3 Tank charter Sunday May 16th

[StuartT]

A few of us are doing a 3 tank charter on Sunday with the Sea Dragon. Meeting at the marina at 8:30 closest to the ferry to load our gear on the boat. There are still spots available if anyone wants to join us. $134 is the cost with your own tanks. If you only have 2 they have some for rent. Contact Jan or Kevin to book your spot if you want to go. 604-329-3486 is their number or www.seadragonchartes.com is their website.

Stuart

 

[vjanelle]

Is this a regular thing, or something you guys are organizing and trying to get other people to come on?

 

[StuartT]

Is this a regular thing, or something you guys are organizing and trying to get other people to come on?

They will do a 3 tank trip anytime they have a minimum of 6 divers. There are 4 of us going. Al, Rob, Kyle and myself plus they have 2 others that booked separately.

 

[rob1967]

Thanks to Stuart for organizing this dive trip. It was a great day! I am still working on my photo skills, but here are a couple of pics that turned out not too badly.


Here is a cute little crab hiding in a cloud sponge:





Here is the biggest nudibranch I have ever seen. It's an orange peel nudibranch, about 18 inches long and 8 inches wide! Stuart got so excited, he forgot that his camera had no lanyard after he took a pic of it, and left his camera on the reef somewhere near it! I heard that Stuart might be offering a small reward to whoever can find his camera. It's in about 50 ft of water, just to the East of the Collingwood Channel Day marker, near Bowen Island. Not too far from this giant orange peel nudi!





I have no idea what this is, so if someone can ID it... (?Maybe an encrusting bryozoan?) It caught my eye, so I took a picture of it.

 

[sschlesi]

Rob those are pretty good shots, for starting out. A little post processing can really help out too.

The biggest technical problem is your flash is making a big hot spot in the middle of the picture. I'm guessing it is an on-camera flash. I've never done any underwater photography but I have done plenty of "regular" photography. The two things I would try are dial down the flash exposure compensation if your camera can do it by 1/3rd or half a stop. And consider some sort of diffuser (e.g. a pieces of white paper) in front of the flash. These techniques will result in less of a hotspot, and less overall light in the picture which is good for the close ups you posted, but not so good if you want to take pictures of things further away.

Here are couple of examples of what post processing can do for the shots you already have. Just a minute spent lowering the contrast and brightness a bit, and then sharpening helps the crab stand out more in this pic. The sharpening shows off the floaty bits more too. That could be avoided with selective sharpening.

To remove the flash hotspot from the nudi and restore some detail in the over exposed area was quite a bit more complicated, but still only took ~45 minutes. I'm really surprised by the amount of detail I was able to recover.

Any photo management software can do the first adjustments, you need Photoshop or Gimp to do the second adjustment. If you are interested in serious photo adjustment Gimp is FREE, works on every common OS and is VERY capable. There are some good instructional videos available at Meet the GIMP.

BTW, I think your third photo is of some nudi eggs.

 

[vjanelle]

Dialing down the exposure variance will help too.

 

[DaleC]

Rob, that last photo is some sort of snail/shell dweller (can't tell with all the stuff stuck to it) laying an egg mass.

 

[rob1967]

Thanks for the photo tips and the tentative ID's. I have a Sea Life DC1000 with double strobes. I am still learning, trying to get better. I was finding that my close ups were not bad, but anything further than 2 feet was too dark, so for this day, I tried raising the diffusers, but of course forgot to put them back down for the close ups. I have tried adjusting the flash strength manually, but seem to have better luck leaving it on automatic. But I still have problems with photos that are either overexposed or underexposed. It seems to depend on if I am too close or too far from the subject.

I think I need to take a course in underwater photography... Anyone know of a good instructor to recommend?

cheers and happy diving!

 

[sschlesi]

Sorry I don't know any u/w photography instructors.

With the exception of avoiding backscatter you should be able to learn everything you need to know about using your flashes on dry land. I expect a good book on photographic lighting from the library and a few hours spent practicing with your camera on land will teach you as much as you would learn in several months worth of dives. I once read a very good book on lighting from the Burnaby library, I'll try to find the name.

 

[StuartT]

Thanks for the pics Rob. As Rob has said I left my camera down there on the reef near where we saw the giant orange peel. Too bad one of us didn't think to put our hand in one of the pics to see how big it really is. If anyone happens to be diving that site with the Sea Dragon or otherwise the missing camera is a sealife mini reefmaster. It's basically black with a lanyard (I know that's supposed to be around your wrist) and no strobe. If you are facing the daymarker from Bowen I think it's somewhere down to the left(North I think) between 40 -60 feet. I'm putting a picture of it here. If someone finds it I would be greatful if you could return it to me.
SeaLife Cameras - Underwater Digital Camera - Reefmaster Mini
Coulnd't figure out to upload a picture here so the link is above.
Thanks Stuart