a few pics from Puerto Galera, the Philippines

[ssra30]

Just got back from a week long trip to Puerto Galera in the Philippines and did 22 dives with my D70, Sea and Sea housing, dual Ikelite DS125 strobes. Since PG is well known for macro, I ended up using the Nikon 70-180mm most of the times and a few dives with the 60mm macro lens. I did try the 12-24mm lens iwht dome port on a couple of dives but the result was rather pitiful (my fault rather than the camera) so for now, here are some macro shots from the trip.
The set up weights a ton on land but just a bit negative underwater.

 

[chippy]

Awesome shots, especially the pigmy SH, was that taken with the 70-180? (I still haven't got mine wet yet!!)

Also, have you / do you generally use manual or auto focus??

 

[ssra30]

All three pictures were taken with the 70-180mm lens, all with auto focus. It is not nearly as fast as the 60mm macro but the zoom makes it very flexible for variety of subjects and sizes including all those skittish subjects. The Sea and Sea houisng does not have access to the auto/manual button in front of the camera unlike the Nexus housing but there is a way around that to do a semi manual focus but with good focus light, I found auto focus very good, especially in comparison to my old Oly C-5050.

 

[justleesa]

Fantastic! what kind of creature is in pic #3?

 

[chippy]

I've found that the 105mm hunts quite alot, especially here in dark gloomy green waters, so I've just bought the focus gear for it which I'll test drive tonight.

I think that if the 105 hunts then the 70-180 will be even worse with it's smaller aperture, so again, I've ordered the focus gear for it too.

I would think that I should be able to manually focus quite accurately and then physically move the housing in/out slightly to get the focus spot on. It should hopefully be a little bit quicker!!

 

[H2Andy]

wow, very nice pics

 

[kdietz]

Very nice....I especially like the pigmy seahorse.....I'm curious about the EXIF info on these shots.......DOF looks pretty tight?

You mentioned that you are shooting in autofocus mode....do you use AF-S for AF-C....single area or dynamic?

Karl

 

[Scuba65]

Those are really nice. thanks for sharing

 

[Dee]

Fantastic shots! I love the Pygmy.

 

[montyb]

Great photo's - thanks for sharing
montyb