Yellownose Goby Trio in sponge
This image is from a night dive in Bonaire. Diving at night as you might imagine is quite a different experience than daytime. Not only is your field of vision limited by only the power of your dive light, but many creatures you never see during the day are out and quite active at night when there are fewer predators lurking about. It can be a bit spooky at times and visually disorienting.
I spotted some of these Yellownose Gobies darting about inside this tube sponge. However, approach these tiny fish during the day, or at night with a bright light, and they will quickly retreat deeper into the sponge. This is where a new toy of mine came in very handy…. a Light & Motion Sola 600 Photo dive light. This very light and portable dive light has the option of switching to red LEDs. This feature is supposed to be for underwater critters that tend to be spooked by a full spectrum normal light. It certainly worked here. I hovered down to these little guys like I was invisible.
This particular sponge was special because of the “figure eight” type opening it had. I thought it lent itself for a nice graphical framing of the fish. Underwater macro can be tough because there is sooo much subject matter about. You can spend an entire dive just covering a small section of reef. So I tend to look for subjects that have a strong graphical appeal to them, not much different than on land, and this one seemed to fit. A very close look will reveal there are also three small, almost clear, shrimp inside here. There is animal life everywhere, emphasizing the abundance of symbiotic relationships that exist in so many places in the underwater world.
I used my D700 in my new Nauticam housing here. It is a very nice housing and I only have a few minor gripes with it that I may write about in a future post. I also utilized some new Inon Z240 strobes that replaced my old Ikelite SS200’s. I can’t describe enough how nice it was moving from 2 strobes that took D-cell batteries down to strobes that are half their size and use just 4 AA batteries each. These strobes are fired by fiber optic cables that transmit a light signal from my on-camera flash inside the housing. These are different and a nice change from my previous setup as there are no electrical connections to worry about sealing. It was great to finally bring my underwater gear into the 21st century.
I am slowly adding underwater pictures to my gallery. I created a special trip folder for Bonaire here: Bonaire pictures
Beautiful…..thanks for letting us ‘landlubbers’ have a peek into another world!
Thanks a lot Howard.
Oh my… night dive – darkness below, darkness above… 🙂 But it must be rgeat experience resulting in such a lovely image(s) as you have here.
oops, missed your comment Tomas, sorry about that. I would say it is a different experience for sure, and thank you.
Wonderful and colorful image. The sponge is quite an interesting background/frame for the fish, especially since it is also another hue of yellow. Everything in the photograph is certainly completely foreign and interesting to those of us who mainly stay above water.
Showing the underwater world pretty much reflects the time I started getting more serious about photography David. Since it can be so gear intensive, and certainly needs some technical abilities, it pulled me into photography in ways I hadn’t experienced before. And as soon as I started diving, I knew I needed to bring back something to show what an incredible world it is down there.
This is really amazing and beautiful. I would have some major heebie jeebies diving at night. eeeeek!!!
Thanks Amber.
What the heck, I will say “never”, as well, about diving or shooting underwater. It’s a safe bet for me. Again, like others, that makes me even more grateful for your adventurous spirit and superb skills. This one is another of those outstanding ones that I have trouble leaving. The “eye sockets” add a delightful touch of whimsy to the shot that seems perfect for the gloriously vivid colors. In spite of the fact that I will not be using the tips in your post, I very much enjoyed hearing the technical background. More Gobies, please. They are most appealing.
Ha! Until you and Earl mentioned eye sockets, I never viewed them that way. Now it may as well be a sponge skull staring back at me. 🙂 I don’t venture much into the tech side very often on this blog, perhaps I need to include more of that detail. For u/w photography, it is particularly gear intensive. Thanks a lot Anita.
Beautiful shot, Mark, but for me the graphical impact of the “eye sockets” sponge pulls my attention from the Goby a bit. That may just be the way my brain is processing it.
Those Goby were probably seeing spots for days from your strobes firing.
I love you sharing the technical details…not that I’ll probably ever dive or shoot underwater, but the techie in me soaks that stuff up like a sponge. 🙂
Thanks Earl. It’s true the edges of the “eye sockets” are some regions of higher contrast, so I would think they would tend to pull many people’s eyes there. I didn’t see the gobies wobbling or running into each other after the shot, so I am think they don’t know what happened. Maybe just fish flashbacks to when they were just little eggs bobbing in the sea. And… never say never.
Super underwater photos. I am not that confident in water so i will just stick to my landscape and above water stuff. Leave this super courageous and talented work up to you. Cheers my friend!
Thanks Lee, although I am not sure I could call them super or courageous… but I appreciate that you think that. 🙂
Wow! Mark. Great stuff. I’m glad that you’re doing the diving instead of me. 🙂 I had to go back and look for the shrimp. That’s pretty cool, stuff. It’s hard to believe that this light came from red LEDs! How much color correction did you have to do?
Underwater photography looks expensive. 😉 I’ll just marvel at your photography, rather than to do it myself. LOL
Thanks so much Paul, I appreciate your kind words. The lighting for the photo isn’t provided by the RED LEDs, but the strobes. The red “flashlight” I use just to find my way around just allows me to approach critters like this without spooking them first. Then the strobes fire and essentially overpower any red in the scene.
p.s. yes, it is expensive – which is one of the reasons I have waited for so long to covert to digital. But the housing costs less than some of those Leicas you have been eyeing.
LOL! Touche’!
A great shot. Lot’s of skill involved getting shots like this. Does the D700 autofocus on your dives?
Thanks Ken. Yes, the D700 did quite well. AF locked in given my dive light was bright enough in normal and in red mode. AF on macro is always a little finicky, but I only had to override it manually on a few occasions. I tried to use AF as much as possible at night because there are enough things to worry about in maintaining position and watching your surroundings.
nice! 🙂 I was thinking about getting one of those light and motion lamps myself but my bf hates to night dive so much that I dont go on them unless there is someone else I can safely buddy with. I just didn’t think I’d get enough use to justify the hefty price tag (plus I wanted a zen mini dome and it was one or the other within budget). I’m glad you have out yours to good use 🙂 Did you get the little red filter clips with your Inon diffusers? Thats what Ive been using for my red focus light when I need it. The good thing about that is it goes out when the flash fires (so the red doesn’t affect the white balance), that bad this is you have to have your strobe pointing at the subject (for the focus light thats good but for strobe positioning thats not so good).
Suzy, I found the L&M light to be quite good. I love that it is light weight with a light weight charger, and is quite bright in normal mode, and the red is bright enough to see where you are going.
I did get the little covers with my Inon’s, but I never used the Inon focus lights this time around. I probably should have as it would have reminded me to angle my strobes out a bit more to prevent backscatter. I ended up with quite a bit of it on many shots – even during the day. I suppose since I already had the Sola, I didn’t bother with them. Next time around I would like to compare them.
I read about the red light affecting WB, but I didn’t notice it too much. I dialed down the red to the lowest setting possible to allow focusing, so I think the strobes overpowered it.
What I meant is, when you put the little red things into the strobes you are more likely to get backscatter because in order for the focus light to be pointed near the subject the strobe is pointed in and not out. If you are finding the WB to not be too bad then you probably have the more flexible set up as you have it now. I might have to start saving up 😉