Fiji pictures

[maractwin]

Just back from a wonderful trip to Fiji, spending 10 days aboard the Naia. I took about a thousand pictures during 37 dives. I had a strobe flood, which miraculously recovered after a freshwater rinse and thorough drying.

Here are my favorite pictures from the trip. Many more are at http://www.markrosenstein.com/gallery2 if you are interested.

-Mark

Lionfish

Map Puffer

Longnose Filefishes. Took a lot of attempts to catch them swimming in formation.

Flabellina Nudibranch

Chromodoris coi Nudibranch

Emperor Angelfish

Leaf Scorpionfish

and the obligatory soft corals that Fiji is famous for.

 

[Snowbear]

Wow!! Very nice!!

 

[drtheo]

they look great can you tell me a little about your camera and setup. I like to take pics while diving, but I want to have a setup that get better pics. I have a sony cybershot with the marine pack, I know that will not give the quality that I see here, but I am interested in cracking into the world of Sub marine photography. Again nice pics

 

[renthal]

Could you tell me more about the ship? I heard it is wonderful, the biggest problem I need to overcome is the potential sea sickness. Was that a problem for anybody? Thanks for the great shots.

 

[Jaeger]

Beeautiful! Cant wait, heading there saturday. Gorgeous pics!

 

[maractwin]

Thanks for the kind comments.

I use an Olympus C-5050 in the Olympus housing, with Inon D-180 strobe and Inon WAL and dual macro lenses. The lionfish and soft coral shots used the WAL, and the Flabellina nudibranch was shot with stacked macros. I really like the versatility of wet-mate lenses so that I can shoot all 3 combinations on a dive. I always shoot in RAW mode, usually with the camera in apeture priority set to f 5.6. My eyesight isn't good enough to use manual focus underwater, so I'm at the mercy of the camera for focus. However, the Inon strobe has a built-in spotting light which helps.

I haven't written up a trip report yet. The Naia is my favorite liveaboard; this was my second trip (and I'm planning a third). The boat is generally anchored during the day and moves at night, and I rarely noticed much rocking. But then I don't get seasick even in rough conditions, so I'm not a good judge of that. The diving is all done from skiffs (a pair of 12 foot zodiacs) and they will pick you up whereever you surface, so you never have to swim. The crew was really helpful and always have your gear where you need it, so that you never have to carry anything.

-Mark

 

[Dee]

Very nice! I didn't realize the Filefish schooled like that. Cool!

 

[maractwin]

I wouldn't really call them schooling. Most often you see them in pairs. But this was a group of juveniles, each only about an inch long. They'd be facing in all directions while feeding on a coral. But they would move together from one coral to another, and I caught them on that migration. The picture is cropped, and only shows about half of the group.

-Mark

 

[Jamdiver]

Wow!!
Stunning shots, Fiji looks amazing !

 

[scuba_mike]

Great pictures Mark, thanks for sharing. Very nice to see a lionfish in the open like that.