Mandarin fish tips

[Wiggsy]

I'm heading off to Lankayan and Sipadan - one of the critters I hope to target is the gorgeous elusive Mandarin Fish. Any tips? I tried a few years ago in Palau and gave up in frustration with nothing but blurs (admittedly very colourful blurs).....I have heard that they are very sensitive to light and see that a lot of photographers mask focus lights, torches etc. in red. One post suggested that even red light will upset them....So what can I do...? Manual focus on my rig (Olympus C5000z) would be impossible....I suppose pick a target tp prefocus on....hope and wait...Any tips would be appreciated...

 

[GrimSleeper]

I never bothered photographing them, but I led a lot of mandarin fish dives (hence no photos - the novelty and the excitement wear off!). Yeah, the little buggers really hate bright lights shining on them while they're trying to get it on... Go figure! I have seen people get better results using red focus lights, and the fish certainly didn't seem too upset by the red light. The biggest factor on any organised mandarin fish dive will be the number of people: just like anything else, if there are a dozen people clustered around with lights, cameras, fins etc flying around everywhere, you ain't gonna get the show!

I used to see a reasonable number of mandarins during the day teaching OW in the Philippines at a site we'd also use in the evenings for the dedicated mandarin fish dive. If you REALLY want the shot, and aren't bothered about seeing them mating, it's probably worth finding a good patch of broken acropora at 6m/20ft or so and hanging around for a couple of hours. You won't have to worry about lights, and I doubt you'll get many other divers thinking it's fun and getting in your way either!

 

[vladimir]

I'm heading off to Lankayan and Sipadan - one of the critters I hope to target is the gorgeous elusive Mandarin Fish. Any tips?

I have a great tip. Hop a flight to Manado and go to the Lembeh Resort, directly across the strait from the Kunkungan Bay Resort. Right out in front, just past where the boats are docked, in about 15 feet of water is a staghorn coral formation. The divemasters already have a map on the blackboard. Be there at sundown and you will see the mating dance of the mandarin fish. As has been stated, they shy away from focusing lights and crowds. If you time it just right, I think you'll have enough natural light to focus with, and when I was there I had the dive to myself. Unfortunately my camera's battery died, so I can't point to my fabulous mandarin-fish photos as evidence. Good luck.

 

[DevonDiver]

I used to see Mandarin fish on every dive along the Mabul house reef (Froggies...opposite the oil rig). They typically hang out in patches of broken coral and in the shelter of black sea urchins. Kapalai has them, but they were tougher to find.

However, the best site for them, in that area, was Sibuan Island - but the only trips run there are from the dive centers operating out of Semporna (not the Mabul/Kapalai resorts). There were many urchin patches that contained Mandarin Fish...... and I used to go so far as to guarantee sightings to my divers. Sibuan is also the most idyllic 'deserted' tropical island you will ever visit....!

During day dives, it is tough to photo them because your camera auto-focus will tend to skew towards the urchin spines, rather than the fish. However, my technique was to find a patch where the fish were, settle down, lock the focus...and then just wait for them to move into the viewfinder. Take lots of photos, because the majority will be out-of-focus, but law of averages says you will get lucky with a few shots (I did).

 

[Ardy]

I got some photo's of them in PNG at the Tawali Resort just in front along with 5 others. We waited around for 90 mins and in the end just before it got dark I got 2 reasonable shots out of about 30 attempts.

Photographing these is too bloody hard and I dont have the patience.