Diving in St. Croix

[Jeremy Payne]

I'm in St. Croix with the family on vacation this week and I'm doing a bunch of diving ... with a camera.  I don't have a housing for my D700 and I sold my dedicated underwater rig recently, so I borrowed an Oly 8080 from a friend for the week.

I've been using it almost exclusively in "super macro" mode and focusing on small objects between 4-6 inches in front of the lens.

St. Croix seems to have an abundance of "Christmas Tree Worms" - one of my favorite underwater subjects ... and I've shot a bunch of them over the last three days.

Here's a couple:

[a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremypayne/3611081485/sizes/o/\" target=\"_blank\"]

[RSL]

Jeremy, Like your other underwater stuff this is truly beautiful. I especially like the detail in these pictures. It's a different world down there. I'm sorry to hear you sold your underwater rig. Fortunately, the B&H catalog is full of underwater gear.

[Jeremy Payne]

Jeremy, Like your other underwater stuff this is truly beautiful. I especially like the detail in these pictures. It's a different world down there. I'm sorry to hear you sold your underwater rig. Fortunately, the B&H catalog is full of underwater gear.

Thanks, Russ!  Don't worry ... I'll get my own underwater stuff soon enough ... I'd really like to step up and house my D700, but that ain't cheap.

I sold my gear in preparation for an upgrade that got put on hold as I lost my job.  I'll get a new one, and when I do I will get a new underwater setup.

I'll be out diving again on Thursday and Friday and I'm hoping to get a chance to photograph some seahorses ... I saw four of them yesterday and they don't move much, but I didn't have the camera on that dive.

[John R]

Love the creatures and their etheral qualities, which you have captured nicely. At first I thought the were mushrooms.

JMR

[Jeremy Payne]

Love the creatures and their etheral qualities, which you have captured nicely. At first I thought the were mushrooms.

JMR

Thanks!  They are actually the "mouths" of worms that live inside tubes within the coral.  They extend these feeders into the open water and catch what floats by.

They are quite sensitive to movements in the water around them and pull back into their holes when they feel the pressure of moving water nearby.  You have to move up quite slowly in order to get a camera 4 inches away.

Here's what happens when you move too quickly (this was lined up to be a real good one ... shutter lag strikes again):

[Jeremy Payne]

Here's a couple seahorse from today:

[RSL]

Wow!!!

[Jeremy Payne]

Wow!!!

Thanks!  I'm pretty happy with how these came out.  Shooting the seahorses was my principal photographic objective on this trip and I'm very pleased with the result.  This trip has convinced me that I'm a macro guy underwater.  I just don't "see" the wide angle shots, but I love finding the small stuff ...

Here's a few more ... unfortunately, I'm heading home in the morning ...