Ginnie Spring Trip - 5/24

[Dr. Jay]

Well, I got a second chance to test out my UW photo skills last week. A bunch of us Scubaboarders headed out to Ginnie Springs for a Saturday of diving. I had a great time during the trip, and it was nice meeting everyone. I did have a chance to take some of what might be considered "photographs", instead of just snapshots. The first one I have to share is an attempt at a sillouhette shot. I'm going to call it "Blowing Bubbles", because of there were so many divers down there, it was hard to get a pic without bubble interference. It does add some eerie-ness to the photo, I guess.

The next pic that turned out kinda wierd was this one of Wendy in the Little Devil cave entrance. This system almost always has crappy visibilty, due mostly to swimmers that enter the water there. I still can't figure out just what happened (in the lower left of the pic).

The next pic is one of the Ginnie Springs cavern entrance. Lots of potential to get some nice shots at this site. However, here's a good example of when to turn your flash off. The little bit of backscatter kinda ruined the photo.

Here's another pic of a super snorkeler at the cavern entrance. Again, this one would have turned out better without the flash.

The next one is a pic of some random fishies. It looks like this one turned out a little better than some of the others. This is at the same location.

 

[Dr. Jay]

The next one is pretty cool. While resting down at the bottom of Devil's Eye, I happened to notice this little funny shape on the ground. I had no idea what it was, until NetDoc identified it for me on the surface. See if you can find the flounder in this picture...

The final pic is a surface pic of the Santa Fe River. Many springs, including Ginnie, feed into this river in North Florida. Mistake in this picture was I forgot to wipe down the outside of the lens of my housing when I surfaced. You can see the smudge in the bottom right corner caused by a water droplet.

Lessons Learned:

1. Learn how to operate your camera well before taking it underwater. This goes for in the housing too. It's much easier and more comfortable to adjust if you know how to operate your camera well beforehand.
2. Turn your flash (or strobe) on and off accordingly. This will avoid those backscatter problems I had in the previous photos.
3. Anticipate the shot. (if this wasn't in my last one. The digicams normally have a delay in the shutter, sometimes even over 1 second, so you've got to press and hope for the best.
4. Change your batteries before the dive! I missed some great shots because my batteries died after three pictures on the first dive....and we're talking MAHA 2200's here. Your buddies generally have no idea what goes into maintaing your camera and such, so use the surface intervals to your advantage to change the batteries and clean the o-rings, etc. Also, turn the camera off when you surface...this definately helps with battery life
5. Clean the housing lens before taking surface shots. I probably could have used the arm of my wetsuit or something to clean the lens off, and that would have avoided the smudge.

It looks like this is going to be my last chance to test out my stuff before the keys trip I've got planned. If you guys have anything to add (advice, etc.) that would be great!

I was using an Olympus C-5050 in a PT-015 housing - no external strobe or lens

 

[pdoege]

The S45 flash causes so much backscatter that the images are useless. Sigh.

I lost about 4 shots to that.

Oh well.

Normally I use a canister HID for fill light. Not allowed to bring that into the Devil's area.

Peter

 

[Dr. Jay]

Hehe.....oh well.

Peter, you know I've heard that the Blue Springs police won't even allow you in there with a flash for your camera! Maybe just unsubstantiated rumors....but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[pdoege]

Flash units are verbotten.

I use the "don't ask, don't tell" technique.

Peter