Wide Angle Underwater Photography for Beginners.

Getting good color on a wide angle shot underwater is a real challenge.   But getting good color on anything larger than rockfish requires that you go wide angle.  Only wide angle allows you to close your shooting distance down to a foot or less and still get the whole diver, shark or sea lion in the frame.  Here's a few pointers that might be able to help you if you're wondering how to do this.  (I wish someone had written all this before me, it would've saved me some $$$).

Most point and shoot camera housings simply don't have the ability to do wide angle shots due to the limited zoom range of the camera itself and the flat port designs that they're housed in make things even worse, due to the refractive properties of a flat glass window.

If you have such a setup, you can try a 'wet lens' from Inon or comparable.  Typically these are big glass lenses that screw onto the front of the housing through a clamp-on attachment.  My experience is that these setups are rather inconvenient as they require you to mount the lens underwater, not always very easy especially if you're using gloves.

If you have a better point and shoot like a Canon G15 and have one of the Ikelite housings there are domed ports that pop onto the front of existing camera housing.  But still you have to switch these around underwater.

The options for DSLR users is 'easier' to deal with, with the obvious fact that you can't switch setups underwater.  So with DSLRs, you 'dive the lens'.

If you use a cropped format (e.g. Nikon DX) type cameras there is an excellent Wide Angle fisheye lens by Tokina in the 10-17mm range.  You can focus down to an inch, allowing for stunning shots like this one.



For full-frame cameras you'll find that the Sigma 15mm fisheye works quite well.  It will focus nearly as close as the Tokina.  Here's an example.




Unlike a flat port, the camera lens has to focus onto the inside of a dome port.  So your lens might have to have a closeup diopter threaded onto its front to make it focus clearly from edge to edge.  Neither of the above lenses have that issue.  However, you'll find even these lenses benefit from being used with a wider 8 inch dome port rather than the standard 6 inch.  This means that there's less curvature on the inside of the port, making edge focus easier.  Wide angle SLR shooting is not for the faint of heart!

You may be thinking that you don't want a fisheye lens because of the distortion of straight lines and such.  This isn't usually a problem underwater, as there aren't as many straight lines.  However there's another option you can use.  There's a Photoshop plugin filter by ImageTrends that will straighten out fisheye curvature at the click of a button.

Here's an example of an unprocessed fisheye image.  Notice how the piers curve away.



Here's the same image process through the ImageTrends plugin.



Quite a difference.  Wedding photographers sometimes use a fisheye to capture the interior of a large church area, then use this plugin to straighten out the walls and such.   This program seems to work fairly consistently in my use, so I typically always run a fisheye photo through this filter to see if it looks better.  Most of the time it does.



Hope this helps!

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 II Review

There are a number of things that I love about this camera. First is the small size, there's certain activities I want to photograph when a small point and shoot form is the best. I also find the new tilt screen to be very handy for low or high angle shots. The images produced are super sharp, some vignetting is visible but its easily correctable in software. The overall color production is very pleasing as well, producing neutral colors that serve me well. The option for showing a level guide in the display is cool too. 

There are of course a few things that bug me. The most glaring is the power on/off button. You can quickly turn the camera on, but to get it to power down you have to carefully press down perfectly vertically. So about ¾ of the time it doesn't work for my stubby fingers. As I tend to use this camera while engaging in active shooting situations this is a bigger pain for me than for most folks. This 'feature' is helpful I'm sure for those times when you mistake the power off button for the shutter (potentially turning off the camera when you thought you were using the shutter button).

Another small complaint is in regards to the on-screen graphics that 'explain' each mode selected when you turn the shooting mode dial. They can be easily turned off by slightly depressing the shutter, but after awhile even that is annoying. (perhaps this 'feature' can be shut off and I haven't figured it out yet.)

The screen is easy to scratch up, so be careful. Given the rest of the camera is so robust it's a bit of a surprise that some tougher material isn't used. I may invest in one of those stick-on screen protectors that people get for the cell phones and things soon.

Although its not Sony's fault its probably worth mentioning that if you use Adobe Lightroom 4 you're out of luck in using this camera in RAW mode. I was able to update my Photoshop CS5 ACR to accommodate the camera, but there was no upgrade available for LR4. I then downloaded Lightroom 5 and it worked fine. No big deal, but I do hate getting a new camera then find myself having to shell out more bucks for software upgrades because older versions are no longer supported.

The number one question people would likely have about this camera is whether you can use it to replace your DSLR. No, but if I have to forgo the weight, size and intimidation factor of a DSLR this camera is a great choice.

Here's some sample photos below.

Looking for Whale Sharks in Belize

I’ve just returned from a week-long trip to Placencia Belize, so just thought I’d write a bit about it for everyone. 

I was with a group of 12 divers organized through Olympia Underwater Sports to go to look for Whale Sharks off of Gladden Spit.   For the past 10 years or so divers have been able to routinely encounter whale sharks during the full moons of Spring…. March, April, May and June.  The Whale Sharks come to Gladden Spit to feed on the gametes released by thousands of spawning snapper.  There’s a cool video on this annual event here  http://vimeo.com/5768699

So, during the full moon of the last week of April we flew down to Belize and then on to Placencia, the town located closest to the spawning site. 

Only problem was, there were no whale sharks to be found.  We’d arranged for three days of whale shark diving.  We shorted that to 1 and a half days, but it was pretty much just a swim in open blue water with nothing to see except for an occasional

jelly drifting by.

The dive master gave us a dive plan of finding the schools of snapper, then getting into a tight circle with our arms linked.  The idea was that if we got close together, the sharks would think we were a school of breeding snapper and our bubbles would look like a mass of eggs floating up in the water.  In theory, the sharks head for the bubbles overhead and give the divers a close-up view as the whale shark heads right for us and over the top of us. 

In the end we did three ‘whale shark dives’ and saw the schooling snapper on one of the three, but no whale sharks.   I was needless to say a bit frustrated.  No dive group had ever seen a whale shark the entire season.  Word around town was that last year no whale sharks were seen by anyone until the June full moon. 

Our dive-master James said that he’d never failed to see a whale shark during the April Full Moon cycle and was quite visibly disappointed when we cancelled three of our whale shark trips to reef dives.   

James did however say that he’s observed changes in the snapper over his ten years of leading dives at this location.  When he first started, the snapper were close to the surface and you just swam out among them.  Now, the Snapper are spawning at 80 feet, due most likely to the regular presence of divers.  There are severe restrictions over how many boats (6) can be in the spawning area and how many divers each boat can have (12).    Still, that may be too many, someday I suspect that diving will not be allowed at this location in the near future.  This is the last place in the world where one is allowed to dive rather than snorkel in the presence of the Whale Sharks.  I wonder if the fish are simply going even deeper and this is changing the whale shark feeding patterns. 

Still, even without the Whale Sharks we had a good time.  The dive operation ‘Splash’ is first rate, with some of the best dive-masters I’ve had.  The only negative is the fact that the dive sites are all located at least 90 minutes from Placencia by boat.  There’s other places in Belize where dozens of great sites can be visited with a 5 minute boat ride and you do your surface interval on shore.    

The Blue Hole is a popular dive site, but having done it every year for the past three years I wasn’t excited about the 3 ½ hour boat ride each way from Placencia to do it again.  That’s a long way to go to spend 5 minutes at 130 feet in cold dark water looking at the stalactites. 



Our group wanted to go however, so I went along because I do love the Half Moon Caye dive sites (photo below), some of the best diving in the world, period. 

But the reefs around Gladden Spit and Glover’s Atoll are also great too.  I especially liked the Silk Caye area.  A couple of days we visited a shallow area in the Silk Cayes that had a resident group of Loggerhead turtles.  We had fun snorkeling with these big fellows, being wary of the fact that they can bite rather hard.  And once at Gladden Spit we had just gotten back in the boat after our first unsuccessful Whale Shark hunt when a large pod of dolphins approached the boat.  The captain yelled ‘everyone get your mask and snorkel and jump in!’.  We were rewarded with an awesome encounter with these beautiful animals, a group of four came up to me, looked me in the eye with intense curiosity.  ‘what kind of creature are you?’  Of course in my haste to get in the water I’d left my camera on board!  (yes, ‘no photo, no proof’)

In short, if you go to find Whale Sharks you must go knowing that you’ll likely not find them.  The annual gathering of these animals is changing due to unknown reasons.  Be flexible in your dive plans and you’ll have a great time.   We did. 

More Snowy Owls

The great Snowy Owl Eruption of 2012 has continued for this year.  I recently returned to Damon Point, just south of Ocean Shores, WA to photograph the seven owls that returned south this year.  I wonder if they're the same ones that were here last year?  This time around I used the Nikon D800 with the Nikon 300mm + 1.7 TC.

This month (January) I had the good luck of going to the Hornby Island Dive Resort  for a couple of days of diving with the aim of getting some Sea Lions photos.  Its a challenge and a thrill to photograph these fast-moving animals while you’re coping with the adrenaline of dealing with hordes of curious Sea Lions. 

Hornby Island is on east side of Vancouver Island and is a bit drier than other regions.  The island is far enough north that it is out of the way of the Fraser River outflow so you can expect tremendous viz just about any time of year.    During the winter months a large colony of Steller Sea Lions gather on Norris Rocks, located just south of Hornby Island.

As our boat pulled up to the south side of the rocks we were greeted by over a hundred Sea Lions that jumped right into the water at our approach and came right up to the side of boat, eagerly anticipating something exciting.    In our dive briefing we were told that the Sea Lions we’d encounter would all be juveniles with lots of curiosity and energy to match.  Sea Lions don’t have hands, so they will use their mouths to check you out.  That means some nips here and there, and they especially love pulling up on your hood.  If you find that the Sea Lions are getting a too frantic for your comfort level, just calm your movements and, if possible swim down to a deeper depth. 

One by one, we hopped in and quickly found ourselves swarmed by curious Sea Lions.   I wasn’t too concerned as I’d done this dive with these animals a year before and knew what to expect—lots of boisterous swoops and exploratory chomps on various parts of my dive gear.  One Sea Lion found my left hand and squeezed fairly hard on it.  ‘Not my new dry-glove!’ I thought.  But fortunately he didn’t pierce the glove, nor my hand!  Another one chomped on my buddy’s thigh pretty hard during our safety stop, hard enough to make her bruise.  

In contrast, for some reason or another, one fairly large one decided to lie right between the two of us on the bottom for a long period, perfectly happy to join us as if we were his new best friends.  The other curious behavior is best described as a ‘hug’, where the animal comes up from behind, wraps its fore-fins around you and squeezes you close.  A bit disconcerting, but funny to watch when it happens to someone else.  Though sometimes these guys played ‘rough’, I never had the sense that they were being aggressive, they were just treating us like  as they do each other.   Some were pushy, some were polite.  Some were shy, some were gregarious. 

 Photographing animals this large and fast isn’t easy.  Forget trying to get shots of them while they are flying by you at full speed.  But they do at times stop and check you out, often by stopping and staring into the camera’s dome port.  Why they do this is a mystery, it may be that they can see their reflection, although whether they recognize their reflection is a question for the animal behaviorists.  Typically they approach the camera port, stare at it for a minute or so and will often try to fit the port into their mouth before swimming off.   

 For gear, I recommend that you go as wide-angle as you possibly can.  For DSLR folks, the best choice is a ‘fisheye’ type lens.   My own setup was a ‘full-frame’ Nikon with a 15mm fisheye.  For those with fixed lenses a wide-angle adapter is a must.  Going wide allows you to photograph the animals close enough to get good color  and contrast while still getting the entire animal in the frame.    Otherwise, you’ll have to shoot from too great a distance to effectively light up the animal, no matter how big your strobe is.  The idea is to minimize the distance to your subject to have as little water as possible between them and your strobes. 

At the end of our Sea Lion weekend we counted up our bruises, scratches and minor bumps.  As divers we’re used to seeking out elusive critters that generally want nothing more than to hide in our presence.  For this trip,  divers were the ones that were the ‘hunted’.   We were all chomped on, scratched and rolled, yet everyone agreed we’d all love to come back again next year!