November 30th, 2007 by James
So the day after Christmas, I went diving again (by myself) at the Coronado Islands aboard the Lois Ann. This is my favorite boat/outfit to dive with in San Diego (local) because they have such great service, an excellently laid out boat, and really good food. Can you believe they fed us quiche for breakfast after our first dive! Captain/owner Randy also goes out of his way (burning expensive diesel) to do whale and dolphin watching between the islands and Mission Bay.
For those in the know, the Coronados are a great place to dive with juvenile California Sealions during the winter time. They hang out at an ampitheater on the inland side of North Island - called Lobster Shack after a long-gone lobster fisherman’s camp - and are literally ecstatic to see the boat pull up with their new toys. Diving with the Sealions at Lobster Shack is more like playing at Romper Room in a snow-storm. It’s not that great for photography. But luckily the Sealions are happy to follow the boat around and dive with you at other sites - like the Keyhole. This spot is on the Southern tip of North Island and has great terrain, lots of flowing eel grass, and some nice bull kelp too. This is where I think I got my best shots:
Some photographic notes: For these shots, I was using the Canon 24mm L lens and dual Ikelite DS200 strobes. I think that 24mm is almost the ideal lens for these guys, as they aren’t that big (4-5 feet long) They guys can swim so fast and move their necks even faster, and I found that stopping motion isn’t possible, even with shutterspeeds of 1/125th of a second. So I got a LOT of motion blur in my photos. Motion blur can be a GREAT thing, and can really be used to showcase the speed or energy of a subject in a photo, however I wasn’t able to get the motion blur I wanted. I attribute this to the fact that my Canon camera will not do 1st (or rear) curtain sync with underwater non-eTTL2 strobes 
This to me is a major fault of Canon cameras, because other brands have no problem doing rear-curtain sync with just about any flash. So your options are to pan with the Sealion - which is do-able but really hard - and which results in a sharp subject but a blurred background. If you want a sharp background and a sharp subject with a blur trail behind it, you need to use an eTTL2 converter so that you can get the camera to fire the flash at the END of the exposure. This is what I’m going to try next time…
Posted in Dives, Travel | 1 Comment »
November 30th, 2007 by Sarah
When I was about 9 years old I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium and was mesmerized by the 3 story kelp forest aquarium/exhibit. I decided that some day I would dive in a kelp forest. Well, after two somewhat unpleasant wetsuit diving experiences diving at the Coronado Islands over the past 4 or 5 years with James I told him that I would never dive in California again (or any cold water for that matter) unless I had a dry suit. As you can see in a recent post by James, I now have my very own, 1980s hot pink and green drysuit.
So, here are the photos of me, achieving one of my life’s goals, over Thanksgiving. I was very happy during this kelp dive, which was in about 50 feet of water at Point Loma, just outside Mission Bay in San Diego. I have to admit that I was suitably impressed by the grandeur of the kelp forest ecosystem. James even noted that I was doing a little victory dance while on the dive to express my excitement and approval. But I must let you in on a little secret. Even though these two dry suit dives, the first of my life, kept me significantly warmer that I had ever dreamed possible, and were much more pleasant than any wetsuit experience could possibly be, in the back of my mind, I was really doing a victory dance that said, “I’ve achieved what I set out to do, I’ve dove in kelp. I never have to dive in such cold and miserable water ever again. Hooray!”
Thankfully, James photographed this landmark event in all of its glory. I wasn’t comfortable enough with the use of my drysuit to take my camera on the dives, so we don’t have any photos of him.
Posted in Dives, Travel | No Comments »
November 27th, 2007 by James
If we went diving together last week in San Diego and you’re looking for a photo of yourself underwater, I’ve uploaded the photos to Smugmug where you can view them and purchase prints. Thanks everyone for some great diving!
Posted in Dives, Travel | 1 Comment »
May 17th, 2007 by James
Due to hard work and perseverance by my good friend Nico my blog and gallery has been moved from its old home (failing hardware) to a new space. Thanks again Nico! Along w/ the move, there are new versions of everything. I’ve been out of town so haven’t gotten a chance to update my theme or link in older photos, but hang around as it will get there. In the meantime, check out the upgrade to Gallery 2 - just click on the photo below!
Cheers
James
Posted in Dives, Gallery, General, Reefpix | No Comments »
September 18th, 2006 by James
Two weeks ago, I led a digital underwater photography workshop to the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary for the Houston Underwater Photo Society. The trip was a “weekender” leaving Friday eve. and returning Sunday evening, our club had ten spots on the boat. Sarah came along and lent a hand, and she also made some great photos using a rental Canon 5D camera and housing from Reef Photo and Video.
We had overcast skies and rain for most of the weekend, making wideangle photography challenging. However, I persevered (:-) (how corny) and used a 15mm fisheye lens to get close and capture as much blue as I could. The wonderful ISO400 performance of the 5D also came in handy. Sarah used the 17-40mm zoom. For macro, we used 50mm and 150mm lenses.
Here are a few of my favorite shots from the trip. Click a photo to go to the gallery:
Unfortunately, we missed the last dive of the trip because one of the passengers from out of state wasn’t feeling well. It was a shame, because the conditions at Stetson Bank were incredible, with 70+ viz, nice blue water, and very little current. It also didn’t hurt that we saw a manta and a sandbar shark on our last dive there (macro lens attached of course).
Posted in Dives, Gallery, General | No Comments »
September 16th, 2005 by James
We’ve posted some of Sarah’s favorite underwater photos from Bali. She was using a Canon 20D and Ikelite strobes and shooting the 50mm and 100mm macro lenses. With the 20D’s 1.6x crop factor, 100mm lens, and “Woody’s” diopter she was able to get some awesome high-magnification photos.
And she really got the hang of shooting the 15mm fisheye and lighting her wideangle photos:
Click here to see the full gallery: Sarah’s Underwater Bali Gallery
Posted in Dives, General, Travel | No Comments »
September 16th, 2005 by James
I’ve posted our topsides photos from Bali and Japan.
We traveled all over the island and stayed at something like 5 different places:
In Japan we met up with our new friend and longtime Wetpixel acquaintance Chris Bangs who showed us around Narita including a fun trip to the grocery store and an ancient Shinto temple:
See the Bali Topsides Gallery and the Japan Narita Gallery
Posted in Dives, General, Travel | No Comments »
August 28th, 2005 by James
Sarah and I spent the last three weeks in Bali of which we spent about ten days diving on the North coast at Secret Bay, near Siririt, at Menjangen Island, and around Tulamben. Conditions weren’t very good for wideangle, but the macro photography was awesome! We got a chance to photograph just about everything on our “list” of critters. We were assisted by an awesome guide from Diving 4 Images named Yan who used to be a critter spotter on the Komodo Dancer, so some of you may have met him before. He was able to find us two pygmy seahorses in Tulamben when no one else had seen any for a while.
Herb Ko on Wetpixel and a few other people have asked about the diving in Bali as an actual destination, as opposed to a quick stop-over on the way to Lembeh or on a Komodo or Irian Jaya trip. Since Sarah wanted a variety of things to do on our honeymoon, as opposed to just DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! Bali has been wonderful. I was very impressed with the diving for critters here all along the coast, not just the traditional “muck” spot at Secret Bay. The wide angle at Menjangen was good (with good viz too), as was the Liberty wreck, but the surf and strong spring tides during our week in Tulamben meant the viz wasn’t as good there. The telephoto fish photography would have been excellent if the viz had been a little better, with HUGE Naso vlamingi tangs everywhere, the usual spawning anthias, sweetlips and the usual midwater species.
I intend to put together a detailed trip report, topside photo gallery, and a review of Diving 4 Images and Scuba Seraya, where we stayed in Tulamben. For now, I couldn’t resist posting my underwater photos as a teaser. I organized all the underwater photos by divesite, but I also put together a “favorites gallery” with 33 photos.
Here are a few that are special for me, either because they are rare critters, extremely difficult to take technically, or just captured a special moment:
Bali Underwater Photo Gallery
Posted in Dives, Gallery, General | 2 Comments »
July 22nd, 2005 by James
Last weekend I took a short trip to the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary to fine-tune my macro photography and equipment for an upcoming trip to Bali. Bali is a macro and muck-diving heaven, so I want to make sure I have all our equipment ready. I also wanted to test out my neutral-buoyancy ring that I fabricated for my Seacam housing.
I shot the Sigma 150mm macro lens with a Canon 500D diopter. At close focus, this setup provides roughly 2:1 magnification. Here are a few of my favorite photos:
And here’s a photo of me and my camera setup, taken by Dennis Fanning:
Click here to view the full gallery.
Posted in Dives, Gallery, General | No Comments »
June 14th, 2005 by James
I tested Sarah’s underwater camera setup in the pool yesterday to make sure that everything is working well. I used the cheapie Canon 18-55 kit lens behind the 8″ dome port and I was pretty happy with the zoom range and the results. One DS125 flash on TTL. It was a lot of fun to just play around with the camera and it looks like Nico (my fearless photo model) had a good time too.
More Photos.
Posted in Dives, Gallery, General | No Comments »
« Previous Entries
