Took a nudibranch photo today...

[friscuba]

... And though I'd share it.

I posted a pic of 3 of these on the sand about this time last year. I didn't have the camera setup for a closeup at the time. I took this with my G9 with a pair of Inon closeup lenses. These guys are small... take a dime out of your pocket, look at Roosevelt's ear, then think slightly smaller and you've got a decent handle on the size.

I've been wanting a pic of one of these, now I've got to come up with a new thing for the wish list.

Aloha,

 

[justleesa]

oh a little tiny one! Cute!

Start looking for a Jolly Green Giant,......I have yet to see one

 

[paixx01]

hard to make out its anatomy almost looks like 2 together

 

[Shaka Doug]

Wow, I never saw one like that. How small did you say it was???? Roosevelts ear???? On a dime? Whew! You have good eyes my friend! Where is the other antennae/eye stalk/whatever you call it...Do you have a name for this nudibranch? It's really cool looking! How deep were you?

Today I just noticed the little brown floating nudibranchs again. It seems like every summer they show up. Anywhere from a quarter to three quarters of an inch, light brown, floating mid water or laying on the sand. They're kind of fat in the middle, two large eye stalks, little trails of slime hanging off them as they drift in the water. Sometimes I've seen hundreds on a single dive. Today I saw about twenty of them, around 15' deep, over the sand at Makena Landing. I guess they're right on schedule!

 

[friscuba]

Roosevelt's ear on a dime would be a real good sized one. They're tiny. I was turned on to these things several years back when one of the Kona dive/photo club members found one then noticed they were everywhere and took a picture she showed at a meeting. I took a look around and found them at a site I dive that had some sand patches and have since found them in several sandy areas miles apart.

So far I've been seeing them in larger sand patches, say 20-50 feet across, in about 30-45 feet of water and it seems to be about this time of year. It's sort of a waste of time looking specifically for them, but if you happen to see a fairly bright yellow grain of sand as you pass over, get close and take a second look. I happened to see one on my anchor chain two weeks ago, then found several more, but I didn't have the closeup lenses at the time. I went back with the lenses the other day, I knew these were down where I was at this time, but it took me time to find one. Once I found one I started seeing them every few inches in some spots.

The scientific name for it is Siphopteron quadrispinosum. Do a google image search and you'll get a couple pages of images, some of the near relatives are very colorful. Here's another from the same day.

 

[Lopaka]

What gear are you using to shoot this close?

 

[Teamcasa]

I'm always amazed when divers find such small treasurers. My eyes have not been that good since the 70’s!

Thanks for posting it.

 

[friscuba]

What gear are you using to shoot this close?

Canon G9, Canon housing, Duron M67 adaptor, stacked Inon UCL 165 closeup lenses and an Ikelite af-35 flash.

Without the adaptor and closeup lenses, you can get a pic of one of these crawling across the sand, but you can't blow it up enough for the closeup (take a look at my blog, the pic in the post a couple posts back was enlarged about as far as I could take it without pixellation), with the added lenses I still had to crop to get this close (the original photo looks similar to the end "most enlarged" result without the lenses), but I could do it without pixellation.

.... I just took a couple minutes to render a couple of RAW shots into resized but uncropped jpegs... one is taken without the closeup lenses, one is taken with the closeup lenses, this should give you an idea of what you can do with the Inon closeup lenses.

later,

 

[justleesa]

I'm always amazed when divers find such small treasurers. My eyes have not been that good since the 70’s!

Thanks for posting it.

Pray tell what happened in the 70's?

 

[Teamcasa]

Pray tell what happened in the 70's?

NHRA.