Tag Archives: underwaterphotography

Blue Jellyfish

Posted on by under cnidarians, fisheye, jellies, photography, wide angle

It is jellyfish season again and the Blue Jellyfish (Cyanea lamarckii) is probably the commonest species in Cornwall. Supposedly they sting but I have never noticed. Rather than taking a ‘true’ photo with an exposed background, I usually opt to not expose the background and light up the jellyfish with strobes. As these jellyfish are quite small (the ones I see are 5-12 cm in diameter; they can grow larger though) this is hard with the jelly up against the mini-dome (using a 8mm fisheye lens). The Microsoft Photo app let’s me get rid of the backscatter in the background but this does not always work as it tends to remove tentacles as well. (I cannot really see it on my computer screen but did notice on my phone: the bottom two pics have the background replaced but the top one hasn’t and so is a bit less clean.) Anyway, these animals are beautiful and quite otherworldly!

Octopus in Porthkerris

Posted on by under bryozoans, crustaceans, diving, echinoderms, fisheye, molluscs, photography, Porthkerris, wide angle

This is the second year of an ‘octopus boom’ here in Cornwall. One of our two native species (Octopus vulgaris) has become much more common, probably due to warming waters. They wreak havoc on the crab pots (it is a big local story), but have made many snorkellers and divers very happy! Although I have spotted them once or twice before, this week I headed down to Porthkerris to have a proper look. Porthkerris is one of the best known shore dive sites in the country, and the only shoredive site in Cornwall I know of that let’s you get a bit deeper than ten meters. Those extra few meters make the difference in spotting things like Cuckoo Wrasse and Sea Fans, and also make it more likely to spot octopus (although these also occur in shallow water; one was even found in a rockpool in Falmouth). Armed with my 8mm fisheye lens I drove down on a Tuesday for two (solo)dives. It wasn’t long before I spotted the first octopus, however it quickly jetted away from me – either they have different personalities or different moods (or both) but not every octopus reacts the same to a passing diver. I managed to get a bunch of shots of several cooperative individuals shown below. Some individuals looked a bit ropey as they were nearing the end of their life-span and I even spotted a dead individual.

I managed shots of some other animals as well, see the gallery below (click on pics for legends). I have done much more macro- than wide-angle photography lately, as it is quite hard in murky English waters. When using strobes it is easy to get backscatter, moving very close to the subject minimises that but makes it hard to get any light between the dome and the subject, often resulting in an unlit centre of the shot and/or blown out spots at the sides. I went back on Friday for another two dives. Fewer octopuses (octopi is incorrect!) and the viz wasn’t as good but it was enjoyable all the same. A selection of critters below. I found a nudibranch new to me (Acanthodoris pilosa) that was so large I could take a halfdecent photo of it using the fisheye lens!

What is a seaslug?

Posted on by under Macro, molluscs, nudibranchs, worms

A nudibranch, a snail and a seaslug crawl into a bar…no seriously, what actually is the difference between these three types of molluscs? According to Kerney and Cameron (1979), those animals that cannot fit into their shell are called slugs, and those that can are called snails (definition brought under my attention by Ian Smith, see his amazing species accounts of British molluscs on flickr: Morddyn). Seaslugs either have an outer shell in which they cannot retract, an internal shell or no shell at all. The Solar-powered seaslug (Elysia viridis) pictured above is a species without a shell that is an example of a seaslug. Nudibranchs are a type of seaslug with ‘naked’ (nudi) gills (branchs) on their back. Nudibranchs never have a shell (although many have one when they are a larva). Books on nudibranchs often include seaslugs and sometimes they even feature snails! This happens when these species are related to seaslugs (the ‘lathe acteon’ or ‘beer barrel’ Acteon tornatilis is an example of that – a goal of this year is to take a good photo of that species). I have posted a range of photos on here as an illustrations of seaslugs (or not!); read the captions for species info.

Candy striped flatworm Prostheceraeus vittatus

life on a chain

Posted on by under buoys, crustaceans, molluscs

The rain has been hammering down and I am in accute underwater withdrawal… Just a bit of the ole bloggin then! These are some pictures from April, when the phytoplankton had not kicked in and the water was still quite blue. Out of curiousity I swam out to the marker buoys off Castle Beach in Falmouth to see if there was anything interesting growing on them. There was! Lots of mussels, including on the chain going down to the bottom (10ish meters deep). I took my fisheye lens and after much adjusting of strobes (holding the housing sideways for portrait mode, and also up, meaning that the lower strobe needed to be pulled back) I got the nice shot above. Mussels are not a favourite of underwaterphotographers (this is an understatement!) but they are beautiful upclose, the white mantle contrasting with the blueish black shell.

A few days later I returned with my probe lens, as i thought this would offer an original perspective. It was a tricky thing to do as this lens lets in very little light. The difference between foreground and background seems slightly off as well! These photos show that the mussels were crawling with the tubedwelling amphipod Jassa marmorata, a prominent fouling species. I planned to return to try again a few days later, but the chains had been replaced by ‘fresh’ ones, bad luck! I will go back to have a look at them as soon as the weather allows it.

P.S. there are two older posts tagged with ‘buoys‘.

Blennies

Posted on by under fish, Macro, mzuiko60mm, snorkeling
A trip to one of my favourite spots on the North Coast, Booby’s Bay, two weekends back led to a fun rockpool photography sesh. The pools here are quite different than in Falmouth: deeper, more exposed and with fewer seaweeds (see here for impressions). Shannies (Common Blennies) and Montagu’s Blennies are abundant here and I chose not to seach for things ‘more special’ but take pics of these characterful fish. Shannies are greyish and common, but actually very beautiful as you can see above. Their mottled, slimy (scale-less) skin also makes them very well-camouflaged as is clear from the photo below.
Below a few more pics, including of Montagu’s Blennies, which have a ‘quiff’. Some of these fish have hatched not too long ago and are tiny (<1 cm)! When I took these pics the weather was great (and I ditched the wetsuit) but as I am writing this post it is raining and blowing outside. My snorkel outings will be less frequent from now on unfortunately, but on the plus side my blogging will pick up….

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’.

2024 so far…

Posted on by under diving, fish, Helford

Above some pics of a recent, impromptu snorkel in the Helford; a catshark, a cuttlefish and a greater pipefish which I could snap with the fisheye lens while battling a raging tidal current. I have dived a lot recently, did my PADI advanced open water (to make it easier to participate in some deeper diving in the future ), finally dived Porthkerris, bought a fancy new wetlens and stepped up my iNaturalist game. I took some good photos as well, but for many of these I reckon I could replace them with an even better version. For this reason, and also because there will be plenty of rainy days at the end of the year to blog instead of dive, I will probably remain a bit quiet here for now, add to the collection of photos, and update the blog a lot more later! (P.S. I do post from time to time on instagram: @an_bollenessor.)

Compass Jellies

Posted on by under jellies

Some more jellies, this time the Compass Jellyfish Chrysaora hysoscella. These are currently the most common jellyfish here in Falmouth, with blue jellies and moon jellies also spotted (the Crystal Jellies, see below, seem to have disappeared). These photos were made without a strobe (my struggle with them continues…) which would have made them much better. As it stands, I have relied heavily on the standard Windows Photo editor to reduce the green hue and get rid of some of the highlights. I might give the old strobes a go next time I go in!

Olympus Photos 2019

Posted on by under Macro, mzuiko60mm, Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II, photography

This was the year I switched from my trusted Canon G16 compact camera (with wetlenses) to a mirrorless Olympus OM-D E-M5 II (with ‘actual’ lenses). Throwing money at things is not necessarily a guarantee for improvement, but it definitely helps! The shot above (from this post) was commended at the 2019 Falmouth Underwater Film Festival. This was made using the few times I went out with the mzuiko fisheye lens and is shot using natural light. (For some more natural light wide angle shots taken snorkelling on the north coast see this post.) I mostly used the mzuiko 60mm macrolens in combination with my strobe. The weather at the start of the year was so foul I initially used it  abovewater during rockpooling. The shot below of a Flat periwinkle is quite simple but one of my favourites ‘topside’, together with the shot of the two Shore crabs: Below are some favourite underwater macro shots (the best pics I also post on instagram). Macrophotography I find easier, as the camera settings remain quite invariable (small aperture with a short shutterspeed because of the flash) and the composition is often (but definitely not always!) simpler compared to shots of say an entire rockpool. First some taken snorkeling in rockpools. The first is a Chink shell on Bushy rainbow wrack. The iridescent nature of the seaweeds means it is bright blue or purple viewed from one direction, but a dull brown from the other. If you get it right, it makes a very striking background and it is definitely a subject I want to explore more. After that, detail of the tip of a Spiny starfish, a European cowrie and a pill isopod. Below some macroshots taken while (shore)diving off Silver Steps in Falmouth. A Blackfaced blenny, a Leopardspotted goby and a Devonshire cupcoral. Many more photos of course if you scroll down. I have now also invested in a new strobe and new strobe arms. Having two strobes will allow me to take wide angle photos without depending on (dim) natural light, for instance whilst diving. My second strobe is manual so I can ramp up the strobe power if needed for macro too. I still struggle with positioning even a single strobe, so having two will be frustrating in the beginning I am sure. I am hopeful this new investment will pay off though. As for the blog, I have updated the links page. It is high time I post an update on the tank. I have not been diving much but hopefully next year I can collect some new species of anemones for it (and of course take photos, although the two activities are pretty much mutually exclusive). My new years resolution will be to get in the water more. I wish all blog readers a happy and healthy 2020!

Slender-beaded Coral Weed Jania rubens

Posted on by under Canon Powershot D30, photography, seaweeds, snorkeling

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.