Show us your Sealife weekend diving pics!

[bmchugh]

I've dove La Jolla Shores a bunch of times and this is the first dive that I got some pretty decent Goby shots. They can be shy little fish at times, you keep thinking if I just get a little closer the picture will be much nicer then they dart back into their hole. This time I tried zooming in on him a bit from a little farther away. With my new strobe set up I can set the strobe farther away and reduce the backscatter that I had been getting. Thanks for the compliments.

Brian

 

[bmchugh]

Some pictures from La Bufadora Mexico in Baja CA, about 90 miles south of San Diego. Pictures taken with a Sea Life DC600 with wide angle lens, Sea & Sea YS110 Strobe, and Fantasea focus light. Can't wait to get my new DC800 back from warranty repair. You can see my full album at my Photobucket account:
bmchugh_photo/La Bufadora 9-27-08 - Page 1 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

[prskate2]

Very nice. Love the colors. Do you edit your photos?

 

[bmchugh]

Occasionally I edit with photo shop's quick fix, generally only to help correct if I under exposed the picture. Most of the time I get the strobe intensity correct within on or two shots. I have not gotten into real touch ups. I tried a couple times using the blemish remover once to remove some backscatter but didn't have the patience to make any real improvement.

 

[JillGadget]

Bmchugh, you said you use a fantasy focus light. Does that attach to your camera, or strobe? I don't know alot about it but am doing a night dive in Bahamas in Nov and thought it would be good to get. Which one do you have? do you just turn it on when you are focusing?

 

[prskate2]

Just got back from the Bahamas. Didn't do any night dives though.

 

[bmchugh]

Bmchugh, you said you use a fantasy focus light. Does that attach to your camera, or strobe? I don't know alot about it but am doing a night dive in Bahamas in Nov and thought it would be good to get. Which one do you have? do you just turn it on when you are focusing?

I have the focus light mounted on a ball joint strobe arm. I have not used it on a night dive yet but the model I purchased would be bright enough for night dives. Here in CA we often have fairly dark conditions at depth as there is often a layer of plankton at the surface that blocks out a lot of the light and can make good focus more difficult for the camera. I just leave it on, the strobe is bright enough that you don't notice any hot spots caused from the focus light. For the Bahamas I don't think you would have a need for a focus light for day dives but for night dives it would be a necessity. The focus light I purchased was made by Fantasea. You can see it at this link: Fantasea LED 44 (LED44) Focus Light

I have recently upgraded to a Sea and Sea YS 110 strobe also with some long ball joint style arms. I expect this will work better with wide angle shots as I can get the strobe farther away from the camera. Definetely a bit more combersome than the Sea Life Digital Strobe which I like a lot and has served me well. If I could have found a way to mount it to the longer strobe arms I would have kept it. I may still use it as a second strobe but need to find a way to mount it. It would be nice if Sea Life had other arm options, the flex arms they have work really well for most situations but there are times when you can't get the strobe far enough from the lens to mitigate the backscatter. Mabey in the future they will expand their line as there system works really well and reliably. I have a friend who has another brand of camera and strobes and is constantly having reliability problems. My Sea Life set up has been very reliable and their pieces all work well together as a system.

 

[LI Diver]

Last weekend

 

[bmchugh]

A couple pictures from La Jolla Shores today. Very nice conditions today 20 feet plus visibility.

 

[ditch-diver]

My first picture posting on here.., still a camera newbie....

Took this on Saturday of my 16 year old daughter. Vancouver Island, 35 feet of water, 30ft vis, DC600, wide angle no strobe.