Trip packing again

 Ocean diving, Other, Reef diving, rEvo  No Responses »
Sep 132013
 
Trip packing again

The eagle-eyed will have noticed that I missed my regular Monday posting this week, which must mean life is busy. I’ve spent this week packing before leaving for Bali tonight, to join Marc Crane at Orca Dive Club Bali for six days of rEvo instruction. I’m doing my MOD1 course to begin bubble-free diving. I’m excited about the photographic possibilities…being able to sneak up on critters that don’t like bubbles, and doing ~30m dives on helium so I’m not composing under the influence of (as much) nitrogen. Of course, there’s a learning curve that comes with all that. The move to closed circuit will mean a complete relearn of buoyancy skills with the end of small adjustments by breathing in [read more…]

Critters on Richelieu Rock

 Macro, Ocean diving, Reef diving  No Responses »
Jul 222013
 
Critters on Richelieu Rock

About the site After realising last week that I hadn’t talked about diving Richelieu Rock aboard the MV Giamani, I shared a couple of my favourite wide angle shots from the dive with you. And the view across the dive site was pretty spectacular. Beyond the view in great vis I really enjoyed was the two dives I did with my macro lens, because every crevice I looked into, a critter was looking back out at me. Richelieu is covered in critters from lionfish to clownfish, dancing shrimp to decorator crabs, with spotfaced, honeycomb and white-eyed moray eels jostling for position. About the dive The abundance of photogenic critters presented a bit of a dilemma. Instead of being able to focus on getting [read more…]

Weedy seadragon portrait under Flinders Pier

 Macro, Ocean diving  5 Responses »
Jun 242013
 
Weedy seadragon portrait under Flinders Pier

About the site Flinders Pier is known for weedy seadragons and it would be rare to dive there and not see one. It can be a very shallow dive – I’ve spent an hour underwater at low tide and not been deep enough to turn my dive computer on. The pier is a great dive when the wind is blowing from the west as it’s on the other side of the Mornington Peninsula and sheltered when Mornington and Rye Piers are exposed. About the dive I dived at Flinders on the long weekend Monday. The conditions were dead flat up top. Underwater the vis was milky but there wasn’t much floating sand, and the water temperature was finally down to [read more…]

Juvenile leatherjackets under Rye Pier

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  No Responses »
Mar 112013
 
Juvenile leatherjackets under Rye Pier

About the site Rye Pier is a long sandy swim down to the end. It’s known for seahorses hanging out on the pylons, and once a year playing host to the spider crab migration. Last week I’d heard a rumour the spider crabs were out and about. It seemed a little unlikely especially given last year I dived with them in May. With the weather looking beautiful for any kind of dive, we decided to head down to Rye anyway and see what we could see. About the dive We walked down the beach and into the water, rather than walking along the top of the pier in the very hot sun. After a bit of wading, this meant swimming through [read more…]

Wreck of the Thai Muang

 Ocean diving, Wrecks  No Responses »
Feb 182013
 
Wreck of the Thai Muang

About the wreck Continuing on from last week’s post about the Thai wrecks we dived from the MV Giamani over Christmas, here’s some shots from the next shipwreck on the schedule, the Muang Thai. Before tourism came along much of Phuket’s economy was based on dredging for seabed tin. As the basis of people’s livelihood’s changed the old tin boats were run and used until they sunk of their own accord. There’s a few old tin dredges on the seabed up and down the Thai coast and if they’re all covered with as much life as the Muang Thai they’d be excellent dives. About the dive I suffered from pre-dive indecision on whether to go with my wide angle or [read more…]

Lessons from a macro lens: Isolating the subject

 Ocean diving, Reef diving  No Responses »
Feb 072013
 
Lessons from a macro lens: Isolating the subject

When I take large, wide angle shots of reef there are several ways to overcome the confusion of a densely packed ecosystem swirling through the scene. By getting up close to a foreground feature, using strobes to highlight reds and oranges, or choosing an angle where the reef stands out against a blue background, there are techniques for drawing the viewer’s attention to the subject. With the above water photography I’d done before taking a camera into the depths, these techniques came naturally. I hadn’t done all that much macro photography above or below water, and I had to sit down and think about what I was trying to achieve with my various subjects. As in wide angle underwater photography, [read more…]

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