On Saturday, we were bored with the usual dive sites. I’ve done most of them at least a hundred times. A couple of years ago, we did a dive on the point just in front of the club house at the Madang Country Club. The sea there was reasonably smooth on Saturday, so we decided to have a go. You have to watch the sea state and the wind closely, since the only place to anchor is only about ten metres from the rocks.

We went straight down to about 40 metres at the south side of the point, intending to work our way around it and come back to the boat over the top. It was not as clear as I like, but the canyons there are fairly spectacular. I got this shot of a sea fan at about 35 metres in natural light. The Canon G10 is amazing:

It was shot in the RAW mode (always, please, for underwater shots – it’s the ONLY way to go) and worked over with the Adobe Camera RAW filter to adjust for tint and colour temperature before loading it into Photoshop. At that point you can sometimes just apply the Auto Tone or Auto Colour controls and come up with a shot that needs only minor adjustments. It is only a matter of how picky you are how much more work you want to do.

Here on the bottom at 40 metres I found someone’s clothes. No bones, so I don’t think anybody was in them:

I’m always harping about using natural light for UW photos. You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again. I like for my images to look as close as possible to the way that I saw them. The gaudy colours of flash photography are pretty, but no diver is going to tell you that you will actually see those colours while diving.

Here is an excellent example. At 40 metres, under a ledge, no less, I found this lonely nudibranch. The Canon G10 handled the shot with aplomb. It was a very slow shutter speed, so I had to brace the camera firmly, but, with a little Photoshop magic, you are seeing the nudibranch exactly as I saw it:

Now have a look at the same shot taken when I turned on my flash:

It is certainly prettier, in the sense that it has nice, bright colours, but it is not what I saw.

There seemed to be quite a few critters much deeper here than I normally see them. Here are some Anthea  at 40 metres, about twice as deep as you normally see this particular variety:

Coming up to shallower water near the end of the dive, I found this Giant Clam (Tridacna maxima):

The title Giant is a bit misleading in this case. This specimen was only about a half-metre long.

This goofy looking thing is a kind of sea squirt. There are an incredible variety of sea squirts around here, most of them with interesting shapes and colours. This one, however, takes the cake in the “God’s little joke” category:

In case you care, it’s a Polycarpa aurata.

I’m never unaware of the great blessing of living in a place where, for a few bucks worth of fuel, I can go out with my mates every Saturday and dive in one of the most prolific and beautiful marine habitats on the planet.

What’s more, my mates always kick in for the fuel, and a little extra. What more can a guy ask?

Related posts:

1. Planet Rock Frolic Author and underwater photographer Jan Messersmith illustrates the differences in effect between flash exposures and natural light exposures. Conclusion: Use flash if you must, but available light is better under most conditions....
2. Nudibranchs – Can’t Get Enough of ‘Em Hmmm . . . yummy nudibranchs, breakfast of champions. I just can't get enough of them. Try goat's milk and wild honey on 'em - delicious! Try some eggs too!...
3. About the Hat I’ve shown you several examples of the differences between juvenile forms and adult forms. I can hear you yawning already. But, look at these beauties: They are Silver Sweetlips (Diagramma pictum).  I think that they are one of the prettier fish that it is easy to get a camera on....
4. Parrotfish and Deep Focus Fooling around with your f-stop can give you deep focus. No this is not a meditation technique. However, it can give you a greater depth of field....
5. Still at The Eel Garden – Can’t Get Enough of It A few more shots from our dive last Saturday on The Eel Garden near Pig Island in Madang, Papua New Guinea. Despite sinusitus, my head did not implode....
6. Surprises at Magic Passage Take a dive with author and photographer Jan Messersmith at Magic Passage near Madang, Papua New Guinea. See some rare underwater critters. Five photographs and text....
7. Reef Scenes – The Magic Kingdom Capturing underwater scenes in life-like colours is fussy. I'm going for "what you get is what you saw". Photoshop is my twelve-pound sledgehammer for this job....

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