Anyway, I hit a bit of an obstacle after getting back from my first day with the Canon 5D Mark II. After downloading my files and making two complete copies, I dragged a random RAW file over to my desktop, with the objective of opening it in Photoshop to see how I did.

Fail. Big time.

You see, every time Adobe releases a major upgrade of Photoshop and related software, the company has the charming habit of ensuring that the previously perfectly good version of their software doesn’t get updated to work with RAW formats from new cameras as they’re released.

Being armed only with Photoshop CS3, I couldn’t open the 5D Mark II RAW file…at least not with Adobe software.

There is a workaround. You can convert RAW format to Adobe’s DNG format, and then open with previous versions of Photoshop, but who the &*#$(@ wants to do that?

Otherwise, you need to invest in new software, which of course makes sense from Adobe’s point of view, but doesn’t really from mine, since I only use a handful of really basic functions in Photoshop, none of which have changed substantially in any iteration of the software I’ve had.

To solve the problem, I brought everything into Aperture (which I normally do anyway, but I was just in a hurry in this case to see how my first photos turned out). I sorted, tagged and picked a few favourites out of the day’s shots. Perfect.

Then, I experienced my next obstacle with Aperture’s RAW conversion. The RAW converter does an OK job, but the results from Aperture’s conversion process for underwater images, especially those involving lots of blue, aren’t as good as they could be. For topside photos and macro stuff, Aperture does just fine, but with blue water in the background…not so much to my liking.

Anyway, the work-around was to use Canon’s proprietary RAW conversion engine, built into its Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software, which comes packaged with Canon DSLRs.

The software is slow and clunky, but the RAW converter is by far the best for Canon files…which makes sense if you stop to think about it.

DPP gives you control over quite a few things, the most useful of which I’ve found to be Picture Style (Canon’s proprietary colour-management profiles), exposure and light temperature. There’s also a chromatic aberration correction function, which can help quite a bit if you’ve got a file with noticeable colour shift. I pretty much don’t touch all the other controls.

And of course, transferring from DPP to Photoshop CS3 was no problem, producing beautiful files and obviating my inability to convert 5D Mark II RAW files with CS3.

Yes, this process takes longer and is more cumbersome that a straight Aperture-based conversion, or opening with CS4 RAW Converter, but I believe it results in the highest-quality files, and the fact that I don’t need to buy CS4 is a big bonus too. I only converted the files I really liked, and left all the others alone (i.e., this more troublesome process makes me edit more harshly, which is a good thing).

Finally, I had my first real-life chance to make use of the MarineLife Keywords List I wrote about a while ago.

All I had to do to label my squid shots was look-up “bigfin reef squid” in the MarineLife Keywords index that I had already imported into Aperture, and, like magic, I had everything I needed in order to tag the squid images:

bigfin reef squid: Sepioteuthis lessoniana; bigfin squid: Sepioteuthis lessoniana; Cephalopods: Cephalopoda; Invertebrates; Loliginidae; Mollusks: Mollusca; Squid: Teuthida; Teuthoidea

…in practical terms, meaning I didn’t have to (mis)type all those long multi-syllabic tongue-twisters into each photo’s metadata. All I had to do was drag-and-drop the list onto all my squid files and I was done!

So to summarise, my work flow for the 5D Mark II:

- Import into Aperture; delete junk so no one else sees cruddy images;
- Tag with MarineLife Keywords; add location tags (Note: Save $5 off MarineLife Keywords with discount code I692W094 at checkout);
- Use Aperture’s Smart Albums to pick out favourite images;
- Open selected file with Canon DPP; adjust; send to Photoshop CS3;
- Make final minor adjustments; save as required format.

Plus, just to add to my anxiety, a bunch of people were expecting me to get good photos, none of them allowing for the (entirely realistic) possibility that I could flub up and botch the whole trip.

Just days before my departure, I got a Canon 5D Mark II, the successor to my favourite camera for the past several years, the original EOS 5D.

Yes, I know. The camera has been out a while, but there wasn’t much point for me to invest in one until I had a housing for it…so as soon as I had a Zillion 5D Mark II housing in my eager hands, I got the camera and headed to Izu.

There’s been so much written about the 5D Mark II that I’m not going to bother talking about specs and such. Just Google the camera name and you’ll find plenty of technical information about it.

I am, however, going to tell you that after four dives with the camera…I love it. Here’s why:

By way of background, I’ve used a number of Canon DSLRs over the past several years, including the 1D, 1Ds, 1D Mark II, 1Ds Mark II, 1D Mark III, 5D, and 40D. Of all those cameras, the 5D was my favourite.

It’s the right size for my hands, so I don’t get as tired carrying a couple of them around all day as I do with the larger 1D cameras, and the colour rendition seems the nicest of all the Canon cameras I’ve used…at least to my eye.

Also, I’m a simple shooter, meaning I stick to the basics…i.e., as long as I have control over shutter, aperture and ISO, I’m happy. I don’t fiddle too much (especially underwater) with the options and additional functionality available on DSLRs, so the 5D was perfect for my needs.

With this in mind, I had high expectations for the 5D Mark II.

The camera didn’t disappoint. As you can see from the photo at the top of this post and from my earlier post about the squid I photographed in Izu, the colour rendition of the 5D Mark II is outstanding.

I shot the squid image above at ISO 320, with the aperture pretty wide at f5.6, shutter set at 1/200, and illumination for the squid from two Inon Z220s set far to the left and right, pointed nearly straight out. I was using a Canon 17-40mm lens, zoomed in close to the 40mm end, with a Pro-One Dome and a +2 diopter.

Why did I choose these settings? Well, in short, because I had to. It was pretty dark, so I needed to use a relatively high ISO to pick up ambient light, but also, my strobes were mis-firing and not putting out enough juice.

No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the strobes to work properly, so I needed the extra camera sensitivity to be able to wrap sufficient light around the squid. (I think I’ve figured out the cause of the strobe difficulties. I’ll write about it later once I can confirm.)

To say that I was worried about how the images would turn out is like saying I was sorta nervous on my first date!

Fortunately, the camera performed beautifully. Despite the relatively high ISO (I usually prefer to stick to ISO 100, or up to 200 max), the noise levels were fine. I’m not a pixel-peeper, so my criterion was viewing the files at 100% on-screen and checking for ugly stuff.

Despite the difficult lighting situation, the camera did a great job distinguishing the nuances in light levels to make the squid look 3-D and not flat (as they appear in many photographs I’ve seen of them).

If I had one gripe, it’s with the autofocus. The reason I switched from Nikon to Canon many years ago was Canon’s superior AF on the long lenses I use topside. Underwater, in dark conditions, Canon AF doesn’t work as well as I’d like.

Obviously, the AF is good enough for me to get the photos I need, but it just seems to be less zippy than it should be…primarily in low EV conditions and with macro subjects. This was true with the 5D, and it doesn’t seem to have improved any in the 5D Mark II.

Again, I’m not a technical expert…I just know what I experience.

From what I hear from friends, the recent Nikon DSLRs have excellent AF, so I’m looking for an excuse and the circumstances to try a Nikon D700 underwater…[insert sound of me clearing my throat]…a not-too-subtle hint to anyone who might be in a position and of the inclination to send a camera my way!

But, the minor AF issue aside, the bottom line is that I’m happy enough with the camera that I’ll be getting a second 5D Mark II body soon, which I’ll be putting to work in a Seacam 5D housing that I’ll have my hands on shortly…[insert video clip of me rubbing my hands together in anticipatory, lustful manner].

The first time I dived in Izu back in 2006 was also the first time I used a drysuit, since up until that point, I had completely avoided getting into water below 28ºC…as any sane person would do.

Having lost my vestigial grip on sanity since that time, I let my friends persuade me into diving in Izu with a wetsuit during my recent squid search.

To this end, I had a custom wetsuit made, 6.5mm farmer-john style bottom with a 6.5mm pullover top and attached hood. On the recommendation of my friends at Dan’s Dive Shop, I went with the consensus top-of-the-line suit, made by a company named UGO.

(Side Note: UGO is an acronym for the company owner’s name, Yuki Goto, which is kind of funny, because a few friends mentioned that UGO 6.5mm suits are considered the Ferraris of wetsuits. If you take the first two letters of the owner’s name (instead of just using the letter “U”), you get “Yugo”, which…for those of you old enough to remember…was the antithesis of a Ferrari.)

The neoprene used by this company is special. I don’t completely understand why, but everyone agrees that it doesn’t compress as much as normal neoprene, it molds to your body, and it’s really warm.

Custom-tailored, the suit was a bit difficult to get into initially, but not as difficult as I had imagined. Actually, getting the suit off was more of a chore.

Anyway…I’m sold. The suit fit so well that I was almost entirely dry after I got out, and I was as toasty, if not toastier, than with my drysuit. Plus, it’s a lot easier to move around in a wetsuit, as you don’t have sudden shifts in buoyancy (air pockets move around inside a drysuit).

And never to be discounted is the fact that with a wetsuit, I can pee if the need arises. It’s the simple pleasures that really count sometimes.

The major drawback is the difficulty of learning how to take the pullover top off. It’s a tight fit, so it requires a nimble twist-and-flip technique. My initial attempts were more of a flop-and-squirm. But, on the last dive of my recent trip, I finally succeeded in dis-wetsuiting without external intervention…to a hearty round of applause from bemused onlookers.

Their bodies are generally slender and elongated; they have eight arms plus two tentacles; they can manipulate body colour and patterns via chromatophores; they squirt ink as a means of self-defence; they have large, inquisitive eyes; and most of all…they just look weird, like some fantastic figment of a child’s hyperactive imagination.

In case you were wondering, there are something on the order of 300 known species of squid, ranging from the relatively small ones divers come across in shallow waters to gigantic deep-dwelling species that probably spawned age-old legends of vicious man-eating krakens.

A couple of weeks ago, I travelled to the Izu Peninsula in Japan to spend some quality time with one particular type of squid…bigfin reef squid (Sepioteuthis lessoniana), known as アオリイカ (aori-ika) in Japanese.

Thinking About Sex
To clarify one thing right upfront…I usually don’t go to the trouble of taking a trip just to see relatively common squid, but this trip is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.

You see…each spring and summer throughout the waters of the Izu Peninsula, bigfin reef squid gather in large numbers for courtship, mating and egg-laying. The diving community in Japan has documented this phenomenon for many years, so there’s plenty of information available (in Japanese of course) on this annual event.

When the water warms up to around 19ºC or so, which usually happens some time around late May to early June, the squid come inshore and into the shallows to do their thing. For whatever reason, the water didn’t warm last year, and there was very little squid mating (at least in the areas that divers frequent), so my friends in Izu were understandably anxious about how this season’s major squid social event would develop.

As it turned out, the warming of local waters took place suddenly, shortly after my earlier visit to Izu in April…which meant squid mating started early this year, with lots and lots of squid.

So it was that I made my way back to Izu, with the sole ambition of being a squid-sex voyeur.

My Peeping Tom Experience
All told, I stayed a week in Izu, but due to a convergence of foul weather, sudden fever and equipment problems, I was only able to spend a few dives observing the squid. Despite the seemingly bad luck, I was actually quite fortunate.

I got sick on the days with the worst weather, so I didn’t really miss much. My equipment flubbed up on the days with the worst light and water conditions, so again, I didn’t lose out.

And on the three dives when I had optimal conditions (clear water, cooperative cephalopods, no other divers flailing about and chasing squid away)…my new Canon 5D Mark II worked perfectly and I was completely alert. Plus, I had learned a lot from observing the squid during my earlier dives when I wasn’t able to get any photographs…so by the time all the starfish finally aligned, I was able to nail the shots I wanted.

Here’s a rundown of what I observed and learned:

- In preparation for mating, the squid gather in large groups, usually near or above a site they’ve collectively decided to use for depositing eggs. How they decide on a specific site is beyond me, but it’s common practice for the local fishermen and dive operations to sink a few clumps of tree branches in relatively shallow water (say 15 to 20 metres) just before squid mating season. This provides the squid with convenient nurseries, and divers with predictable access to the squid.

In the two locations where I dived with squid, the trees of choice were Castanopsis cuspidata (in Futo harbour) and bamboo (at Hatsushima). As far as I can tell, there’s no particular reason for the selecting these trees, besides local availability.

- The squid appear to engage in much of the courtship, male-to-male aggression, etc. in mid-water, relatively high up in the water column. Once a male and female have paired up, they mate in mid-water and then descend to the egg-laying area together.

- The male protects the female all the time. If another male approaches, the original male becomes visibly agitated and flashes warning colours, communicating obvious irritation. If the intruder persists, both males extend their swimming fins and flare out their legs and tentacles…basically engaging in a visual pissing match. Occasionally, more than two males go at each other…leading to a twisted turmoil of tangled teuthid tentacles.

- Occasionally, the males make physical contact, but it seemed as if the original male usually wins without having to resort to 10-limbed fisticuffs, and the male/ female continue toward the bottom. Once they reach the egg-laying site, the males stands guard over the female while she deposits a bunch of eggs. Though it’s tempting to interpret this as an act of cephalopodic chivalry, it’s probably just the male ensuring that the eggs he fertilised are placed in a safe location without interference.

- One particular amazing talent I saw is the ability of the males to flash “Stay the heck away!” colouration on the half of their bodies facing a potential competitor(s), while simultaneously maintaining a soothing “I love you” white tone on the side of their bodies facing the females (proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that males of all species, even invertebrates, can multi-task).

- Even though they pair up, the squid seem to move in groups. Mated pairs approached egg-laying locations in waves, and then retreated more-or-less all at the same time. Perhaps they behaved this way in order to have some semblance of safety in numbers. This would make sense, given the abundance of moray eels hidden among the tree branches, ready at a moment’s notice to grab a savoury squid snack, as well as the many brown-lined puffers (Canthigaster rivulata) milling about, darting in to take a small bite out of any squid that wasn’t paying attention.

- The time during which females are busy laying eggs seemed to be prime time for male squid to challenge one another, often with the relevant female appearing to be oblivious to the mad waving of tentacles and angry displays of colour going on behind her. On a few occasions, it seemed as if a female I was watching departed the site with a different male than she’d arrived with (…women…sigh). I couldn’t be completely certain, so that’s something I’ll have to watch out for next time.

- There are apparently two major mating cycles, with the first running from May to late June/ early July, followed by a hiatus during which there’s little or no mating, and then another round of mating in August/ September. I apparently caught the tail-end of the first round, as most of the squid disappeared a few days after I left. The second round doesn’t always take place, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in a month or two.

- There seems to be some measure of local variation from site to site. For instance, between the two sites I visited (Futo and Hatsushima), the squid at Hatsushima were slightly bigger (perhaps 10-15cm longer for the largest males) and seemingly less cautious around me (though that might have been due to fewer divers being around). There seemed to even be some differences in the squid populations at different tree branch clusters in the same general area. The squid I encountered at the Yoko-iso dive site in Futo were less wary of me than the ones at the Yoko-bama site.

I’m tempted to speculate that each unique sub-population/ sub-aggregation of mating squids develops a temporary group dynamic that determines their sub-population’s behaviour and characteristics, but it would take much more time and methodical observation to establish whether that’s actually the case or not.

- After the squid finish mating, they die, which provides a feast for the moray eels and other scavenger/ predators in the area. This is similar to the “mate and die” reproductive strategy followed by other marine animals, such as salmon and octopuses. The squid don’t just mate once though. As soon as the female lays her eggs, she’s off to mate again. I’m not sure how long this continues, but it goes on for a while.

- Finally, although it’s definitely possible to get close to the squid, it takes time and patience. On my first dive with the squid, another group of divers approached after I’d spent 25 minutes waiting for the squid to get comfortable with me. Just as the nervous cephalopods had accepted me, the other divers rushed in…finning madly, blowing bubbles, snapping away with cameras and mis-aimed strobes. And, of course…the squid vanished into thin water, as any self-respecting cephalopod would do when confronted by a gaggle of stark-raving lunatics.

Wrapping Up
As always, I owe a debt of gratitude to my friends in Izu who educated me about the squid and helped arrange the logistics of getting to the right places at the right times.

Specifically, Satoshi and Issei took great care of me while I was in Futo, and Shinohara-san escorted me for my first visit to Hatsushima.

Also, one thing that’s unique to Japan is the close relationship between the fishing and diving communities. There are positive aspects to this symbiosis, as well as some challenges, but in short, having the support and cooperation of the fishing community is essential.

I was fortunate to have the help of Hiroshi-san, who took us out on his fishing boat to the Yoko-iso dive site in Futo. This was critical, as it got me to a relatively isolated school of squid, where I was able to spend all the time I needed to watch, learn and photograph. Thanks Hiroshi-san!

If there’s one regret I have about this experience, it’s that I didn’t have video gear with me. There was so much action and drama, and the squid are so expressive…that there were many times I found myself wishing I had been prepared with video equipment.

Circumstances permitting, I’ll head back again next year to give it another go.

Despite having horrific weather for most of the days, coming down with a high fever mid-dive and becoming half-delirious, plus dealing with teething problems involving a new camera and housing…I managed to some nice shots.

It’ll take me a few days, but I’ll write more about the amazing and somewhat eerie experience of being surrounded by dozens of large squid (a metre+ in length for the biggest ones) preoccupied with mating and laying eggs.

Here’s a preview:

Incidentally, can anyone clue me in on what the correct term for a “bunch of squid” is? Like…school of fish, herd of elephants, pride of lions, gaggle of geese, etc.

The internet has changed all that, lowering the cost and barriers to communication, so that it’s much easier these days to keep in touch.

For instance, I received this photo via email from Pat, whom I met in Lembeh a couple of years ago at Kasawari Lembeh Resort.

She and her husband are in their 70s and are going strong…travelling the world for diving and other activities. At the resort, they were fun, enthusiastic about every fish and other animal we stumbled across, and just filled with postive energy.

In fact, they left a lasting impression upon me, reminding me of how fortunate I am, and how valuable every moment and experience is.

Anyway, Pat (in the photo) is holding up a copy of my book Silent Symphony, which she and her husband were kind enough to donate to the Hardesty Regional Library in Tulsa, Oklahama.

So if you’re anywhere near Tulsa and want to take a look at my book, you know where to go!

Thanks Pat and Bob…for donating the book, and for being an inspiration.

If you’re concerned about the fish-in-distress, don’t worry…it survived. Here’s the story:

While we were playing together, the sea lion dashed off and zig-zagged around the seabed, occasionally “looking over its shoulder”, so to speak, indicating for me to tag along.

Actually, we had been cavorting in the shallows for the better part of an hour by that point, so the sea lion most likely knew I would do my best to keep up, but it sure seemed like he turned back to check on me a few times.

After zipping around for a bit, he slammed on the brakes, shoved his face into a pile of seaweed, executed a pinpoint 180º turn and presented me with a fish…taking obvious pride in his find. I took a few photos, then indicated as best that I could that I didn’t need a snack, and I wasn’t particularly interested in holding the fish in my mouth.

He must have understood, because he let the fish go and looked at me with a puzzled, somewhat insulted, expression, as if asking: “What is wrong with you?”.

Meanwhile, the poor little fish tried to swim (actually…limp) away, but the sea lion would have none of it. He executed a quick flourish and re-captured it, once again presenting the despondent fish to me.

Once again, I deferred.

Once again, he questioned my sanity…as the fish made a desperate, but hopeless, dash for freedom.

Once again, he snagged the (now thoroughly exhausted) fish and offered it to me.

And yes…once again…I indicated “No, I am absolutely not going to chew on the fish, no matter how pretty it is.” this time, doing a flourish of my own accentuated by a couple of flips in the water…as an attempt to distract the persistent pinniped.

Fortunately for the fish, my little ruse worked. The ever-curious sea lion spit out the (now completely panicked, hyperventilating) fish, and swam over to check out why I was doing flips in the water.

…then, there was a “Wait a second…” moment (picture light bulb over Elmer Fudd’s head), when the sea lion looked at me, looked back at where he’d left the fish, and realised that he’d just been duped.

In far less than the blink of an eye, he was back to where his catch had been, but by then, the little fish had managed to disappear into a morass of seaweed.

The sea lion made a complete mess of the seaweed in an attempt to relocate his prey/ toy, but in the end, he stopped looking and gave me the cold shoulder..until of course, I did a few more flips in the water and he zipped right over to play again.

The point of the story? Somewhere out there is a fish that owes me.

Related posts:
Sea Lion Sequel
Fun with Sea Lions
Me At Work During Leap Year
Socialising with Sea Lions

It’s been a frustrating few months though.

This morning, I spent a couple of hours troubleshooting what should have been a simple upgrade to OS 3.0 for my iPhone. I went through the download process, and this is what I got:

Of course I had a SIM in the phone, and there is no SIM PIN, but my iPhone screen just locked up, displaying a USB cable symbol and, for some inexplicable reason, flashing messages in French.

It took me six cycles of shutting everything down and restarting everything to get the new OS to work, and then I had to do a complete restore. Everything works fine now, so I’m pacified for the time being.

It seems like a lot of other people have experienced similar FAILs with the iPhone 3.0 software upgrade.

This follows on my experience of wasting four to five hours resolving software conflicts when I upgraded to Safari 4.0 recently, and the 18 to 24 hours it took me to troubleshoot someone else’s iPod Touch, which wouldn’t sync with iTunes (In that instance, I again had to find help from other users on the Apple support forum experiencing the same problem, because the people in the Apple Genius Bar couldn’t resolve the issue).

Plus, it seems like it took Apple far too long to address a major Java security flaw, which everyone including Apple seemed to know about for months.

I remain an Apple fan, but I certainly hope my iFrustration with Apple software of late isn’t a byproduct of the company’s success over the past few years.

By way of background…one of the biggest challenges that comes with digital photography is keeping track of and organising your files. With digital media and storage being so readily available and inexpensive, most people with digital cameras take lots and lots of photos…a lot more than they would have with film.

For argument’s sake, let’s say you take three big dive trips a year, during which you take 3,000 photos. Add to that several thousand photographs of friends, family and such, and by the end of a typical 12-month period, you literally have thousands of images.

At some point after several years, say you want to find one specific photo…a particularly stunning image of a lionfish that you want to enter into a photo contest.

How do you find it?

Even assuming that you’ve kept all your images in some reasonably organised format (a big assumption!), you’d still need to look through thousands of photos…a time-consuming, painstaking process…and you and/ or your computer might give up before you find the correct image.

Fortunately, there is a solution for this common dilemma…keywording.

So how does this apply to you?

First of all, if you’re not already doing so, you should use either Lightroom or Aperture.

Both of these software packages give you the ability to preview your images quickly (really important given ever-increasing file sizes), edit/ modify them to some degree, and more importantly…keep them organised.

Think of them like the card catalogue at the library. If you’re looking for a specific book or books about a particular topic, you look for “key words” in the card catalogue.

Books about underwater photography, for instance, might be listed under “marine”, “photography”, “underwater photography”, “colossal waste of time and money”, and so forth.

The card catalogue acts as an index of such key words, allowing you to sort through thousands, sometimes millions, of titles to narrow down your choices to those most relevant to your objective.

Or…a more contemporary idiom might be using a search engine. If you look for underwater photography books using Google, the same concept applies. You’d enter key words like the ones above, and Google would hopefully return useful results…from the billions of web pages Google has indexed.

Bottom line…key words help you make sense of an overabundance of information.

Similarly, in Lightroom and Aperture, if you apply key words to your images, then later, it’ll be a lot easier to find specific photos.

The actual process of keywording in these software packages isn’t difficult. Just click on the metadata section and type in your key words. Later, you can use the search fields to find your photo.

For instance, with the example above, if I’ve keyworded properly, all I’d need to do is type “lionfish” into my search field in Aperture, and all the images I’ve labeled with the key word “lionfish” will pop up…meaning I don’t need to sort through pictures of cardinalfish, anemonefish, my dive buddy’s rear end, etc.

Keywording isn’t hard by any means, but it can be a royal pain, especially if you dive in Asian waters teeming with marine life. After a single dive, you might need to apply key words for 10, 20, 30 or more species…looking each one up in guide books, and trying to spell each name correctly. Repeat for three dives a day…and you’ve got no time to enjoy your trip!

There’s help available now, at least for marine photographers, in the form of a pre-packaged list of key words for marine life that covers the genus and species of over 4,000 fish, 4,000 invertebrates, and all known marine turtles, rays, skates, sharks, marine reptiles and marine mammals…basically, just about everything you’re likely to encounter.

What this means is that once you’ve identified your subject (No…unfortunately the keyword list cannot ID marine life for you!), you can literally drag-and-drop all the relevant keywords onto your file(s), saving you the time and hassle of typing, and also ensuring consistency.

I use Aperture, and I have my own keywording system that I’ve developed (”cobbled together” is probably more accurate), so when I was testing a review copy of the keywords, my primary concern was ensuring that the MarineLife Keywords list didn’t wipe out my own system.

It didn’t.

After importing the MarineLife Keywords into Aperture, I had all of my original key words available to me, as well as the new ones…which means my old filing system is intact, and I can gradually start to integrate the new one.

There’s one other feature I really like about the MarineLife Keyword list. One of things that really irritates me is when people capitalise common names of marine life…typing something like: “I saw lots of Lionfish and Giant Frogfish after photographing Spotted Eagle Rays.”

Common names should not be capitalised. Period.

The MarineLife Keywords list does not capitalise common names (unless there is a proper name involved) and the genus and species names are properly formatted, with the genus name capitalised and the species name not. Simple formatting issue, but it shows attention to detail and knowledge of proper convention.

If you’re wondering what the key words actually look like, let me give you one example. Say I wanted to apply key words to this photo of a flamboyant cuttlefish I took in Ambon.

All I do is type “flamboyant” into the search field in Aperture’s key word heads-up display, and the MarineLife Keywords database gives me:

Marine Life, Invertebrates, Mollusks: Mollusca, Cephalopods: Cephalopoda, Cuttlefish: Sepiida, Sepiidae, flamboyant cuttlefish: Metasepia pfefferi

…in other words, everything I’d need to find this photo (and others like it) again later.

Of course, the MarineLife Keywords database isn’t meant to anticipate every key word you’ll ever need…just the taxonomic ones.

For this photo, for instance, I’d add my own additional key words of: Air Manis, Ambon, Indonesia…to keep track of where I took the photo.

So to wrap up, if you take a lot of photos and need a good filing system…use Aperture or Lightroom, and get the MarineLife Keywords list to make keywording quicker and easier.

You can see more details on the MarineLife Keywords website. The MarineLife Keywords database costs $99, but you can get a $5 discount by using the discount code I692W094 upon checkout.

If you’re not already familiar with keywording, be sure to watch the demo video on the site that Eric Cheng put together.

For the sake of illustration, let’s compare a couple of images. First, here’s a photo of the trio of Mapusauruses on display (with a veggiesaurus of some sort in the background), taken with a Sony DSC-W300 compact digital camera set on P mode (automatic everything):

Acceptable, but nothing special, right?

Compare it with the photo below, which I took with the exact same DSC-W300, in the exact same building, with the exact same dinosaurs, with the exact same ambient light:

Much more dramatic, wouldn’t you agree?

Besides shifting position to crop out and conceal some of the distracting bits in the background, I switched to Manual mode, then reduced the overall exposure level by about 1.7 stops.

The net effect? I eliminated a lot of the un-necessary visual clutter, like the grating on the ceiling, the detail in the background concrete, the detail in the people in the foreground, etc., making you see what I wanted you to see…a trio of menacing beasts towering over curious onlookers.

I was also lucky…gaining the unanticipated bonus of having strong light fall on the people on the far side of the podium leaning over to read something…perfect for showing scale.

In the first picture, the camera did exactly what it was supposed to do…adjust settings to give as neutral an exposure as possible. That’s the way cameras are programmed, so that’s what you get if you let the camera decide everything.

In the second picture, I basically executed a manual over-ride, and told the camera that I wanted to create an image that’s darker than an average exposure…in order to hide the unsightly bits and bobs, while accentuating the cool stuff with hooked claws and sharp teeth (how’s that for technical-speak?).

The take-away message is that if your camera has manual controls, learn to use them. I’m not talking just about expensive DSLRs. The camera I used for the photos here is a compact that I carried in my pocket (I was too lazy to lug a bigger camera across town).

When your pictures don’t turn out the way you want (underwater or on land), it’s tempting to blame your camera…but keep in mind that quite often, just fiddling with a few settings will make a big difference.