The tide was bad (i.e. low and too early to catch it on time), the water was cold and it was very windy but it was good to go for a dip this morning. I now have a different strobe arm which makes it easier to position my strobe, which has often been tricky. Time for some macro practice. The photos are not that special but I hope interesting enough for you blog readers! Above a Peacock worm Sabella pavonina sticking out of an abandoned piddock hole. Below a common Hermit crab Pagurus bernhardus, a Grey chiton Lepidochitona cinerea, a very small Dahlia anemone Urticina felina (note the warty, adhesive column) and some Daisy anemones Cereus pedunculatus.
Category Archives: photography
Rockpooling in Flushing
Some pics from today at Flushing Beach. Above, a pair of Green shore crabs Carcinus maenas, below two Furrowed crabs Xantho hydrophilus. (I probably should have gone for a whole crab series, as I saw several other common species…) Instead I took loads of random photos, of things that were 150 mm to things that were only 5 mm, with varying success. For instance of a Painted Topshell Calliostoma zizyphinum on the invasive Bryozoan Watersipora subatra. Also the underside of the urchin Psammechinus miliaris, showing its mouth (Aristotle’s Lantern). Photobombing top left is the commensal worm Flabelligera affinis (which I noticed as well the last time I took a version of this picture). Bit random but it was fun practicing. It actually is more difficult to take photos abovewater compared to underwater due to the glistening and the awkward position kneeling on wet gravel/rocks. Next time I might try a tripod (ideally remote flash would be used but I do not think I am going to invest in that). Btw, if you are on instagram, I also post pics as @an_bollenessor.
Silver Steps diving II
Another Silver Steps shore dive with @shannonmoranphoto and her fellow student Chris on Friday. The conditions were not as good as last time: low viz and a bit of a swell. I had set my camera to a longer focal range to try to take pics of cuttles or larger fish but that did not work out (with better conditions it still might not work out!). I could still shoot macro so that is what I did. Above to Devonshire cup corals Caryophyllia smithii. Pretty decent, but I know I can get a better close-up; I will try again Monday! I will have another go at the one resident Cray (or Craw) fish, which lives very shallow. I will also try the Twin fan worm Bispira volutacornis again, as I think a shot filled with just the fans (and not assorted bits of seaweeds etc) could be really nice. I might try free-swimming fish if they come close, as did this Poor cod Trisopterus minutus.
Below some before- and after postprocessing. Just the jpegs in Windows Photos, nothing fancy. A bit of cropping, increasing clarity and contrast works wonders. Only when I have a really good photo I will invest time processing raw files in Photoshop. First the best photo of the dive: a Black-faced blenny Tripterygion delaisi (a female or possibly a non-breeding male). Next, a common Edible crab Cancer pagurus and finally a Twospotted goby Gobiusculus flavescens.
Silver Steps Diving
Finally a shore dive yesterday evening, it has been a long time. I partnered up with buddy Shannon via instagram (@shannonmoranphoto). Instagram has been a really nice way to learn about photography from likeminded folks (such as @danboltphoto and @malcolmnnimmo). We dived (dove?) Silver Steps in Falmouth, about which you can find a bunch of old snorkelling and diving posts on the blog if you are interested. Shannon was the ideal buddy: relaxed and really into photography, so we kept the same tempo. It was a very shallow dive (maybe 5 meters), so we were only limited by getting cold, which was after an hour. I chose to use my 60mm lens, but not to use the 1:1 macro setting, but the 0.19-040 focal range to try my hand at slightly larger objects such as fish. I was thus lucky in a sense that I did not encounter any beautiful nudibranchs of which I would not be able to to take a good shot. (Edit: actually, I since learned that 1:1 is still possible using this focal range). It was however unfortunate that I could not get a good shot of a cuttlefish that hovered about two meters away, rapidly changing colour and catching a wrasse! Next time I will perhaps change settings again to try my hand at (cuttle)fish swimming a bit further away. However, I was very happy with sticking to Leopard-spotted gobies Thorogobius ephippiatus. They do not stick their little faces out of nooks as do most blennies, but usually lie on and under ledges. The trick was to approach very slowly, shooting until they swam off. For some reason, I managed to position my strobe right and did not have backscatter issues. I used Windows Photos to postprocess. See below for a before and after example:
Two other common organisms below: a Squat lobster Galathea rugosa and a Twin fan worm Bispira volutacornis. And finally an out of focus, but fun photo of a tiny tiny clingfish very aptly clinging to Shannon’s housing. This was one of the most fun dives in ages and I hope to repeat it sometime soon!
Furbellows
One of the nice things about Cornwall is that there are so many coves and beaches, that even after seven years of living here, there are still plenty left to discover. This weekend we visited Kennack Sands on the Lizard peninsula. Two fine sandy beaches separated by a small hill and a rocky outcrop in the sea. What I also like about Cornwall is that every rock has a name. The rocks we explored are called Caerverracks. The tide was pretty good, the weather as well (except for a brief shower). The viz however was quite bad, and so I hope to go back one time when the sea is flat to retake some of these pictures. The rocks did offer some shelter though and it was great to be in the water. I focused (no pun intended) on a type of kelp called Furbellows (Saccorhiza polyschides). It is called that way because of the ruffles on the stipe (in dress-making, furbelow is another word for ruffle). These wavey frills help to dissipate wave energy, which of course can be very intense on Atlantic shores.
This seaweed is much more prone to epiphytic groth than the surrounding Laminaria kelp. This must be the reason why it is always covered with grazing Grey topshells Steromphala cineraria. As with other kelps, it is home to the Blue-rayed limpet Patella pelucida. As the conditions were bad, I was forced to limit myself to a large, abundant and non-moving subject, but it was actually quite nice to work within such constraints. One of my favourite seaweeds and when conditions are better (and when I am by myself, with more time and a weight belt so I can dive down instead of holding the camera down and shooting ‘blind’), I definitely want to try again!
July Seaweeds at Castle Beach
A whole bunch of photos of yesterdays snorkel at Castle Beach. The viz has cleared up, although nothing like the fabled June 2017 viz, will it ever be as good again?! (see here). There are lots of yellows and browns, some greens, a substantial dash of blue of the rainbow wrack but hardly any reds and purples at this time of year. The glow of the sun exarcerbates the yellowish vibe, but somehow I suspect the colour temperature of the Olympus somehow is a bit off compared to my old Canon. I am not entirely sure about this though, and in theory this is all correctable postprocessing, I just don’t know how!
The photo below shows some of the common species, from the bottom right to top left: Cladostephus spongiosus, Dictyota dichotoma, Asparagopsis armata, Cystoseria baccata with Sargassum muticum in the background. Ij the second photo it is obvious that the Wireweed and Rainbow wrack are quite dominant, same for the Hairy sandweed Cladostephus spongiosus. The Thong (or Spaghetti) weed is covered in fuzzy epiphytes. I will keep practicing for when the reds and purples come back in autumn!
Slender-beaded Coral Weed Jania rubens
Quick post about an hour worth of snorkelling on Wednesday. Very frustratingly, I had a housing mishap on Saturday, meaning my brandnew Olympus camera and lens got wet. $%&^”! as the saying goes…..I have sent both back for repair and hope all can be fixed relatively fast and cheap. A minor disaster but what can you do? Go out with my old Canon Powershot and wetlens instead I guess! The viz was not the greatest but I can only blame myself for a disappointing haul of photos. I took around 200 (as usual), whittled them down to 75 or so on my camera afterwards and then to 30 or so on my computer. Did some tweaking in ‘Photos’ afterwards but they were 5’s, 6’s and 7’s at most. The midshore pools were looking pretty. Lots of one of my favourite seaweed species Slender-beaded Coral Weed Jania rubens growing on top of (mostly) Hairy sandweed (and possibly Black scour weed). Lots of other epiphytic species grow on top of this assemblage, including Sea lettuce Ulva, Brown fan weed Dictyota dichotoma, Gelidium spp, Ceramium spp, Colpomenia OR Leathisia (I still am not sure of the difference..) and many others.
new camera: Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II + M.ZUIKO 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens
Santa Claus was very generous last year and I am now the proud owner of an Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II mirrorless camera! A big step up from my Canon Powershot G16 compact camera (which I still find a great little camera btw). Apart from a better sensor, greater dynamic range, more pixels etc, the main reason for going for a so-called micro four thirds camera was that I can use separate lenses. By that I mean lenses that actually go on the camera rather than wetlenses that are attached to the camera housing. The wetlens approach has the problem that air bubbles can form on three surfaces rather than one, and also, water seeps out from between the lens and housing every time you lift it out of the water (which I tend to do a lot in rockpools less than a meter deep). I first thought of going for an SLR, but these are much more expensive (the housings at least), require looking through a viewfinder which seems annoying to me and also they are considerably bigger, which is also not handy in rock pools. Luckily I learned that mirrorless cameras also existed! I bought an M.ZUIKO 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens as well. I have not been in the water yet, as the weather has been grim, but took the camera out for some above-water rock pooling last weekend. The first day I did not take the separate flash, which demonstrates my ignorance (to maximize the depth of field, a small aperture is needed which lets in little light, resulting in long shutter times and high ISO). The photos were not great, but the next day with flash it went a lot better. Above a Broad-clawed porcelain crab Porcellana platycheles and a Long-clawed porcelain crab Pisidia longicornis. Next time I will bring a ruler to show exactly how tiny these crabs can be (these are juveniles).
Above a flat worm (check the eyespots!) and a Thick top shell Phorcus lineatus. A main problem is that all subjects are covered with a film of water, resulting in glistening highlights when using the flash. Another issue is the shallow depth of field. The next time I might try to do some photo bracketing/stacking, merging images of a different focal depth (I need a tripod for this). The great thing is that there is no shortage of subjects: turning over a single rock can reveal multiple species each of echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans, bryozoans, worms, flat worms etc. Below a selection of chitons, I have not had time to check out which species; there are not that many here but they are tricky to identify from photographs. I will check Ian Smiths fantastic photo resources on flickr to do so.
Underwater Fluorescence
It has been three months since the last blog post so high time for an update. I have not been out much as the weather has been grim. In fact, the photos in this post are one year old! I bought a blue LED light for fluorescence photography which has been gaining popularity in recent years. Many organisms and fluoresce (i.e. absorb light and emit it at a longer wavelength), although the function of this is generally not well-understood (perhaps in some cases it might not even have a function and just be a byproduct). Coral reefs can especially be spectacularly fluorescent but the cold waters of the UK harbour a variety of fluorescent organisms too, most notably anemones and corals, see here for great marine fluorescence photos from Scotland by James Lynott. Anyway, I bought my light and a yellow barrier filter (which serves to let the emitted fluorescent light through but not the blue light) to be held in front of the camera housing, as well as a headset barrier filter from a very knowledgable German chap here; his site contains a lot useful information for those interested in the background and applications of this type of photography (see also here, here and here). The photography is very tricky: the ISO needs to be bumped up in the dark which results in a lot of noise. The dark also requires long shutterspeeds which results in shaky images. A large aperture for more light is best, but since the subjects are usually small this results in suboptimal depth of field.
I have only been out twice last January, and only whilst rockpooling (I have not done a single nightdive or nightsnorkel in Cornwall and I am not overly tempted to do so!). The very shallow rockpools high up at Castle Beach in Falmouth reveal some fluorescent animals, including hermit crabs but I focused on anemones. Snakelocks are big and very fluorescent (the green ones, the grey variety is not, although it does emit red light via its symbionts) but not common high up the shore. Hardly visible normally due to their small size and inconspicous colours, red-speckled anemones, daisy anemones and gem anemones become apparent using a blue light (in fact, this method is use to study tiny coral recruits in the tropics). The top photo shows two green gem anemones Aulactinia verrucosa (with red and purple coralline algae in the background). The anemones are very small (2 cm max) and I used my CMC-1 wetlens on my Canon G16. The other two photos show Daisy anemones Cereus pedunculatus. I only later noticed the tiny anemone babies (this is a livebearing species). I hope when the rain and wind disappear and the evenings still start early to go out again and post some more photos. Also, I have bought both a new camera and a new aquarium so I have plenty more to post about!
iPhone macro photography
I used to have an olloclip lens for my phone (see these old posts), but now I have a new phone (an iPhoneSE) I bought a much cheaper 3-in-1 clip-on lens set. I mainly bought it for the macrolens, which in this case magnifies 20x. This is actually a bit too much, as you have to almost press the lens on top of the subject and the depth of field is very minimal. The image size corresponds to 9 x 9 mm. I went rock pooling twice in Flushing and it was a lot of fun playing around with it. The photo above is a detail of the Flat topshell Gibbula umbilicalis, which I found quite revealing: the surface is very weathered and the stripes are not that regular anymore viewed up close. Below the first whorls of the same shell, a small Painted topshell Calliostoma zizyphinum, a chiton (believe Lepidochitona cinerea as the shell plates are granular, but it is not possible to make out the girdle due to the depth of field issues) and a tiny Littorina saxatilis (probably, there are similar-looking species).
Next, the invasive but very pretty bryozoan Watersipora subtorqata. Common in marinas and on boats but also under rocks on this site. Some colonies are red, others black with a red rim.
Finally, some barnacles (I have not given these much attention so far, which is a shame, as they are very interesting animals (and were an important inspiration source for Darwin). The first are very small Verruca stroemia, then Semibalanus balanoides (I believe; I need to check aphotomarine and the excellent flickr accounts by Ian Smith some more). Next, a tiny brittlestar and finally the funny face of a limpet Patella vulgata. I will be switching from snorkelling to rockpooling in the winter months and thus will use it a lot more. Most lichens are perfect for this little lens as they tend to be flat and have beautiful colours and textures so I will post about these soon.