Painstaking (but fun) First Time - learning the (basic) tricks of the trade (in underwater macro photography)

 I recently bought an old DSLR (my first) from my friend Terence. I have to confess that I've been eyeing his equipment for a long time, and nearly drooling over it - and I do mean his camera and underwater housing, should anyone be unclear on that ;)

I actually can't say that I really learned much although I had the best and most patient of teachers. He tried - I just wasn't a very good student and could not remember or put in practice the advise I received. 

Now that Terence's lovely wife bought him a new kit as a wedding present - or was it that she bought a trip and he the kit - never mind, as a result Terence finally sold off his old camera and the housing. I was slightly in two minds about buying it at first since the camera is already a bit old - but then I realised that with my skills as a photographer it's a prefect deal. I get a well loved but well looked after camera - and it came with a free lesson in underwater camera basic maintenance and an agreement to go out on a  dive trip together for the first time the camera gets wet - well technically it's done that probably about a thousand times with its previous owner - but the first time I get it under water.

I am so happy I went out with Terence. I have had a compact camera before that I used to take pictures with but I never bothered with buying a strobe, just using ambient light was enough for me. If it's too dark then I will not take photos - and that's it. Although I have never been much of a photographer I have taken many shots that were still pleasant memories and souvenirs to keep from various dive trips. After having though I know the baby steps I now had to learn to crawl again.

Take a person who has not got much of any knowledge of photography whatsoever ("Aperture means? Ummm.. it's the size of the hole that lets light in but don't ask me which way round the numbers work..."), a macro lens, a strobe and a new camera - that camera being her first DSLR. Oh yes, and add to that a woman who forgot to bring a memory card and was left with a 1GB mem card (really useful) and who also broke the spring on her underwater housing shutter swivel (don't ask me how - I just turned it to the direction it is supposed to turn and it bloody snapped - and this was even I before got in water for my first dive!) With that background of being a walking catastrophe waiting to happen, how do you think the photos turned out?

Before we get to the dives, a few pictures (taken on my iPhone, not the new camera) along the way to Tioman:

At a god forsaken place at a god forsaken hour. I'm not normally up at the time of the prayer calls!

Reading Bohr's model of the atom. Really, why? :)

...whilst we laugh at him reading it.

Dive 1:
Most of my photos came out black or nearly black. Embarrassing but true. First I did not even know how to correct it, nor was I really even quite sure how to really check on the pictures I took (yes, I found the button but looking at the picture did not tell much to me). I gathered at some point in time that my strobe was pointed completely off but what were all the other things that I did wrong I could not figure out.

Just as some amusement, here are some of the photos I took (sorry I deleted the really black ones already - did not see them being a great use of space on my memory card):

I have no idea why I thought this would be a good angle - but it seems at the time I thought it was...

Lizard was a bit jumpy but I tamed the shrew. In the end it posed nicely - and I took pictures in not-so-great-colours of it.

I edited the colours on this one before posting. Now the lizardfish looks a little blue - but at last its surroundings look a little more realistic in colour.

Is this the best I can do with a macro lens? Please.... Well, the hermit is still cute.

DIVE 2

Dive 2 was a 90-minute dive - we just could not be bothered to come up and go in again. Let's do it one dive - same place anyway. I still struggled a little with lighting (and everything else even more) - but the funny anemone fish that decided to get ah-so-anemone-territorial amused me enough that it made up for my lack of skill to make the dive worthwhile. In the end I decided to try to take a few pictures of it since it was attacking me and my lens already.

Get out of my nesting area you ugly big human!

"I really mean it! Out! Now! Or I'll bite! Well, I actually did already-  but I'll nibble you AGAIN if you don't get out. I almost have teeth, I can bite you - and once I'm done with you I'll eat your buddy. The fact that I'm about 10cm long does not mean that I'm not scary."

I also spent ages chasing these little cardinals - with very little result. Sigh... But it was fun!

 Then I found this blenny on a giant clam - it was in a bit of a crevice and I simply could not reach it - was beyond my skills. But being the stubborn woman I still had to snap a photo of it. My excuse? It was suuuuch an adorable little blenny staring at me.

I also spent a small forever trying to chase little reef fish trying to hide from me under the protective fingers of a table coral. Most of them way too successfully - did not catch any others of them at all except for the reticulated dascyllus, and even he did not really agree to get close enough - so I cropped the photo to make it lok better, haha (Read: i was not skilled enough to take a decent shot that fills the frame)

"Hello there! Who are you? Where do you come from? Why are you here? Why are you chasing me? Got any food for me? Why not? If you have no food, can I eat you? Or that big shiny thing you are carrying? Is that food?"

At some point in time I got tired of chasing moving objects since I seemed not to be able to get much of any good pictures of them and decided to test out my camera on things that move less, such as:

Coral - and I did a really bad job on this one.  What was I thinking? In what way is this an interesting angle? 

Deadmans fingers - but even that moved too much and I was clueless enough not to be able to get my light right.

Clams - but they looked much prettier under water than in my picture. I need more practise!

NIGHT DIVE

Ok, I left THAT light at home in Singapore that Terence said I will need on the night dive. Great. On top of that I left both of my torches in Singapore - at the point in time of which I was wondering whether I had actually managed to bring any equipment at all for this trip. How many things did I forget to bring? Muppet.

I borrowed a torch from Terence and left my strobe on. That was kind of fun but I could not see anything in the light of the strobe so I did also turn the borrowed torch on. Terence found a really cool devil scorpionfish (but did a bad job with the identification claiming it was not a devil. I did check under the pectoral fins and saw the bright orange and yellow colouring. Sorry, Terence :) ) This one was particularly calm - did not move a single millimeter although I pretty much pointed my camera in its face. Fun.

The first shot was my best one, surprisingly enough.

I dont know why I took this from above it instead of right from the front. The angle does not really show its big eyes. Oh well - next time a better job.

Then I found my friend the very big hermit. He was a funny dude - as hermit crabs always are.

My friend the hermit was trying to check out my camera lens - and my light was pointed behind it and I did not manage to focus on its eyes. Sigh. I'm a lousy muppet photographer...

Don't ask - just another example of what newbie photographers think is a great angle. But I like pencil urchins - is that an excuse enough for taking bad photos of them?

DIVE 4 (Sunday)

We jumped on the boat (dives 1-3 were all on house reef in Salang, at Dive Asia) and headed off to Chebeh. Terence loved the abundance of anemones and clowns - and I have to say I did not mind them, either, although I'm not really yet good enough to take passable shots of them.

Stay still you stupid clown so that I can take a picture of you!

We spent the last 15 minutes of the dive chasing blennies on a small reef plateau. Terence got a couple of excellent shots, whilst mine are a bit too far away from the subject. Again - gotta save something for next time, right?

Blenny flying.

Blenny again.

DIVE 5

We did still do one more dive - but as I wanted to test my camera battery life I had not charged the battery on Saturday evening. I took four experimental shots at the beginning of the dive (all turned out black), filled my memory card, had to delete photos - and as I got them deleted - blink-blink-blink - I was out of battery. Hahahaa! Oh noooo.....

I spent the rest of the dive having a staring contest with a goby, and looking for little things for Terence to take pictures of. I found one cute flabellina nudibranch - a completely baby sized on as well. Terence has  a great shot of it - but I'll leave that for Terence to share.

As a result of spending a lot of time in the water being confused over my new equipment I still found myself coming back with much more excitement than what I left with. I thought I liked macro photography - and now I have for the first time decent enough equipment  for that. Best of all, I also have a dive buddy who also has the patience to hover around in an area of 10 square meters for 15 minutes. It's not easy to dive with a photographer and the best thing to do is to go diving with another equally camera crazy person. Soon again - either with another photo enthusiast - or with hte risk of annoying the heck out of my next dive buddy :)


Last but not least: The mandatory sunset shot (taken with an iPhone, not my new camera)

View from Dive Asia on Saturday evening.