Dives in Lembeh tend to be featureless expanses of muck punctuated by occasional glimpses of either trash or incredibly exotic creatures. The divemasters know where everything is, so it is a fairly efficient way to get a lot of great pictures. Without a guide you'd come up pretty empty, I suspect. A serious photographer will appreciate the dark background and the clear water as well as the variety of subjects. Consider hiring your own guide and boat. That way you don't have to share your subjects with other photogaphers and, if the visibility gets spoiled, you have only yourself to blame.
If you are not a serious photographer, if you are not driven by lust for photos, if you value the total diving experience, consider the Komodo itinerary. Pristine reefs lush with coral and fish, a huge variety of undersea-scapes, the dragons, and most of the rare critters are there--they're just not as easy to find. You can see reefs bubbling with sulfide gas on the dark-brown slope of a volcano--what a great background for a brightly colored nudibranch. I snorkeled a shallow reef off of one of the islands that was better than 95% of my dives--in 2 meters of water. I also appreciated the occasional shark or manta--few and far between--but you won't see anything bigger than a breadbox in Lembeh.
If you are flying all the way from NY, do what everybody else does--hit both destinations in one itinerary. I disembarked my Komodo liveaboard in Bali, squeezed in a few days of diving there, flew to Singapore for a couple of days, and then on to Lembeh via Manado on SilkAir.