11 January 2008

Macro Day on Reef Paraiso (Cozumel)

What a fun dive day. We did our two regular morning dives at Dalila and Cedral mediano -- both were excellent with good pelagic sightings and many lengthy turtle encounters. (Sorry, no photos as I was taking a photography stress break.) The third dive of the day is always done at Paradise reef (Reef de Paraiso) which is a popular spot mostly because it is very close to town... but it is ironically one of the best reefs for photogenic variety.

On this 3rd dive I finally did my macro set-up: Canon 300D with the 24-105mm f/4L lens and a 12mm lens extender, with a single Sea&Sea YS-90TTL strobe sitting almost directly above the flat port and at a 35-45 degree angle downwards. The extender converts my focal range from the normal 2ft-to-infinity, to a focal range of 2-18". Extreme close-ups are made possible with stunning results. Almost every picture I took (80 total) were keepers, a ratio unheard of with most lens set-ups. Here are a few:

Mantis Shrimp



I got one and exactly one photo opportunity with this subject; totally a luck shot. It appeared out of a hole, looked around for about four seconds (which allowed me this one amazing shot) and then POOF it was gone again.

Juvenile Drum Fish



-Extremely- difficult to photograph, these fish are not only very tiny but totally neurotic swimmers. They are always on the move; without a dSLR it would have been near impossible to get this kind of shot. Even with a dSLR, I had to constantly refocus and retry until the perfect side-on shot was made. This took about 5 attempts until I was happy with this one.

Look At Those Teeth



A spotted eel, taken at about a 6" focal distance. So close-up that I managed to do this at about f/22, which is why the amazingly good depth-of-field at such a close range.

Inside the Anenome



Anenomes almost always make good photography subjects. Look at the incredible detail you can get with macro!

Yellowhead Jawfish



The face only a mother (jawfish) could love! These are very shy; it takes several quiet moments to stalk them out in order to get one out of its hole. The current on this dive was making this extra difficult but I managed to get three nice angles of the same subject.

No comments: