cmc-1 | An Bollenessor

Easterlies (bad viz) and low tides meant some macro photography in the rockpools this Saturday. The water is getting chillier but staying in for two hours is still possible. I returned to a subject I tried my hand at before: the tube feet of a Green Sea Urchin (Psammechinus miliaris). The 60mm macro + cmc-1 wetlens plus some cheeky cropping gets me close, although I always want to get even closer! I was happier with the results than the previous times, so I posted it on instagram (@an_bollenessor). Below a more zoomed out view of the underside of the urchin, yours truly in the water, a common brittlestar, a small brittlestar, a pheasant shell, a tiny nermertean worm which might be this (thanks David Fenwick!) and a detail of a redspeckled anemone.

When the viz is bad, I take my macrolens (sometimes with the Nauticam CMC-1 wetlens for a bit of extra magnification) out to the pools. Sometimes I stick to the surface of rocks and seaweeds (to look for stalked jellyfish for instance), but other times I turn over rocks under water to see what hides beneath. Quite a lot! There are larger animals, such as Topknots and different types of crabs (and Worm pipefish as pictured here) but mainly they are quite small (around a centimetre or even less). See the selection below (Tricolia, Bittium and Limacia were not from under rocks but I had to make the grid fit!).