Hairy Frogfish (right)

Wise words from Mike Bartick/Wayne Gretzky 

The post “Snoot is life” – A first time snooters experience first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Northern California is known for a wild and rugged coastline, and while the diving may not be for everyone, it lures in hearty divers from all over the state. The cold, nutrient-rich waters are packed with life. The calm, sunny days present some very unique wide-angle opportunities that complement the immense landscape of sea caves, arches 80 foot vertical walls and much more.

But amongst all the incredible wide-angle photo opps, divers have to slow down and take in the dense macro life. I’m not a big macro shooter but had to pause for a few shots to round out the vacation trip portfolio (I was able to wrangle 2 days off of work plus a weekend), as well as try out the new I-Torch V10 focus light. Here are a few shots using the V10 and my Canon 5D Mark III / Canon 100mm macro lens / Aquatica A5D MKIII housing.

– Brent Durand

Snails discuss their similarities to their abalone cousins.

This crab insisted on speaking with its buddy, hiding in deep in its shell.

There are countless large anemones in Northern California.

You can also read my article on the Underwater Photography Guide, ‘Photo Tips for Adventure Dive Expeditions‘.

The post Macro in Mendocino first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Took the Canon G7X out for a spin in the new Fantasea housing. It performed great, though I was once again reminded to always take a test shot, especially when borrowing gear, as it may not work 100%. Since I forgot to do my test, I ended up on the first dive with a camera flash that would not pop up fully and was rendered inoperable.

However to make the best of the situation I enjoyed shooting some video with the new Canon G7X to see how the larger sensor would perform over all. We were diving at the Rock Quarry off Catalina Island, California which is home to a very rare (only found at this site), warm water fish, the Scythe Butterflyfish. This fish made its way over here years back during an El Nino season and managed to keep going ever since. Its often very shy and found among the boulders at the Rock Quarry, so seeing it out and about feeding in the open sand was quite a treat.

The Fantasea G7X was a breeze to use, with easy drop in loading for the camera and full camera functionality. It was easily to control my settings, change my modes, white balance, aperture, shutter, etc and overall I enjoyed using the housing. However, it doesn’t provide quick the streamlined use that the higher end aluminum options do and one handed control is nearly impossible. Overall though it’s a great little housing, perfectly priced for those on a budget.

Check out the video I captured from that first dive, since I was planning to shoot photos I had no video lights with me, so the footage below was shot using the Canon UW white balance, which didn’t do too much. Before editing the video I did some color correcting (this can be achieved in your editing software such as Adobe Premiere or Final Cut, there is also a neat workout that you can perform in Lightroom by creating a still image from your video, editing that .jpg image in lightroom and syncing the edit settings to the video clip).

Fantasea Canon G7X & Elusive Scythe Butterflyfish

The post Rare Scythe Butterflyfish video with the Canon G7X first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

How is the diving where the mighty eastern Pacific Ocean meets the rich Sea of Cortez?  Excellent!

I just returned from a long weekend dive getaway in Cabo San Lucas, spending two and half days diving with Manta Scuba.  There is a wide range of diving available, which varies depending on the season. You can see large schools of fish, beautiful reefs, hammerheads, wrecks, snorkel with whale sharks, and all with a high likelihood of a pelagic encounter! During our surface interval at Gordo Banks last week we had humpback whales in every direction from the boat.

Read the full writeup (with 15 photos) on the Underwater Photography Guide:  A Quick Dive Getaway in Cabo

You can view the trip video below or check out Bluewater Travel’s new Cabo Quick Dive Getaway Package.

– Brent Durand

Gear:  Canon 5D Mark III in Aquatica A5D MkIII Housing and I-Torch Venom 38 Video Lights.

The post Video: Weekend Dive Getaway in Cabo first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

In case you haven’t heard, we’re seeing some epic visibility in Southern California.

I was able to get in a couple dives in off the beach in Malibu on Saturday and shoot some wide-angle in the kelp for the first time in about 13 months. For some reason, we usually get this vis mid-week or while I’m out of town! So grateful for this opportunity to create some wide-angle underwater landscapes of the places we usually dive with macro lenses.

Hopefully you got a chance to do the same. If not, visibility should still be good tomorrow, so get out there!

If you got some great photos, be sure to share them on the SoCal Underwater Photographers Facebook group.

– Brent Durand

The post Chasing Color in California first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Bluewater Photo recently took some underwater video in the Channel Islands, Southern California with the new Nauticam GH4 underwater housing and the Panasonic GH4 camera. Lenses used were the Panasonic 7-14mm F4, Olympus 60mm macro lens and the Olympus 12-50mm lens.

We think the footage looks great, check it out. Bobby Arnold shot the video and he did a great job. We’ll be performing some further tests underwater shooting at different frame rates so you can see the difference, and testing the focus tracking – so stay tuned!

Nauticam GH4 video settings

• Light & Motion dual video lights were used
• GH4 Video was shot in UHD (3840×2160, basically 4x 1080p) – this the future standard for (ultra high def) television
• 4k adds extra pixels on each side to create a 16:10 aspect ratio. This is the future standard for movie theaters.
• An Mp4 video format was used. For UHD/4K, mov and mp4 are your only options and they the same codec with different wrappers. Both have a bitrate that peak at 100 Mb/s
• 4k/UHD is limited to 24-30fps

Panasonic GH4 – other options to consider. Special thanks to Bobby Arnold for this information.

• Codecs – 200Mbs all-intra codec is a very uncompressed codec that allows for a lot of latitude in post production. For underwater this setting can be beneficial if you want to do a lot of color grading, apply LUTs etc.
• The most useful setting for U/W is the 96fps setting which creates great slow-motion and automatically converts the footage to slow-motion 24 or 30fps in camera. You can also vary the frame rate all they way down to 2fps to create timelapse videos.
• Additionally there is a timelapse setting that will also create your timelapse video, up to 4k, in camera
• Picture mode – There’s a lot of debate about which “picture mode” to use with the GH4; We use the Cine-V profile to get vibrant colors, but not too much extra processing so I have some flexibility in post. Many professionals are promoting the use of the Cine-D which creates a more RAW-like image that requires more work in post. I’d rather spend my time creating something interesting to watch versus trying to get a great looking picture. The GH4 does a excellent job, let the camera do the work and you can concentrate on composition and telling the story.

The post Nauticam GH4 underwater video footage & settings first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

A good photographer is able to create nice images no matter the dive site, whether it’s silty muck, beautiful coral reef, cold and dark or a drift dive. This, of course, takes much practice but also the right techniques for the conditions.

Today we look at some tips for big wall dives. I made two wall dives today in Bunaken, Indonesia. Walls are unique in the sense that photo composition must come from the side – not the bottom like on most reef dives. There can also be current to contend with, so make sure to check out our Essential Drift Diving Photo Tips.

Photo Tip #1

Master your Buoyancy. Safety always comes first when diving. If you haven’t made a “bottomless” dive, then it’s best to make your first dives without a distracting camera. It’s easy to forget about your depth when absorbed in photographing a passing subject.

Photo Tip #2

Look ahead. This becomes more critical as current increases, because you’ll only have a short period of time to compose your photo. As you approach your foreground, try to think ahead about camera settings and strobe position needed for proper lighting. The more you previsualize your photo, the better the results will be.

Photo Tip #3

Photo tip #4

Brent Durand is currently in Manado, Indonesia creating daily photo and video dive reports, photo tips, travel tips and more for the Best of Southeast Asia tour over the next 6 weeks.

The post Getting Great Photos on Wall Dives first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Our July 16th Anacapa trip was a big success. We have 4 great dives, and saw bat rays, giant black sea bass, harbor seals, huge schools of blacksmiths and senoritas, and more.

Here is a video from the trip that our guest Walter Marti made for us:

Along with some underwater photos:

The post Anacapa trip photos and videos first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Text and image by Todd Winner.

This has been one of my favorite images for a long time. In fact, it was taken nearly nine years ago. It demonstrates a style (foreground – background) that I constantly use in many of my wide angle images today. Often it’s not enough just to have a pretty image of a fish, we need a secondary subject to keep the viewers attention and add some depth to the photo. Silhouettes are an obvious choice for secondary subjects. Diving around piers, rigs and wrecks can offer great opportunities for background subjects, but using a diver, marine animal or even the silhouette of the dive boat can be just as effective. Just remember you need a strong distinctive shape to create a good silhouette.

Reef Squid at Salt Pier – Nikon D100, 10.5mm Fisheye lens, 1/160, f/11, iso 200, 2 ikelite 200 strobes

This image was taken in Bonaire at the salt pier with a Nikon D100 and a 10.5mm fisheye. I had recently switched from shooting film SLRs to the D100 and I was still finding it difficult to embrace the digital format. I hated it! I came upon the reef squid early in the dive and it soon became interested in its own reflection in my port. It allowed me to get the camera within inches of its tentacles and even touching the port a few times.

At first encounter, the pier was at my back so I maneuvered around to the other side of the squid to capture the pier in the background. In total, I took about 25 frames. It was this image that really opened my eyes to the advantage of shooting digital underwater and not being limited to only 36 frames on a dive. Without the pier in the background, this image would not be nearly as interesting. Also, shooting a small animal in mid water leaves very few opportunities for shadows in the image. Without shadows images start to look flat and one dimensional. Adding a silhouette or secondary subject to the background brings depth and two dimension back to the image.

The post Todd Winner’s Wednesday Photo – Reef Squid and Salt Pier first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Image and text by: Todd Winner

One of the things I love about macro and supper macro is being able to show a subject in a way you never could with the naked eye. In fact, many of our super macro subjects can hardly be seen without magnification. We often catch some of these subjects in our normal macro shots only to discover them when viewing the image on a large screen. (Photography bycatch.) It can be quite a challenge to find and photograph these tiny creatures especially without cropping into the image in post. Below are the tools and techniques that helped me get the skeleton shrimp shot.

Tools & Techniques

First you have to be able to see the subject. On my housing I use the Nauticam 180 viewfinder. This gives me a big bright view of my subject for critical focus. I used the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS lens on a Canon 7D body. This lens will focus down to 1×1 but for extra magnification I added a SubSea +10 diopter. Using one of the flip holders like the Nauticam M67 can make using these diopters much more convenient. For lighting, I used 2 Ikelite 160 strobes and to help with focusing I had a Light and Motion Sola 600.  I noticed a number of skeleton shrimp on a yellow-orange tunicate. To separate the subject from the background, I aimed slightly up and waited for one to walk across the top. The +10 diopter gives you a very shallow depth of field so the soft out of focus area behind the shrimp has a nice bokeh effect even though it is not very far from the subject. Finally in Lightroom I added some vibrance, clarity and a small vignette to direct the viewer to the subject. Super macro can be a great way to spend a dive and best of all you probably won’t even have to swim far from the boat!

The post Todd Winner’s Wednesday Photo – Skeleton Shrimp first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.