MVillanueva
Guest
Been in interesting 18 days to say the least. Between the two of us, we took 1300 photographs, of which about 600 were underwater shots. I am posting 15 of the more in-focus ones here to get feedback. Picking these from 600 was difficult -- I picked these because I thought I could leanr pointers from folks willing to offer suggestions. White balance was a nightmare for me -- Lisa met me at our hotel and gave some education, and she helped set it on a couple of dives, but I don't think I was able to apply it consistently as some of the pictures seem "off" in the color department.
I have to admit it, I shot everything in "P" -- it was all I could do to maintain bouyancy and on occasion set the white balance with one hand and watch where my kid was. How anyone can handle more than that is beyond me. I started to hate current, surges, and my BC after a while!
The luckiest thing for us was the Manta Ray dive in that there were no Manta Rays. For that piece of luck I am very grateful. Had we sat and watched and oooooh and ahhhhhhed, we would have never ever seen the spectacular sea floor life at night. The highlight of that night dive was seeing Moray eels hunt -- My god! I am surprised they are not extinct. Talk about clumsy and lacking aim! Still, we saw a success: An eel slithering up behind this big old buttery fly fish or tang or whatever, struck, grabbed hold, could not get the fish down (it was big), spat it back out, struck again, catching the fish from the side and folding the fish in half from snout to tail like a sandwich. I shall never forget those loud cracking sounds as the backbone and host of other bones snapped.... The eel got the fish into its throat, and to my horror, you could see the fish inside straighten itself out, and try to wriggle back up the throat. I remember thinking all this just took place place not 2 feet in front of me...
It was then and only then I remembered I had a camera.
I do think the fish behavior off of Catalina was way more interesting than in the Islands. We got swarmed by fish -- I cannot figure why, but suddenly we were surrounded by lots of fish that were clearly after something. Then as quickly as they came, they vanished. Naturally, I was rattled, and my daughter was crying -- we were sorta batting them away from us, but they kept coming.
Please offer any photography advice as well as identification. Fortunately for the board, I can only post 15! Still, I am sharing these because two months ago I would have never thought of diving, much less underwater photography.
Thanks for all the advice and PMs given re my previous posts!
Michael
I have to admit it, I shot everything in "P" -- it was all I could do to maintain bouyancy and on occasion set the white balance with one hand and watch where my kid was. How anyone can handle more than that is beyond me. I started to hate current, surges, and my BC after a while!
The luckiest thing for us was the Manta Ray dive in that there were no Manta Rays. For that piece of luck I am very grateful. Had we sat and watched and oooooh and ahhhhhhed, we would have never ever seen the spectacular sea floor life at night. The highlight of that night dive was seeing Moray eels hunt -- My god! I am surprised they are not extinct. Talk about clumsy and lacking aim! Still, we saw a success: An eel slithering up behind this big old buttery fly fish or tang or whatever, struck, grabbed hold, could not get the fish down (it was big), spat it back out, struck again, catching the fish from the side and folding the fish in half from snout to tail like a sandwich. I shall never forget those loud cracking sounds as the backbone and host of other bones snapped.... The eel got the fish into its throat, and to my horror, you could see the fish inside straighten itself out, and try to wriggle back up the throat. I remember thinking all this just took place place not 2 feet in front of me...
It was then and only then I remembered I had a camera.
I do think the fish behavior off of Catalina was way more interesting than in the Islands. We got swarmed by fish -- I cannot figure why, but suddenly we were surrounded by lots of fish that were clearly after something. Then as quickly as they came, they vanished. Naturally, I was rattled, and my daughter was crying -- we were sorta batting them away from us, but they kept coming.
Please offer any photography advice as well as identification. Fortunately for the board, I can only post 15! Still, I am sharing these because two months ago I would have never thought of diving, much less underwater photography.
Thanks for all the advice and PMs given re my previous posts!
Michael
My shots of the only one I've ever seen are fuzzy!
