are out in the $200 range that are sealed/water-tight to 15-30 feet, but I'd suggest getting a good land based camera, (Canon G10-G12, Nikon Coolpix, Olympus Tough series, or the PEN line) put in a good U/W housing instead. The OEM factories make "decent" housings, but to grow your photo equipment Ikelite or other aftermarket companies sell much better stronger housings so you can grow and expand as your skills progress.

Learn the camera, become a photographer not picture taker, and there is soooooo much more functions to your cameras than auto-mode and pre-programmed U/W settings. Above All, HAVE FUN, don't destroy the marine life, MAKE good photos don't "take" them,

cheers to all. More photos to come soon. Please post some of your own too! Everyone is always learning. My work is 1/10th of what some people produce, but $10-20,000 full on DSLR's with twin strobes aren't my style for bulk, cost, travel weight, and complexity underwater.....

[ODDJOB UNO]

nikonos IV

nikonos V w/strobes


digital w/twin strobes




hands down the easiest(WTF was i thinking?) is the nikonos V w/strobes. that is once you have read 16 zillion pages of instructions, and flooded it a few times, and having bob warkington of southern nikonos repair as a friend.


another tip if getting into pikker taking, is to find a "camera friendly" boat. 99.8% of divers havent a clue about diving(flatlanders) and even have less of a clue of what a GIANT PITA it is for a diver using (1) or (2) cameras getting organized on a boat.


thats why we like small boats(no cattle boats), camera friendly, less people.



i have been diving for 35 freeking years, and taking pics for quite awhile, if you want yer cameras/strobes beat on,sat on,stepped on,feeked with, bumped into while changing batteries................get on a boat with alot of people and find out 1st hand how expensive that dive was as you pick up the pieces of yer gear or forget a o-ring and flood the camera.


if it can GO BAD, it will with a camera.



always carry spare lube for o-rings, always carry spare o-rings, always carry scads of batteries in yer gear bag.



and always USE the camera lanyard at all times.



getting sucked in and thru the kona lava tubes due to swells, i was amazed my camera/strobe survived and i came out with any pics at all.


night diving IS REAL FUN WITH A CAMERA!