Had a great time, and everybody got together for a picnic afterwards

It was really nice to get out and dive with a couple good friends and then spend a wonderful afternoon picnicking and hanging out on the beach. We went to the “Plage Passable” at St. Jean Cap-Ferrat. Beautiful weather, lots of sun, and good times were had. It was one of the best Saturdays I have had in a while.

Spending two and a half hours in the water was pretty exhausting, but we were rewarded with lots of interesting stuff. My friends found an underwater cave they were looking for, we saw lots of a crazy neon-green algae, I cam across several examples of a new anemone, and we saw the biggest macro plankton I have ever seen! I estimated one critter to be about 3 meters (9 feet) long.

Check out the shots below. Enjoy!

Very green algae was seen in mass quantities

Massive Macro Plankton

This specimen was over 3 meters in length

Over-under taken with Sigma 8-16mm

Free diving - on diver is monitoring the other as he ascends for security.

At the end of the line

Underwater scene - I love the colors

Sea Cucumber

Triptérygion with urchin in the background

Those of you who follow me on Facebook will know that I posted something about a huge opportunity in a major publication. It was a major, major deal, and I was pretty excited about it. The thing is… it fell through. It wasn’t a problem with my photos, but more a question of context. Not that it makes me feel any better. Over the last 18 months, I have had a few flirtations with major opportunities, but they all have fallen through at the last minute. While it is really disappointing, I feel like there are more waiting, and that it is only a matter of time before I land THE ONE. Plus, it doesn’t help that I found out that I lost a not-small amount of cash in an investment gamble the same day. Oh well, life goes on.

Small blennie taken with 60mm and Inon Macro

Anyways, I finally got out to work with my new 60mm port, and my hand-made mount for my Inon macro lens. The verdict: I am very, very happy with the results. My initial tests yielded excellent sharpness, and excellent images. The only downside to the whole thing is that the working distance is very, very small. The 60mm already has a very small working distance, and the Inon macro lens reduces it even further. I ran a couple of attempts with dual stacked lenses, and it looks rather impractical at this point. The subject has to be practically touching the lens with dual lenses attached, and I didn’t get very good results. Perhaps it might work for some types of subjects, but I will have to work with it further. Skittish subjects are absolutely out of the question.

Small blennie taken with Nikon 60mm and Inon Macro lens

All in all, I feel that the 60mm macro, coupled with a good wet macro lens provides excellent flexibility, even if the working distance is very small. I can remove the lens and shoot larger subjects, or attach it and get up close and personal with very small subjects. I am really looking forward to working more with this combo.

Finally, on a quick note, I want to say that scubacam.nl is a great place to purchase your gear from. In the last few months, I have bought quite a bit of gear from them, and have been happy with their service and prices. When everything goes well, it is easy to provide a high service level. However, it is when there are problems that true customer service is defined. I had such an experience recently when a 60mm port that I ordered from the aforementioned site came through as defective. I took it on three dives, and had a very small amount of moisture in my housing each time. Once I made sure that it was not user error that caused it, I reached out to them. Without hesitation, they responded to my request (on a holiday, when they were closed for business, it should be noted), and offered an exchange right away. They didn’t have the same exact product in stock, but worked with me to find a suitable replacement. I made the request on Monday (on a holiday week), and had my replacement in-hands by the next Monday. In fact, I could have had it by that Friday, but I missed the delivery, since I was not expecting it so soon!

Black and white shell

I just wanted to get this out there and give them some good word-of-mouth since when I first ordered from them, I felt like I was taking a big gamble. I had searched the internet for some info on whether they were trustworthy, and didn’t find much about them. I took a risk, and am glad I did. I recommend scubacam.nl as a great place to buy your gear from, and I hope you will too.

Full disclosure statement: I do not have any relations with scubacam.nl, other than the fact that I have purchased quite a bit of product from them. They have no knowledge of my endorsement and I have not, nor will I, receive any benefits from them for providing it. I only post this because I firmly believe that good companies should be rewarded with positive word-of-mouth.

That’s all I have to say for now. Enjoy the photos!

Anemone on sandy bottom

Another blennie shot - love the colors

Villefranche Sur-Mer

Went out for a dive expedition with buddy this weekend. I am calling it a dive expedition, because we hauled our gear a fairly good distance over some not-so-nice terrain. Our goal was to access the “Coral Cave” or Grotte à Corail. We had both been there by boat, but wanted to explore how to get there from the shore. For this, there exist two methods.

Method #1: Take bus #81 to the Cap de Nice, and exit on the top of the hill just before reaching Villefranche. The advantage of this route is that it is quite a bit shorter. It is, however, much more difficult to navigate. It features lots of climbing, and it is not exactly ideal with heavy gear.

Unidentified Jellyfish Species

Method #2: Take the train to the Villefranche depot and follow the trail out. This method features far easier terrain, and is actually quite pleasant. The major drawback is that it is quite a bit longer. I would say it was a good 40 minute hike to the Coral Cave area.

In order to check it out, we did both. We took the bus route in, and the train route out. I am thinking that, overall, the train route is probably a bit better, but it would be difficult to choose a definite preference.

It took us some time to find the cave, and by that time I was getting pretty tired, and my partner was starting to get a bit sea sick. We only got in one or two dives to the cave before calling it a day. I wouldn’t exactly call it a failure, because the water had really good visibility, and there were all sorts of strange critters in the water. There were tons of mega plankton, including several “Ceinture de Vénus”, as well as another new type of jellyfish that I had yet to see. That makes two new jellyfish in two weeks. I am wondering if these jellyfish have a cosmopolitan distribution, typically in deeper waters, or if they are signs of new intruders into the waters here. In any case, I haven’t been able to get a positive ID on either species as of yet. I am thinking I might reach out to the local university here in a few days to try to get an identification.

I am really enjoying shooting over-unders

I took some fun over-under shots, one of which turned out pretty nice. That’s the advantage of having a huge 8″ dome port and a wide angle lens. A fisheye lens would give me a much wider perspective, but I am just not a big fan of the extreme distortion in general. I am looking forward to exploring the various possibilities of what more can be done with this style of shot.

Finally, on a strange note, I saw an interesting documentary called “Encounters at the End of the World” by Werner Herzog. In it, he discusses how penguins in Antarctica live in their societies. They live, breed, and feed in large groups. Every once in a while, an individual from the group will, instead of heading out to sea to feed with the rest of the group, head inland over miles and miles of terrain towards the mountains – and a certain death.

Even if someone should discover the lost penguin, and return it to it’s group, it will just head straight back out towards the same direction. There is some urge to go off into the unknown. Scientists don’t know what exactly causes this behavior (some suggest it is simple disorientation), nor do they know why it occurs only in certain individuals.

What do we expect to find?

For some reason, this section of the documentary has troubled me all week. Why does this behavior occur? Is it some sort of strange biological coding that causes certain members to shun their families and go explore what is beyond? Is it this strange behavior that led to penguins being found in other areas? There are penguins who live on the equator on the Galapagos Islands, and something tells me that it was individuals like these who probably brought them there.

I am not sure why this story troubled me so much or has refused to leave my mind in the last week. It could be because I see the same thing in a certain portion of humanity, and by extension, myself.

I felt sorry for it, knowing what was almost certainly in store, while at the same time I couldn’t help feeling that, success or failure, it was perhaps the luckiest of the group. Casting off it’s societal nets in a doomed search for… who knows what? What will it discover? Where will it end up? Will something extraordinary happen?

Is this the same biological time bomb that makes me want to go to exotic locations and chase toothed/poisonous critters with a camera? I don’t know, but every time I get close to an answer, it seems to slide slightly beyond my reach into the subconscious – making me have to dive a little deeper to get at it.

Enough deep thought – Enjoy the photos!

[Edit: I am almost positive I saw a Yellowtail Barracuda - an inhabitant of the Egypt area. Very strange. I watched him eat a fish and followed him for a good 45 seconds. He was much more brown in color than the Yellowmouth Barracuda we typically see here]

Rising to the surface

Overhead perspective

Free Diving

Look closely - almost transparent Ceinture de Vénus

Current wide angle setup

Nikon D90 with an Ikelite housing. Towards the end of 2011, I started selling off all of my camera equipment. Topside as well as underwater. I wanted to start fresh, and the only things I couldn’t part with were my Canon Powershot D10, and a few parts – odds and ends. After putting it off for years, I finally made the switch to Nikon. My current rig is set to two configurations, one for Macro, and one for wide angle:

Wide Angle: Sigma 8-16mm wide angle lens (14-24 mm equivalent). This is a rectilinear lens, with a 121 degree angle of view. A very sharp and well constructed lens. I have never really liked fisheye lenses, and this is currently the widest lens of its type on the market for APS-C sized sensors. I have also coupled it with an Ikelite 8″ dome port, and a 2.8″ port extension. For lighting, there is an Ikelite DS-51 substrobe with an aluminum ball arm kit and TTL cord. It’s my first true TTL strobe, and I will never go back. It just makes such a difference in exposition and color, and recharge time is fast at 2.5 seconds. It’s true that this strobe is more suited to macro than wide angle, but for my style of photography, it suits me enough to bring out more color, and highlight my subject.

Macro setup with custom Inon Mount

Macro: Nikon 60mm AF-D macro lens (I got the older model because it was cheaper, and it also works with the Kenko/Tamron teleconverters if I ever want to pick one up). I purchased the Nikon port for the 60mm macro lens. In addition, I picked up a B&J brand Ikelite to standard t-base adapter (bought it at Scubacam.nl – highly recommended for European residents), so I can mount my handy old Intova focus light on the handle. I use the Ikelite DS-51 Substrobe for this config as well, complete with TTL cord. The last addition to this configuration is my home-made mount for my dual stacked Inon lenses for super macro work.

What I did was to take my old adapter for my Canon G9 housing, and drilled two holes into it so I could bolt some metal rails to it. I got the metal rails off of my old Ewa-Marine housing from back in the day. I attached them to what is actually an arm-strap holder for a media player I never use, and bolted the rails to the strap itself using a couple bolts and washers. This holds the lenses firmly in place vertically. The last touch was to take and run a couple thin pieces thin, rubberized metal securely under the strap (I cut these off of an old Bill’s slap-watch wrist band, the material is perfect), along the body, and up through and into the edges of the old G9 M67 adapter. These just happened to be exactly the right size order to hold it in place horizontally, so the whole unit is about as rock solid as I could hope for it to be. I have a leash attached to the bottom of the unit, so that it will be safe should it ever drop off somehow. After a bit of fiddling and adding and subtracting spacers, I got it to be as perfectly centered as I can possibly hope with a hand-made rig.

I can remove the wet lenses in the middle of a dive (I keep a small case attached to my weight belt as a holder) and shoot straight 60mm, or I can attach them and shoot super macro as I please. The best part is that the whole thing fits securely without damaging or actually modifying the port. In fact, the whole thing nicely protects my port from dings and scratches.

Octopus - I am amazed at how this turned out

Since my big equipment transition, I have been getting more and more comfortable with my equipment. It’s a really good feeling to know that I am finally beginning to get from working with the photos I took, to getting the photos I want to take. Before this year, I would envision the photos I wanted, and when I got home and downloaded them, I found that they just were not there.

That’s not to say there aren’t a hell of a lot of photos I am missing still. There is a lot of trial and error going on right now (mostly error). But sometimes I am getting a solid shot that is just what I envisioned. It’s a start.

Enjoy the photos!

Small Anemones

Blennie

Spirograph

Rascasse - One of my favorite subjects

On another note, I am starting to feel slightly validated in my choice to upgrade my equipment. It has made all the difference in the quality of my work – and summer’s just begun. I can’t wait to see what happens when I learn how to use it! Enjoy the photos:

Spirograph

Rascasse

Diving at St Jean Cap-Ferrat - Taken with a Sigma 8-16mm

Well, this was the first weekend I was really able to get out and do some photo work with my new equipment. We had some very high winds, and most of the water was very agitated, with dangerous waves. I heard there was a guy who died in a boat accident yesterday, after the winds threw his boat up on the rocks. Yikes! That being said, there are almost always places with calm waters. Yesterday I checked out the water over by the airport (the non-windy side), and it was calm as could be. Visibility was pretty good, and I took some macro shots. This morning we got a small group together and headed over the St. Jean Cap-Ferrat where we found a protected bay to dive in, and conditions weren’t bad.

The Nikon 60mm Macro is good for fish shots too.

I finally got my new Ikelite DS-51 strobe. It’s a tiny little thing but it seems to do the job, especially for macro. It’s a big step up from my old strobe as far as features and performance. It features a recycle time of 2.5 seconds, as well as built-in TTL with the proper connection and an Ikelite case. This means that it automatically meters the available light and adjusts accordingly. What a difference! Plus, I can adjust the exposure combination, or I can go full manual at any time. It’s not the most powerful strobe on the market, but it gives a great color temperature, and seems to be what I need for most of my work. I am very happy with it thus far.

Speaking of macro photography, I got my Nikkor 60mm macro lens this last week, and actually got to try it out. My initial impressions are very positive. The lens is very sharp, focuses relatively quickly, and seems very well built. It’s my first real, dedicated macro lens, and I definitely have to get used to working with it. Being a fixed focal length lens, I was surprised to find that it “zooms” a bit when focusing.

Shot from above with my Sigma 8-16mm

This is to provide a 1:1 macro ratio, but it really makes it difficult to compose my shots. It happened a few times that I got into position, composed my shot, and then went to focus. Upon focusing, the lens “zoomed” in a bit, and my whole composition was blown. This wouldn’t be a huge deal with scuba gear, but when you have to constantly re-compose your shots on a free dive, it can cause problems. I am sure I will get used to it, but it will take a bit of time. Indeed, I have some learning to do in regards to the entirety of my new system, as it is quite different. There are a lot of improvements, but it brings it’s own set of trade-offs as well. For now, I am just going to have to get out and shoot, and learn as I go.

I would definitely say that I can tell a huge difference in quality so far. I am far from being comfortable with my gear, and I would say my photos are as least as good, if not better than before.

You be the judge, enjoy the photos!

I saw a type of jellyfish that I had never seen before.

A fun shot of a normally mundane subject.

The distortion from my wide angle lens at close range makes this interesting

Arnaud coming top the surface

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Arnaud Swimming

The last week has been pretty beautiful. I’m getting back into the swing of things with my diving; got to hit the water four times in the last seven days. Unfortunately, I will be taking a bit of a forced break, due to a little accident involving my toe and the bath tub (It’s not pretty). I guess it just wasn’t my weekend. First, the water has been super calm and placid all week. A buddy and I decided to hit the “Virgin” dive spot for an opener, and the day we did, the waves picked up with the wind and tossed us around pretty good. We both got pretty sea sick, with me actually getting… uhhh sick while in the water. The dive session was pretty much a bust, with not great results (visibility was also pretty bad). But, it was still better than being at work. Then, my toe happened. It wasn’t exactly a perfect weekend, but it wasn’t all THAT bad, either.

"La Vierge" Visibility wasn't the best

Still getting used to my new Nikon D90 with underwater housing and Sigma 8-16mm lens. So far no accidents, and no scratches or dings in the dome. I am pretty nervous about it. One chip in the glass, and it’s bye-bye to a lot of dough. I am thinking of getting some insurance for it in case of an accident or a flood. I will be checking into it this week.

In the meantime, I am going to be pulling out my mini rig for some fun shooting this week (weather and toe permitting). It is much lighter and more versatile, although the quality and performance differences are very apparent.

Anyways, here are the latest shots. Enjoy!

A band of Saupe swimming along the shore

A spirograph upside-down, hanging on a slab of stone

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My New Ikelite Case for My D90

After months of saving, spending, and selling almost all of my old photo equipment, I finally reached my goal, and got my new Nikon D90, Ikelite Case, and Sigma 8-16mm lens. I got my port just yesterday, and this morning I finally got out to take a few test shots. Visibility was low, but I got to shoot a huge ball of sardines, and most importantly, nothing leaked!

Like I said, these are mostly just test shots, I was pretty happy with what I got though. I am sure there will be plenty more shots to come, and I am looking forward to it. For now, take a look at my initial work.

Ikelite 8" Acrylic Dome with Sigma 8-16mm lens

My first relatively successful over-under shot

Giant ball of sardines

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Marine life pages are updated!

I ran through and did a pretty thorough update on all of the Cote d’azur Marine Animal and Fish pages with a bunch of new photos, links and descriptions. I threw in everything I could identify, and even some I couldn’t! Some of the new additions include different shrimp, new anemones, chapon, needlefish, rays and a lot more.

Check it out.

Fish Page: http://www.azur-diving.com/cote-d%E2%80%99azur-marine-life-%E2%80%93-fish/

Marine Animal Page: http://www.azur-diving.com/cote-dazur-marine-life-marine-animals/