Biscayne Bay Article

[Kevin Gallagher]

 I enjoyed the article and it's accompanying photos very much I wonder if the author could elaborate a bit on the equipment and technique used for the underwater shots, they look very nice?

Thanks, Kevin in CT

[luong]

Thanks for the kind words.

"Yellow snappers" was photographed while scuba diving in 2000. At that time, I shot Fuji Velvia with a Nikonos V and 15mm lens (both of which were gold standards for UW photography), with a Ikelite strobe. The Nikonos was an amphibious camera the size of a DSLR which did not require a housing, but everything, including focus and flash control was manual. I miss it for its compact size and fantastic sharpness of the lens directly in contact with water.

"Large angelfish" is from last year, and was photographed while snorkeling using natural light only. The colors are more muted because the shallow waters beneath the mangroves isn't as clear as the deep water on the reef. That also precluded the use of a strobe, as it would illuminate the floating particles. My current UW rig is a Canon 5Dmk2 with 17-40 f/4 lens inside a Ikelite housing with a dome port. This blog post http://www.terragalleria.com/blog/diving-santa-barbara-island-channel-islands-national-park/ has a picture and comments about the rig. 

[HSakols]

Thanks QT
I still have a Nikonos II. I love the natural light in the shallow water.  I had always wanted that 15mm lens!  Did you use one of Ikalites full power strobes or their smaller models? 

[luong]

Two decades ago, I purchased the biggest strobe Ikelite made. Slow slide film + wide angle required a lot of power. Currently, I use the DS160. Although it is their biggest current model, it is considerably smaller and lighter than my old strobe. I find that with a dome port, I need to stop down a lot for good image quality.

[HSakols]

 Thank you for the info on your lighting and using a dome port.  I used extension tubes with the Nikonos and an Ikilite Substrobe.  It produced beautiful transparencies and was wonderful for photographing marine invertebrates.