Dive report for Destin 9/11- 9/13

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Puffer Fish

Captain Happy
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Scuba Instructor
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Location
Knoxville, TN
# of dives
Dave was nice enough to take us out the same area where we got pictures of the short Big-eye's....surface was about the same as the week before, but the vis was about half of what it was last week.

First dive was interesting for two issue... one was that we dropped right back down on all the short Bigeye's.. and second because a 7 or so foot bull shark was patrolling up and down the reef. Every time it would pass me, it would get just a small amount closer. Never stopped... just swam by and would come back some minutes later.. in the end it was about 2 ft from me...

Seems I did not get my camera set correctly, as I was somewhat distracted by the shark... but I did get some pictures.

Next dive was way in shore, near the rubble, and the vis went down as the cloud of 3 ft stuff moved into the area.. not many pictures, and we called the dive early.

Next day... same conditions... so we went back to the same area, only this time, way to the east...did back to back dives...and while the vis was not as good as the week before, was reasonable.

On this dive got to see a new eel (for me anyway).... a honeycomb moray... deep water moray, not known to be on a reef.

Had two spectacular dives... and finally found one of those orange anenome's... so I carefully looked around it for shrimp and/or crabs..nothing... so I took a picture of it... and later discovered they both were there (need to turn a light on to look for stuff).

Also finally got to see a reef mantis shrimp... they are the same color and size as the purple blenny's...no wonder I never saw them.

Octo's are still really wary of divers.. had one turn it's beak to me...

So, some images:

First the anenome... look at the bottom left for both shimp, and above it, the crab... arggggg.

anenome_950.JPG


There were basket star fish everywhere.. here are some of the different colors:

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Here is one of many of the short bigeyes:

bigeye_941.JPG


This is the only animal I have ever taken an image of that I have to turn down the color saturation on.

The eel:

eel_940.JPG



There were frog fish everywhere... and I have some ok images... but am sure everyone has seen average images of them.

Lots of Nudi's out grazing:

nudi940.JPG


Found several corkscrew anenomes.. with peterson shrimp on them (thankfully):

anenome_940.JPG


shrimp_940.JPG


Got tired of taking pictures of all the scorpion fish:

scfish_941.JPG



Octo giving me the evil eye:

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I know they live here, but always surprised when I see one:

greysby950.JPG



I have no reason to take any more damsel fish, but like the practice:

damselfish_950.JPG
 
Talk about photography!!! So that was all in Destin? Remind me why I am diving in the Texas swamps?????

I was diving in Lake Travis (Austin TX) the same day and vis was around 5 feet from surface to 40 feet then only inches from 40 to I am told 76 feet when it opened back up. Of course we did just have that rain storm...
 
Dang, your pictures make me feel like a clogger at dancing with the stars! :depressed:

Thanks... well the water was filled with little particles....so some are not of the quality I would like....I can get rid of them with strobe placement, but I have a couple of arms that are wearing out...so did not try.
 
Talk about photography!!! So that was all in Destin? Remind me why I am diving in the Texas swamps?????

I was diving in Lake Travis (Austin TX) the same day and vis was around 5 feet from surface to 40 feet then only inches from 40 to I am told 76 feet when it opened back up. Of course we did just have that rain storm...

Would it help to know this was shot in around 5 ft of vis?

scfish_951.JPG
 
Hmm that looks like vis was much better than 5 feet so no ;) Still that is an awesome photo, what kind of fish is that?
 
Scorpion fish... and I don't think the vis was actually 5 ft... maybe 3.5 to 4. Get close, and have your strobes in the right position and the water can look reasonable, when it is not.

Hmm that looks like vis was much better than 5 feet so no ;) Still that is an awesome photo, what kind of fish is that?
 
great pix What setup do you use?
 
great pix What setup do you use?

A couple of YS110's and a Canon S90 in an ikelite housing.

I use the optical sTTL.. which with YS110's, means they work... most of the time. (one day... YS110a's)

Mostly shoot with 1/500 flash cync...unless I want the water to show up, and then use 1/60 or so. Anti-shake does not work close up.

I have extra long arms on the strobes and try to shoot with them at around 45 degrees to the subject, with the strobes pointed so only the edge of the flash covers the subject...

Mostly in macro mode, zoomed out to around 85mm equivalent, which gives about 15 inches as the closest you can focus.


Bigger things I zoom out but try to shoot at around 18 - 24 inches, if possible.
 

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