White Wall

Have recently joined a flickr group of twitter phoptographers and the first project is white wall. I think this one will be my final take on it:

PhotoFriday – ‘Wildlife’

This week’s Photo Friday entry: ’Wildlife’

Click image to go to see alternate sizes.

Click here to see the rest of my ‘Raja Ampat’ gallery.

See all the other photo Friday entries (and submit your own) for ‘Wildlife’ here.

Ultimate Indonesia – Raja Ampat

Well, what can I say but what a holiday! There was laughter, there were tears, there was awe, there were men with guns and there are photos. We stayed on the seven seas liveaboard with Alex Mustard and Graham Abbot for 12 days and nights of fantastic diving in Raja Ampat. Raja Ampat is a marine protected area in Indonesia west of Papa New Guinea.

Alex Mustard

Most people in underwater photography circles have heard of him, author of a couple of books (I really liked reefs revealed), numerous articles and judge on some major underwater photographic competitions.  In person, Alex was friendly and relaxed. This was a group-lead photo tour rather than one of his specific photo workshops but he was still happy to give advice when asked (which I think we all took great advantage of) and he seemed to genuinely like sitting going through peoples photos with them. I found that it was fascinating to watch a professional photographer at work, from ideas, to subject selection, to shooting technique and finally image selection and rejection. It was good fun to dive with him, he and I almost missed lunch because we were mucking about for too long in the mangroves! As a tour lead he did a great job, especially in the airport to and from Sarong to Manado (the only place where we checked in en masse).

Graham Abbott

We were lucky to have Graham from diving4images.com as our dive guide throughout our stay on the Seven seas (I didn’t actually get to dive with the seven seas dive guide, Tommy). Graham planned the route we would take and what dive sites we would go on and in what order to get the best of our photographic time in Raja Ampat. He has a fish & critter Id book inside his head and is an amazing spotter with eyes like an underwater hawk! He showed everyone what they wanted to see and was very patient when everyone took turns to take photos of the same tiny things. He is a very funny guy, I know that Lena was especially impressed with his underwater modeling and eye crossing techniques.

Seven seas

The liveaboard was one of the most luxurious we’ve been on. The rooms were quite large (for a boat) and ours had ample space underneath the tall king-size bed to store the baggage and useful drawers for clothes and gadgets. The food was very nice, they seemed to have no problem catering for peoples dietary requirements (Alex and I dined on chicken when they served up seafood meals for example) and I never went hungry as there was a steady supply of snacks throughout the day. It seemed like there was a lot of space, it never seemed like there were too many of us. There were several spaces for us to spread out and attend to our cameras on without having to take them down to our rooms.

Diving

The diving operation was very slick. All managed by a lovely American guy called Stuart. He took video throughout the trip that we could buy at the end. The were crew great with handling the cameras and the diving gear. We had three dive boats to dive from (two tender boats and one rib). The tender boats were easier to dive from (they had ladders) but the groups on them were large. There was only ever four divers on the rib – maximum, so I was glad to be on that one with Alex, Mike and sometimes either Stuart or Graham.

The crew were very dedicated, sometimes sitting in the boats in their bright yellow rain macs waiting for us for over an hour. They seemed to know where we were at all times and when we ascended they were there on hand to help us up into the boats. Seeing how ludicrously bad I was at getting into the rib they supplied a little ladder for it which I thought was very sweet

Critters

Well, this holiday certainly had critters galore! I’ve never seen so many fish and such lush and amazing coral in one place. The few days in Lembeh were supposed to allow us to get the macro out of our system. Raja Ampat is billed as a largely wide angle paradise, and while that is most definitely true (I took more wide-angle shots in those 12 days that I have in my life) it didn’t stop the macro lenses creeping back on throughout the week when the two words ‘pygmy’ and ‘seahorse’ were mentioned. I didn’t get to see the Denise ones but I’ve never seen weedy pygmy sea horses before so was especially please to see them. It was also a nudibranch hunters dream, with all different varieties on each dive.

Also, it was the first time Mike and I had ever seen manta rays! It was very exciting to see them and they came so close and they are so big! I think I must be the only person in the world to be intimated but such a gentle creature but they are very, very big.

Mangroves
I loved the day we had in the blue water mangroves. It was such a different and special environment (I wish we’d spent a little longer really). I haven’t processed all the photos from the mangroves yet so I will do an additional blog post later on for that.

Men with guns
We travelled overnight sometimes to get to a new area. One particular morning we had arrived at a new spot, the sea was very calm and it was just past dawn. Speeding across the water was a small boat with 3 or 4 men in it, one toting a rather large machine gun. Not something that one usually sees over breakfast so it made me sit up and take notice. They pulled up and boarded, pirates I thought? Apparently not. Stuart told them to leave the gun in the boat (which they did). Apparently we were rather too close to their pearl farm and they’d had some robberies, they thought we were pirates and had come to check us out lol. Satisfied that we were just a bunch of tourists and not stashing a large oyster string on our boat they moved us on.

Tears
Well almost, I got bitten by a large angry trigger fish that snuck up on my while I was photographing soft coral in the shallows of the ‘The windows’ divesite, his shallows apparently. I was very glad I was wearing wetsuit that day! And no I didn’t take his picture, I was too busy trying to smack him with my camera while he menacingly swam at my head – eek! Luckily for me he didn’t break the skin and a got away cleaning with a massive bruise on my knee and the fright of my life.

Topside

While on a trip such as this one you don’t expect there to be much to shoot above the water (well I don’t anyway), however the landscape was so beautiful I just had to get my camera out of that housing once in a while. Stuart gave us a couple of excellent opportunities for tender boat rides around the small islands between diving. The landscape was just so very green and lush. When I looked carefully I saw a fleeting glimpse of a bright green bird and a brilliant pink bird high up in the trees. We stopped for a minute or so on a small beach with a hut, although I don’t think anyone actually lived there. It did give me a change to try my hand at another 360 panorama but when I loaded all 31 NEF files into photoshop to try and stitch it, it unsurprisingly crashed!

With thanks for a great holiday to Alex, Graham, Stuart & the crew of the Seven Seas, Divequest and everyone on the trip.

click on the following to see the full set of images in each galley:
:: Raja Ampat underwater images ::
:: Raja Ampat Mangroves ::
:: Topside ::
:: Mikes Topside photos ::
:: Lembeh Strait underwater images ::

All images in this post are clickable to see larger versions and all images are copyright Suzy Walker or Michael Toye.

First few Raja Ampat photos

Just started uploading some of the photos from Raja Ampat… more to come…

Gallery here: http://www.pbase.com/suzy_walker/raja_ampat_indonesia_2009

Lembeh Underwater Gallery Complete

I’ve finished uploading some of the weird and wonderful creatures you can see in Lembeh straits, in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Its amazing what the guides find amongst the rubbish in the black volcanic sand! The visibility was not as good as I remember from the previous trip in 2007 but it was certainly great to get back there.

Full gallery here: http://www.pbase.com/suzy_walker/lembeh_strait_indonesia_2009

This was the first few days of the Ultimate Indonesia photo trip with Divequest, lead by Alex Mustard. I’ve started my above water gallery for the whole trip too, although I’ve only loaded the Lembeh photos so far. The topside photos are in this gallery: http://www.pbase.com/suzy_walker/lembeh_strait_and_raja_ampat_indonesia_2009

We stayed in the lovely Lembeh Resort which I managed to snag a few photos of this time…

Its under slightly different management than last time but the food and service are still fantastic.

All photos in this post are clickable but do check out the rest Next up Raja Ampat ….

First few Lembeh pics uploaded

Yay, just back from Holidays. We went to Lembeh straits and Raja Ampat in Indonesia.  Just uploaded the first couple of photos from Lembeh Straits, muck diving and macro captial of the world, let me know what you think…

Full gallery here: http://www.pbase.com/suzy_walker/lembeh_strait_indonesia_2009

Trip review and more photos of course to follow

No Foto?

Looking back on my blog post recently I realised I haven’t been posting many actual photos! So here’s a photo I took in Bali, freshly processed for your viewing pleasure Click for bigger size at pbase:

Christmas tree worms in the Red Sea

Christmas tree worms, Spirobranchus giganteus, are usually found in coral reefs in tropical waters. According to various google sources the colourful plumes are used for passive feeding on suspended food particles and plankton in the water. The plumes are also used for respiration.

They anchor themselves with a tubular burrow bored into live hard corals. Though the plumes are visible, most of the worm is inside its burrow and are very sensitive to disturbances, rapidly retracting into the safety of the burrow at the slightest passing shadow. They typically re-emerge a minute or so later, very slowly, to test the water before fully extending their plumes.

The Christmas tree worm are polychaete ciliary feeders that feed using their radioles, the hair-like appendages that circle outward from the central spine, to catch phytoplankton floating in the water column. The food is then passed down the food groove by the feeding pinnules (ciliary tracts or tiny hair-like extensions on the surface of cells that generate water currents to move food or mucus). The food particles are sorted and larger particles are discarded. Sand grains are directed to storage sacs to be used later for tube building.

References & further reading… http://marinebio.org , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirobranchus_giganteus

Ok, the thought of a worm is not all that appealing but hey, they are really cute and come in all different colours! I’ve decided to devote a gallery to them on my photo site! http://www.pbase.com/suzy_walker/xmas_tree_worms

Some are more in focus than others – I was using a 60mm macro lens, would have been better with a 105! All shot with a Nikon D300. Click the images to see lager versions. They are all from our recent trip with Mark Webster to Hurghada & the Brothers with Oonas divers. The photos from the rest of the trip will hopefully be processed and uploaded shortly

How to set up a Subal ND30

I’ve written this how to guide-to get primarily for my own use as an ad memoir but I thought I’d post it here in case anyone else is having trouble. When I took my subal to Cebu, Martin Edge had to show me everything. So I’ve jotted it down here from what I can remember. This is my disclaimer.. these are my own personal notes so if you chose to use them and your camera floods please don’t blame me.

EDIT: One piece of info that I forgot to mention (thanks for pointing that out Peter). I always take the strap, the little rubber eye piece and plastic LCD screen cover off the camera before putting it in the housing. The little eye piece should just click off if you push it upwards. Apparently the pressure caused by these things can cause a flood.

I have a 60 macro flat port lens and a fisheye (with gear & extension ring) for my Tokina. This is how I set them up. I may update this account with pictures in June so take this as an initial draft.

Firstly, make sure you’re in a nice dry environment (I always did this in my room at Cebu). And make sure no one will interrupt you otherwise you’ll end up missing a step and flooding it

Back of housing:

• - Open Subal housing with heal of hand, push down & twist (this is how I do it because I haven’t the strength in my thumbs).
• - Take out baseplate and attach it to the camera (by the tripod screw slot) with a coin
• - Drape flash head over the edge of the housing
• - Turn Subal Housing on/off switch to ‘On’
• - Of the two knobs on the left hand side – switch the larger one to auto focus, Flick the smaller button up to ‘M’ for Manual Focus
• - Switch the camera to manual focus
• - Switch the camera on and remove the lens cap!
• - Place camera into housing (on baseplate spokes) & flick down baseplate switch to secure
• - Put flash head into hotshoe on camera and make sure its pushed in firmly until flush with the hotshoe
• - Test switches (on/off & turn focus to C or S)
• - To remove the o-ring, run thumbs over main o-ring until it pops out at the bottom or top.
• - Clean the groove with a cotton bud
• - Clean & slightly grease o-ting & check for little bits of grit or hairs or anything that might cause a leak!
• - Place o-ring back into the groove at the top & push gently into place with thumbs
• - Wait a few moments to make sure the o-ring doesn’t pop back out at the bottom (Ive seen this happen and it causes a leak if you don’t notice this)
• - Clean the lid of any grime & place in position
• - Click into place with two clips (with palm of hand or knuckles or thumbs)

Front of the housing:

- A flat port (like the 60mm macro port) is easier to put on before inserting the camera. A dome pot (like the Tokina fisheye) or a port for a lens that needs gears is possibly easier to put in place with the camera already inside.

- 60mm macro flat port

o Lightly greasy o-ring.

o Place back onto port by thumbing the o-ring back into the groove rather than stretching the o-ring back over (they stretch eventually anyway & need replacing).

o Hold the port so that the subal logo is at the nine o’clock position

o Place the port onto the housing & turn until you feel it drop into place

o Then push down hard & twist until locked into place (the Subal logo should now be at 12 o’clock at the top of the housing all being well)

- Fisheye for Tokina

o Put camera into housing (as described above)

o Put the extension ring onto the front of the housing (follow the instructions for the 60mm macro port above)

o Place the gear ring inside the housing onto the lens. Push it down into a position so that the teeth of the gear turn when the side knob is set to manual focus (this autofocus/manual focus knob is misleadingly named in this case. I am using the lens on auto focus but the manual focus level is zooming my lens for me).

o Once you can turn the lens with the knob you know the gear is on correctly.

o Grease the o-ring of the fisheye port.

o On mine there is no subal logo to line up but when properly attached the larger shades on the port should be at the top & bottom. So put the large shades at 9 o’clock & twist until it drops into place. The push hard & twist until the shades are at the top & bottom. One thing to note, be careful when twisting these that the extension ring is still locked into place with the logo at the top (and not twisting with the fisheye).

Ta da! Now go and watch for bubbles in the dunk tank before taking it diving! And try not to leave it unattended.

EDIT: see other posts in my ‘Subal Housing How To’ category for strobes, 105 VR lens and any additional updates… here