Posted by Chris on April 27, 2003 at 21:30:25:
Yesterday I went on the Sport Chalet trip to Catalina on the Great Escape.
I went to dive and try out the new INON D-180 Strobe
Our first dive was at Isthmus Reef.
My plan was to do some macro photography and also try out my new UN macro lens. I set the strobe up with a diffuser I made from the lid of a Trader Joe's coffee can.
As soon as the briefing was over, I was the first one in the water. As I swam down under the boat I saw a betray sitting on the bottom. So I unscrewed the macro lens to take his picture.
I then screwed the lens back on and began my quest for macro subjects, like this first tube anonme I encountered.
I took quite a few more pictures of a piddock, more anonomes, corinactis, and others. I then encountered another batray.
After an hour I decided it was time to return to the boat so I would not hold up others. It turned out that the next diver in the water after me went in 45 minutes later, so I could have stayed out longer.
On my way back to the boat I took a macro shot of this colorful seaweed.
This plant is very common in Northern California, but not as common here.
The water temperature on this dive was a very nice 58 °F, and the visibility was only about 30 ft.
Our next two dives were at Little Geiger Cove. Here the water was a bit green, but still there was about 25 foot visibility.
My first good picture was a Blacksmith.
After swimming a bit I encountered a very tame spotted stingray.
I took several pictures of him before he became annoyed and swam away.
I took some other pictures until I came across this jellyfish.
My last picture of the second dive was of the bulb on a very large piece of bull kelp.
I again limited this dive to an hour so as not to hold up the boat.
On my third dive I got several nice goby pictures
I also took a few bug pictures, since this preserve was packed with good size bugs.
I took over 90 pictures each dive. Many of them had far too much backscatter, but that was part of my learning experience. I think a few more days of using this flash I will have it's capabilities down a bit better, and my flash positioning will improve. Overall I am happy with my results being this is my fist use of the flash.
... Chris
