Category Archives: photography

Seagrass Macro

Posted on by under anemones, bryozoans, eelgrass, Flushing, Macro, molluscs, mzuiko60mm, nudibranchs, photography, tunicates
Polycera quadrilineata

I had a couple of good snorkels at the end of summer in the seagrass beds off my local beach in Flushing. The water at the end of summer is warm enough to go without wetsuit – I just had a weightbelt to let me sink down on the sand at low tide, no fins needed. I managed to do what I normally find very difficult: spot nudibranchs! Mainly one of the more common species, Polycera quadrilineata, but that was fine by me, as they are very beautiful, especially the black colour morph pictured above. I spotted one other species, the egg-eating Favorinus branchialis (with its own eggs also visible). Not great photos, but in my defense they are very small!

Shelled molluscs are easier to find. Below 1) the ubiquitous Grey Topshell Steromphala cinerarea, 2) the Grooved Topshell Jujubinus striatus and 3) the tiny Rissoa membranacea (faecal pellets on show, even within the shell). The latter two species are strongly associated with seagrass.

Some assorted macro photos below and at the end a view at a very low tide of the Flushing seagrass site this October.

Scorpion Spider Crabs

Posted on by under anemones, crustaceans, diving, EMWL, photography, Silver Steps
I recently posted on the Crustaceans inhabiting my local shore dive site Silver Steps (see here), but left out one species: the Scorpion Spider Crab (Inachus spp.), which deserves a post on its own. I have blogged about this crab before (see here), specifically in the context of ‘macro-wide angle’ for which this species, perched on- or under a snakelocks anemone, is ideally suited. My previous efforts were based on an affordable inon wetlens, but I have since bought a super-duper nauticam lens. Although very good at macro-wide angle, this lens lets in very little light, which basically gives you three options: 1) lie on some bright white coral sand in the Maldives and shoot upwards to the sun at midday (so actually not really an option), 2) increasingly compromise the exposure triangle to keep a blueish/greenish background (higher ISO>more noise, lower shutterspeed>more camera shake, greater aperture>smaller depth of field), or 3) keep all settings in a ‘normal’ range, resulting in a foreground lit up by strobes on maximum output, but a black background (only if you are shooting critters in rock crevices you can get both fore- and background well-exposed, as strobe light has something to bounce back from – see for some examples the Crustaceans post). I quite like the clean black background and dislike bluer, but grainier images, so have mainly tried option 3. Hopefully, next year in summer I can try going for some blue background shots. Sorry if this blog is occasionally turning into a photography borefest by the way, but I have been really getting into that stuff! ;-). Anyway, these scorpion spider crab pics have turned out quite nicely.

Moods

Posted on by under Macro, photography, tunicates

The inhalant (left pic, 8 lobes) and exhalant (right pic, 6 lobes) siphon of the Sea Vase seasquirt (Ciona intestinalis). The pigments are thought to function as photoreceptors. This is a common species, especially in habitats disturbed by humans, and not too pretty (the latin name means ‘pillar of intestines’…) but if you zoom in everything reveals beautiful features! Quite moody shots, to which I have gravitated this year. I like the black backgrounds, which is achieved by letting very little light into the camera, with the strobes only lighting up the subject in the foreground – unable to illuminate anything in the open water (‘negative space’) behind. (A similar effect can be achieved using a ‘snoot’, but I have never managed to get that to work…) I have also tried to get closer and closer up with my macro wetlens, ideally I’d have some sort of microscope underwater! If you are on instagram, check out @an_bollenessor for more pics as ‘posts’ and as ‘stories’.

A Late October Snorkel

Posted on by under cnidarians, crustaceans, molluscs, mzuiko60mm, photography, shells, snorkeling, tunicates
I have a lot more pics from this year to put on the blog but those have to wait, as I want to post some photos from last Saturday first, when there was little wind, a low tide and some sun! The viz was not great as expected, so I brought the macrolens and went in search for some small critters. No special finds, but I was very happy with my shots of a common little mollusc the European Cowrie (Trivia monacha). Most people will be familiar with this species as beach finds of empty shells, but not know how it looks like when it is alive, when its mantle covers most of the shell, it shows its striped tail at the back and a siphon and cute little eyes at the front. I used a shallow depth of field (f/4) to get rid of the ugly cluttered background, which worked well if I may say so myself (I need to try this technique more often!).

Many other critters were found too and I took shots of a selection. First, a Sea Spider, all legs and crawling away. A tiny mat of colonial tunicate that looked like a persian rug on drugs. A quick shot of the ubiquitous (if you know where to look – on kelp fronds) blue-rayed Limpets and a stalked jellyfish. Finally, I spent a lot of time taking shallow-depth-of-field AND slow shutter-speed photos of a scorpion spider crab in a snakelocks anemone to get some sort of ‘artistic’ shot. It did not really work, but it was fun nonetheless and I will have a go at it again. After almost 2,5 hours in the water I stumbled back to the car to get changed – an afternoon well-spent!

new lens: Panasonic Leica 9mm

Posted on by under amphibians, photography, seascape

Sorry for you non-photography geeks, this is a short post about a lens, the “Panasonic H-X09E Lumix LEICA DG SUMMILUX 9mm F1.7 Lens” to be precise… During the spell of bad weather I was practically forced to browse, and yes, spend money on photo gear. I had long wanted a lens suitable both for landscape and street photography, but especially one that allowed me to focus on say a reptile or amphibian and still have the habitat in the background. A fisheye lens can do this a bit (see the previous post), but on land it results in distortions that just look unnatural. This is a lens that can do the job, as it has a minimum focusing distance of about 10 cm – resulting not in real macro shots but being able to come pretty close, combined with a wide angle background. After having it taken out this weekend for the first time I must say I am really happy with it.

The bank holiday Monday warranted a morning visit to one of our favourite haunts Windmill Farm to do some ‘herping’. Adders and slow worms were found after lifting up corrugated iron sheets, but they slithered off before I could take any good shots. However, there was a toad that sat nice and still so I was able to take multiple shots, camera in one hand, diffuser in the other. For a first try, I was pretty happy with the result. Next, we took a walk from nearby Lizard Point to Housel Bay. The weather was absolutely glorious, with many wild flowers on the cliffs and fulmars, choughs and pipits flying around. The water was blue and crystal clear – you could see the seals swimming underwater! A small part of me was cursing that I was not in the water myself to take photos, but it was a fantastic day on land too.

P.S. annoyed that the Windows photo software straightening tool is not very precise – the horizon is not straight!

Muddy Foreshore

Posted on by under fish, fisheye, Flushing, invasive species, molluscs, mud flats, photography, sponges

We have had some sunny spells but generally the weather has been disappointing lately, especially with regards to wind and waves. I did some snorkels with the fisheye lens to try to capture the seaweeds but the viz was such that I did not even bother to copy the images from my camera to my laptop….A crying shame as it means I have to wait a whole other year to capture the seaweeds in their full glory! (although even when most seaweed species are in decline, with good viz and some sun the pools can still look fantastic later in the season, see for example HERE or HERE). Anyhow, instead of taking my fisheye lens underwater, I tried it out on land instead, specifically on the muddy foreshore of my village Flushing. (A wide angle lens would have been better for this – no warped horizons etc – but I don’t have one.) I had a go at this a while back, before I really knew about softboxes to disperse flash light….what can I say, I am a slow learner… I recently bought a flash and a trigger so I can hold my flash in a softbox near subjects which is the way forward for these types of shots. Although not home to the most spectacular animals or backgrounds, it was fun playing around a bit. Top left: Montagu’s Breadcrumb Sponge (Hymeniacidon perlevis), top right: something that looks superficially like Elephant Hide Sponge (Pachymatisma johnstonia), although the colour and texture are off. (This specimen will be sampled by David Fenwick for a close look at the spicules (if it is a sponge and not a seasquirt!)

There are many oysters here too, mostly the invasive Pacific oyster (Magallana gigas) (pictured above), but also the native oyster (Ostrea edulis). I hoped to get a shot of an eel, but the ones we caught were small and a bit too active. We also found rocklings, shannies, rock gobies, a sea scorpion and interestingly a dragonet and a painted goby (I had not seen one of these before). Although there are quite a lot of interesting species to be found in the mud, I hope I’m able to go snorkeling in some clear blue water very soon!

Buoy Biodiversity

Posted on by under bryozoans, buoys, crustaceans, fisheye, Flushing, invasive species, non-native species, Olympus OM-E-M1 Mark II, photography, seaweeds, snorkeling, sponges, tunicates, wide angle

A while ago I played around with taking pics of the underside of a buoy, which was fun, and so i wanted to practice this some more. My mistake the first time (see here) was to use a fast shutterspeed (the buoy was bobbing about after all) which made the water look unnaturally dark. I tried again this weekend and it went a bit better, although I already know I can improve things. This time I thought it would be nice to put some names to the amazing fouling biodiversity (I did this before for some seaweed images, see here). Crustaceans (tube-dwelling Jassa), Sponges, Bryozoans, Seaweeds but especially a lot of Tunicates (seasquirts; both solitary and colonial species). David Fenwick (of AphotoMarine fame) had a quick look to help with some IDs; there is a more there but this was not meant to be exhaustive. I have underlined species that are invasive. Anyway, I am sure I will post more of these types of images: the buoys are always there and these organisms do not swim off when you try to take a photo!

St. Cuthbert’s Cave

Posted on by under photography, wide angle

Holywell Beach on the North Coast of Cornwall is known for a small sea cave which houses a ‘holy well’. According to Mabel Quiller-Couch, in her 1894 book “Ancient Holy Wells of Cornwall” in 995 AD the bishop of Lindisfarne, Aldhun, was bringing the remains of saint Cuthbert back to Ireland. Blown off course in a gale, he was left stranded in Cornwall where he settled and built a church dedicated to St Cuthbert. After some years however, an oracle instructed Aldhun to return the relics of St Cuthbert to Durham. As he was leaving from Holywell Bay, the saint’s bones touched the side of the well, giving the spring its magical healing powers. In medieval times, many people flocked to this cave to seek out the healing powers of the spring.

I was in the area this week when the tide was low (at high tide the cave is completely flooded, so you have to check the tides!) and decided to bring out the fisheye lens and a tripod to take some long exposure pics. They came out all right. There are more colourful photos available online, but my suspicion is that these use artificial light and sometimes also some enthusiastic post-processing. By using the longest possible exposure time on my camera (Olympus OMD E-M1markII), a full minute, I was able to let enough light into the camera. This enabled me to use f/18, allowing great depth of field, and ISO200, meaning little noise.

The formations result from a rare (in Cornwall) limestone deposit in the roof of the cave. Slightly acidic rainwater percolates through this limestone, dissolving calcite and becoming enriched in calcium bicarbonate. When the water drips down the rocks, the process is reversed and calcite precipitates, especially in areas where the water moves a little, causing CO2 to gas off. This results in the dam-like rimstone (or gours) formations. The tiny ‘rice terrace’-like formations on the dams are called microgours. I’d like to go back one time to experiment more and also to take some macro photos of the microgours and colourful microbes.

Jellyfish

Posted on by under jellies, photography, snorkeling

It is the time of year where the rock pools look less attractive (for an example see this old post) and jellyfish appear in the sea beyond. As they are pretty and slow moving, they make for excellent subjects and so I have ventured out over the kelp recently to look for them. I now have a reliable INON D-200 strobe (actually I have two such strobes, it is just that the second arrived 6 weeks ago but not its fibre optic cable…) which makes a huge difference in the types of shots you can take. Photos taken using natural light only can be pretty (see for example here for previous attempts) but a strobe just opens a whole new range of possibilities. I was quite pleased with myself with the shot above of a Compass Jellyfish that seems to float in outer space. Here, the strobe lights up the jelly (which is really close in front of the camera) but it cannot light the ocean behind. Using a fast shutter speed, the ambient light (that would make the water blue) is not let into the camera, resulting in a black background. An exception is the bright sky, which is visible in Snell’s Window, and which looks a bit like a planet against the black background. Of course, even with using a strobe you can choose to let in ambient light, leading to more conventional shots such as the one below (however the jellyfish is a bit further away and not very nicely lit up by the strobe):

By pointing the camera downwards and getting rid of much of the sunlight, the fast shutter speed black background effect is even stronger, even on a sunny day. An example is the Moon Jellyfish below. Btw, I have touched these photos up with the generic Windows photoviewer (a poor man’s Adobe Lightroom) whch performs quite well. It is however tricky to get rid of some of the backscatter (particles in the water that light up because the strobe is incorrectly positioned, illuminating not just the subject but also the water in between subject and lens). This effect can be seen above the jelly in the second photo even after editing in Windows Photo:

It is great fun to practice photography with these jellies. In principle one strobe is enough (and many pro photographers recommend to try shooting with a single strobe). However, there are situations where two strobes are clearly better, namely when a subject needs to be lit up from two sides. The photo below was taken with the camera turned 90 degrees with the strobe to the left side (notice the remaining backscatter after using the clone stamp tools in Windows Photo). Having had another strobe to the right would have avoided the shadows (but probably have added backscatter!):

Some more shots below. The visibility has been poor lately but I hope to be able to practice some more over the weekend.