Once again this year, the Wrinkles shore dive for July fell onto Catalina Island.
I arrived on Friday morning and the plan was to take the last boat home on Sunday. After 3 dives on Friday and 4 on Saturday, I woke up weak, tired and drained on Sunday - only able to do one dive before rushing home.
The objectives were to get into clear water to get lots of wide angle work shot that has been backing up, since the local water has been yucky nearly all year. Monkey diving shots, free diving scooter shots, some product-specific shots - all require cleaner water to shoot.
The water wasn't great this weekend, but it was better than it has been, so I grabbed hundreds of wide angle shots. For a break, I put on the 105mm Macro for a dive on Saturday - and was not disappointed! These are some of the macro shots from that dive.
When you dive a DSLR, you are always rolling the dice. There is always a chance that while you have your 12-24mm wide zoom lens on you'll stumble on that rare Nudibranch, or while you have the 105mm macro lens on the perfect giant black sea bass will stop and spend 10 minutes with you. After 4 or 5 Wide Angle dives, when I decided to go to macro, all of the Nudi's magically showed up. It was perfect.
I've been shooting this series of what I call "Light Table Nudis" (its a featured gallery on my site: Kenneth Kopp) - by that I mean we find a Nudi on a kelp frond and then take a very powerful underwater flashlight and light it from below. The kelp leaf glows and the Nudi takes on a different look as the light from below lights up his body from the inside. I dial my strobes way back so they become just fill flash. The results so far have been good. We found a few more on Saturday to shoot.
Also - Claudette found the largest of the four SoCal blue Nudis: Hypselodoris californiensis. We've been very lucky to see and shoot this beauty 5 times over the last 3 years. He's exceedingly rare, and the shots this time came out great. We ran out of the water after that dive, literally ran into Dr Bill and were jumping up and down (still in full gear and dripping wet) telling him about the Hypse sighting.
In fact, on that single dive we hit for the cycle, seeing and shooting all four of the SoCal blue Nudis (Fed Ex, McFarlands, Mexichromis and Hypse.) I've never done that on a single dive before.
Thanks again to Claudette - apex buddy and photographers best friend. I couldn't make this happpen without you.
Photos below. Full gallery from the weekend is here: Linky
Enjoy.
---
Ken
======================================
Part 1 of 3: The Macros
======================================
After several dives and seeing Black Dorid eggs on every dive, I was pretty excited when Claudette pointed this one out. It was like we KNEW they were around, we just didn't see one for a day-and-a-half.
There are few locks in life. One of them is this: if you dive the Valiant, you WILL see Hudsons, Mexichromis and Limbaughs Nudis. This Limbaughs was stilt walking on the weird Dr Suess critters that grow out of the sand on the starboard side debris field.
Mexi Love on the Val.
I've shot zillions of Mexichromis. This is the first time I've shot one actually laying eggs. Big doings for us slug geeks.
Clownie on the SueJac. We must have seen 5 or 6 Clown Nudis on the SueJac this weekend. A record for sure.
This Janolus was on the Val. He was motoring over this kelp, so Claudette bent the frond over to try to slow him down so I could get a shot off
Before Janolis completely ran off the kelp, Claudette tried to back light it for the Light Table Nudi series. He was over more of the stalk and not really on the leaf, so the effect isn't as intended, but still its pretty neat. Compare this shot to the shot above, and you'll see how lighting the kelp from below the animal changes his entire look
Here's a light table Fed Ex. When's the last time you saw Fed Ex on a kelp frond? Yeah... me neither. Because he's lit from above AND below, he looks like he's floating above the kelp. The Hermissenda and some of the more translucent Nudis are better for this, but we rarely see Fed Ex on kelp, so we thought we'd give it a try
While we were buzzing along on the scoots, Claudette waved me over. She saw this Red Tipped Dorid on a very, very large kelp frond. Unfortunately, the kelp was loaded with sand, was very old and not very clean. However, it was quite corrugated, giving it a tiger-skin effect when lit from below. RTDs are excellent candidates for the Light Table Nudi series, as they are quite thin and very translucent. We'll be hunting down more of these (on cleaner kelp) for sure
This was how we found Hypse - in the middle of a meal. He was chowing on this white sponge, and apparently, its a regular feeding stop for him. I sent these shots to David Behrens, and he confirmed, adding in his reply, "Yes he has really opened that sponge wide up. You can really see the internal anatomy of the sponge. Cool."
I asked David about that huge pouch thing under Hypse's head. He replied, "What you observed was the extended buccal mass of the animal. All dorids feed by extending this mass out to make contact with their prey. All chromodorids (like Hypselodoris, here) are sponge feeders (page 87 in my Nudibranch Behavior book), and YES they do have a radula. The only dorids that don’t are the porostomes, like Doriopsilla. They rasp away at the sponge with the radula tearing pieces off. (see photos pgs 72-78 in same book). It is like being licked by a cat. The radular teeth are on the tongue. Good show."
Lastly, I asked David about those tubes on the side of Hypse's head. I've taken well over 100 shots of this species and I've never noticed them before. He stated, "Great shot. The “tube” on the side of the head is actually the head tentacle. One flanks each side of the mouth." So its a head tentacle. Who knew?
A few hours later, Claudette and I returned to the same spot to try to get some more shots of him feeding. But he was gone. We found him several yards away, on a full sprint. Apparently late for a slug appointment of some kind.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In parts 2 and 3 of the series, I'll have some wide angles from the dive park and surrounding area and the re-shoots of the Scooter Free Diving series we shot last year.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I arrived on Friday morning and the plan was to take the last boat home on Sunday. After 3 dives on Friday and 4 on Saturday, I woke up weak, tired and drained on Sunday - only able to do one dive before rushing home.
The objectives were to get into clear water to get lots of wide angle work shot that has been backing up, since the local water has been yucky nearly all year. Monkey diving shots, free diving scooter shots, some product-specific shots - all require cleaner water to shoot.
The water wasn't great this weekend, but it was better than it has been, so I grabbed hundreds of wide angle shots. For a break, I put on the 105mm Macro for a dive on Saturday - and was not disappointed! These are some of the macro shots from that dive.
When you dive a DSLR, you are always rolling the dice. There is always a chance that while you have your 12-24mm wide zoom lens on you'll stumble on that rare Nudibranch, or while you have the 105mm macro lens on the perfect giant black sea bass will stop and spend 10 minutes with you. After 4 or 5 Wide Angle dives, when I decided to go to macro, all of the Nudi's magically showed up. It was perfect.
I've been shooting this series of what I call "Light Table Nudis" (its a featured gallery on my site: Kenneth Kopp) - by that I mean we find a Nudi on a kelp frond and then take a very powerful underwater flashlight and light it from below. The kelp leaf glows and the Nudi takes on a different look as the light from below lights up his body from the inside. I dial my strobes way back so they become just fill flash. The results so far have been good. We found a few more on Saturday to shoot.
Also - Claudette found the largest of the four SoCal blue Nudis: Hypselodoris californiensis. We've been very lucky to see and shoot this beauty 5 times over the last 3 years. He's exceedingly rare, and the shots this time came out great. We ran out of the water after that dive, literally ran into Dr Bill and were jumping up and down (still in full gear and dripping wet) telling him about the Hypse sighting.
In fact, on that single dive we hit for the cycle, seeing and shooting all four of the SoCal blue Nudis (Fed Ex, McFarlands, Mexichromis and Hypse.) I've never done that on a single dive before.
Thanks again to Claudette - apex buddy and photographers best friend. I couldn't make this happpen without you.
Photos below. Full gallery from the weekend is here: Linky
Enjoy.
---
Ken
======================================
Part 1 of 3: The Macros
======================================
After several dives and seeing Black Dorid eggs on every dive, I was pretty excited when Claudette pointed this one out. It was like we KNEW they were around, we just didn't see one for a day-and-a-half.
There are few locks in life. One of them is this: if you dive the Valiant, you WILL see Hudsons, Mexichromis and Limbaughs Nudis. This Limbaughs was stilt walking on the weird Dr Suess critters that grow out of the sand on the starboard side debris field.
Mexi Love on the Val.
I've shot zillions of Mexichromis. This is the first time I've shot one actually laying eggs. Big doings for us slug geeks.
Clownie on the SueJac. We must have seen 5 or 6 Clown Nudis on the SueJac this weekend. A record for sure.
This Janolus was on the Val. He was motoring over this kelp, so Claudette bent the frond over to try to slow him down so I could get a shot off
Before Janolis completely ran off the kelp, Claudette tried to back light it for the Light Table Nudi series. He was over more of the stalk and not really on the leaf, so the effect isn't as intended, but still its pretty neat. Compare this shot to the shot above, and you'll see how lighting the kelp from below the animal changes his entire look
Here's a light table Fed Ex. When's the last time you saw Fed Ex on a kelp frond? Yeah... me neither. Because he's lit from above AND below, he looks like he's floating above the kelp. The Hermissenda and some of the more translucent Nudis are better for this, but we rarely see Fed Ex on kelp, so we thought we'd give it a try
While we were buzzing along on the scoots, Claudette waved me over. She saw this Red Tipped Dorid on a very, very large kelp frond. Unfortunately, the kelp was loaded with sand, was very old and not very clean. However, it was quite corrugated, giving it a tiger-skin effect when lit from below. RTDs are excellent candidates for the Light Table Nudi series, as they are quite thin and very translucent. We'll be hunting down more of these (on cleaner kelp) for sure
This was how we found Hypse - in the middle of a meal. He was chowing on this white sponge, and apparently, its a regular feeding stop for him. I sent these shots to David Behrens, and he confirmed, adding in his reply, "Yes he has really opened that sponge wide up. You can really see the internal anatomy of the sponge. Cool."
I asked David about that huge pouch thing under Hypse's head. He replied, "What you observed was the extended buccal mass of the animal. All dorids feed by extending this mass out to make contact with their prey. All chromodorids (like Hypselodoris, here) are sponge feeders (page 87 in my Nudibranch Behavior book), and YES they do have a radula. The only dorids that don’t are the porostomes, like Doriopsilla. They rasp away at the sponge with the radula tearing pieces off. (see photos pgs 72-78 in same book). It is like being licked by a cat. The radular teeth are on the tongue. Good show."
Lastly, I asked David about those tubes on the side of Hypse's head. I've taken well over 100 shots of this species and I've never noticed them before. He stated, "Great shot. The “tube” on the side of the head is actually the head tentacle. One flanks each side of the mouth." So its a head tentacle. Who knew?
A few hours later, Claudette and I returned to the same spot to try to get some more shots of him feeding. But he was gone. We found him several yards away, on a full sprint. Apparently late for a slug appointment of some kind.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In parts 2 and 3 of the series, I'll have some wide angles from the dive park and surrounding area and the re-shoots of the Scooter Free Diving series we shot last year.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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