More pics with my A620

[huskychemist]

I made a couple dives last night at one of my local spots, Redondo. The "full" gallery is here if you want to see more pictures.


Here are a few pictures from the first dive.

A Leopard Dorid on the pipe boat.

A crab, and other life, on the pipe boat.

A painted greenling on a chair of one of the boats.

A penpoint gunnel peeking out of one corner of the pipe boat.

A sculpin I haven't been able to ID yet. I think Tim has an idea of what it is, but I can't remember what he thought...

A seastar hanging out in a pipe. I hadn't seen any stars in this position before. I've heard this means they are feeding or broadcasting gametes, but we didn't see anything like that happening. Maybe it's imitating a sloth.

After the dive, looking through the pier at the sun.






And a few pictures from our night dive.

A clown nudibranch. My first ever for this nudi. Thanks to my dive buddy (Coachrenz) for spotting it.

Wondering if this might be an invasive tunicate, or a sponge. Not sure yet...

A close-up of one of the sturgeon poachers we saw. I think these are cool looking fish.



Another great evening of diving.

Thanks.

 

[Jamdiver]

Nice shots Husky.
I can definitely see an improvement in your pics.
Particularly like the shot of the sturgeon poacher and the nudi.

Do you have any photos of the plumose anemones?
I think they make great subjects..

 

[huskychemist]

Thanks JamDiver. Much appreciated. I do feel like my pictures are getting better. For the most part, I'm able to tell now if the picture is going to come out OK or not after I take it, so I can re-take the picture if it seemed bad. What you don't see here are the 150 other pictures I took to get the 15 good ones. But I certainly enjoy taking the pictures.

Here are some plumose pictures for you...

And a seapen. I love spotting these.

I agree with you that plumose are great to photograph. They are so ubiquitous up here I think we sometimes take them for granted.

Thanks.

 

[Jcsgt]

Very nice improvement! Nice job

 

[Amy B]

Nice photos. Did you use an external strobe to take them?

 

[huskychemist]

Nice photos. Did you use an external strobe to take them?

Thanks for taking a look.

I don't have an external strobe...yet...someday...

I just have the Canon housing and use the flash diffuser that comes with it. In Puget Sound, a flash is almost always required beyond about 20 fsw, due to cloudy water, poor vis and not much light. I've learned from practice, and the suggestions of those here, that if I think I'm close enough, I need to get closer...less backscatter that way. As I mentioned somewhere...even though I showed 10 pictures, and posted maybe 10 more on my website, what you don't see are the 150 other pictures I took that weren't good enough to share...hehehe.

Thanks.

 

[CompuDude]

Wow, you've gotten a lot better from your initial pics just a month or so ago! Nicely done!

I think your mystery "sculpin" is a plainfin midshipmen, incidentally. Take a look at one I saw down here and tell me if you think that's it:

 

[huskychemist]

Wow, you've gotten a lot better from your initial pics just a month or so ago! Nicely done!

I think your mystery "sculpin" is a plainfin midshipmen, incidentally. Take a look at one I saw down here and tell me if you think that's it:

Thanks CompuDude. Much appreciated. Practice practice practice. Nothing like a good excuse to get in the water!

And you are right...the mystery sculpin, is in fact, not a sculpin. It's the plainfin midshipmen as you identified. On my local dive board, NorthwestDiver.com, another local helped me with that ID also. Thanks for catching that for me. My critter ID has certainly gotten better by having a camera. I never would have been able to identify this one...I would have forgotten too much about the fish, while trying to remember everything else that I saw.

Thanks again.

Lowell

 

[Amy B]

Don't worry about the not-so-good pics, the good ones are great, and you can only get better with more time and practice!

I've gotten a lot better with my species ID since I started arranging Seasearch dives, the point of which is to record what you've seen underwater (on a really simple form). I've spent a lot of time looking through ID guides after my dives, but I don't mind doing that as I really enjoy knowing what I've seen underwater. I even remember a lot of the scientific names now! Haha. I find it much more fun on my dives to be able to think, "ooh, look at that Corkwing wrasse, isn't that a nice auger shell" etc etc, than "wow, look at that fish! And that starfish!"... It brought a whole new element to my diving that I really enjoy! But yes, I digress...

Great pics.