Macro Slideshow

Triggerfish article

I've been testing a new optical slave trigger called the Triggerfish for about 10 days, for a review that was published on Wetpixel today. It is an excellent addition to me creative arsenal! Below is a picture of the Capernwray aircraft. I put two remote strobes in the cockpit and post-processing was done in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

More D7000 pictures

I was able to get underwater with the camera again this week. Over on Wetpixel, I posted an excellent review of the camera and housing by Keri Wilk. In it, he points out the ability of the camera to shoot in 14 bit format-extending and increasing the tonal range of the image. In conjunction with the high pixel count, I'm starting to see the smooth tonal gradients, especially when compared to the D2Xs.



Another plus with the camera is the 1/320 flash sync speed. This makes for much more pleasing sunburests, even when the sun is quite strong.

D7000 underwater

I have recently started using a Nikon D7000 and have now had the opportunity to take it underwater a couple of times. It is an amazing camera, especially considering it's price. It's rendering of sunbursts is spectacular, especially when compared to that of the Nikon D2Xs that I have been using up until now. It is also amazing to switch the strobes off, and dial in an ISO of 1600 and take ambient light shots that until now have just not been possible for me.

I don't think the AF is quite as good as it could be, I need to live with this a bit more to gain a more complete understanding of what is going on, but the jury is out.

Below are some underwater images taken using the camera:



I will be conducting a review of available housings for this camera on Wetpixel over the next month or so, so if you are interested in this camera for underwater use, please be sure to keep checking the site.

Slideshow from the Red Sea

Smile!

Image slide show from the Red Sea

Underwater photography slideshow from the Red Sea from Adam Hanlon on Vimeo.

More aeroplane pictures

I shot some more pictures of the 'plane this morning early. The visibility was improved compared to last Monday, but the ambient light was still a little too dark to get the whole thing in

Shot in ambient light with a green water Magic filter. The pictures were processed in Lightroom 3 beta 2-the noise reduction features are amazing!

Sinking aeroplane slideshow!

Capernwray sinks an aeroplane slideshow from Adam Hanlon on Vimeo.

Julian Cohen's Slideshow from Lembeh

A fantastic slide show from Julian Cohen

These were taken over a week (?) during which the participants gave up diving during daylight-diving solely at night. They were based at the "home" of macro -Lembeh These are some of the fantastic images that resulted!

Nauticam UK site is up

Alex Tattersall's Underwater Visions site is now up here This brings Nauticam housings officially to the UK. They are certainly the most talked about new housings for a long time, and seem to offer a plethora of features. I like the idea of being able to use existing ports on them, a solid locking port system, and the idea that misaligned controls will "mesh" themselves. Neat engineering!

New Zen 100mm Dome port

Today I was lucky enough to be using the new Zen 100mm dome port today. It is definately softer in the corners than a big dome, but it's small size lets you get real close! Thanks to Alex for all his help with this

I teamed it up with a Tokina 10-17mm lens and a Kenko 1.4 x teleconverter, and could really see the magnification's effect on the subject. Lighting is critical though-my Inon strobes when correctly placed, didn't really leave enough room for my dry gloves!

The ability to get the subject so close is a definate advantage in terms of colour in green water. The subjects are much more vibrant out of the camera than they would be with a bigger dome etc.

While I was shooting, the sun went in, and I found that as I stopped down, the corner sharpness got worse!

Water temp was a cool 4 degrees!

Picture of the day on Flickr Fins Group

This picture was made picture of the day on the Flickr FINS group.



It was shot at Capernwray on a sunny day, with an air temperature of -7 degrees celsius, and a water temperature of 3/4 degrees. There was some ice on the surface!

Clear water in the UK

The cold weather and cold water combination has really cleared out the visibility at Capernwray. These were taken last Friday, water temperature was 3 degrees, air temperature -7!

Great viz!

Red Sea Pictures

I've managed to scale back my images from the trip to a more manageable number, and done the preliminary editing on them. I've put a gallery up here

Please bear in mind that there are still too many, and the quality on some of them is not as high as I would wish, but I felt I should get something out rather than nothing! The gallery will be changing and shrinking(!) with time. Any comments/feedback or likes and dislikes would be very welcome.

Red Sea holiday

I've just returned from a week long trip to Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. We spent a week diving and chilling out in the sun!

I took over 900 photos, so as I get them organised, I'll start putting them up on here. Many thanks to Pete Leathley, our "photo-friendly" dive guide!

Sturgeon

Capernwray has 4 of these pre historic looking fish!



I think sometimes sci-fi is based on reality!

Moody black and white macro shots

I was lucky enough to be diving at Capernwray last Sunday. Congratualtions to Darryl Leaning on completing five PADI Instructor Specialities. It was a very busy day, that ensured limited visibility, together with rain and cloud making underwater conditions very gloomy.

I used the conditions to experiment with black background macro shots-by keeping my aperture small, and using only the light from my strobe to illuminate the subject. I then converted these into mono, using Lightroom.

I quite like the result-the perch loook like boxers to me! Kind of bruised but still with attitude!

Wetpixel Flikr Group

I am an administrator of Wetpixels Flickr group, and have been spending some time recently adding and inviting images to it. It is a spin off from the Wetpixel site, which to me mind is the best source for info on underwater photography available on the web. It now has 1462 members, and is one of the largest underwater photography groups on Flickr. Probabaly more telling, the group's pool now has some 23754 images!

A friend who has recently go into underwater photography was bemoaning the fact that he had a lot of great images, but never got to show them to anyone. Groups like this on Flickr are a great way of showcasing your pictures, and getting them to a wide audience! Best of all they are absolutely free! Even if you don't take pictures underwater yourself, the quality and variety of images on the group make for a fascinating visual feast! Join up today!