If you were wondering why you didn’t hear from me last month, it’s because we were in La Paz, Baja California, Mexico for four weeks. Starting September 21st, 51 divers and nondivers came down to join us. Some stayed 5 days, others 7 days, 10 days, two weeks and one 19 days! We had people from up and down the California coast, Jerry and Florence from Seattle, Victoria and Rebecca from Florida, Christian, John, Ed and Justin from Denver, Caren from New York, and Niels from Germany. We celebrated Sarah and Andrew’s open water certification. We celebrated birthdays: Terry, Sarah, John V, John W, and Mike. We celebrated being together.

We saw whale sharks, orcas, dolphins, pilot whales, mantas, eels, seal lions, barracudas, turtles, and hammerheads, all in one day! Okay, just kidding about the one day. It was truly remarkable! See it to believe it. Click here.

Many thanks to the people who joined us this year. And please, send a couple of your favorite images to be posted on a special site devoted just for you, Amigos in La Paz.

Our host in La Paz was James Curtiss of the Cortez Club. Gracias to James and his honchos Luis and Ricardo. His staff of divemasters and captains are muy bien. Every Sunday night James threw a carne asada party. Our friends back here in the States—Atomic, Stahlsac, Pelican, Trident, Mares, and Liburdi’s Scuba Center—donated a passel of gifts, which we surprised our divers with, and Sea & Sea contributed the Grand Prize. Every one of our guests had their name entered in the Sea & Sea Sweepstakes. All the names were put in a fishbowl (what else?) and the winner was selected at random.

Drum roll, please. . . Meet the winner of the Sea & Sea DX750G digital camera and underwater housing system. The lovely Christina Kinkopf. This was her third consecutive year for her, her dad John, and his friends from the Long Beach Yacht Club Dive Club. Next year she will be a photographer!



We will repeat our adventure the second, third, and fourth weeks of October 2007. Details to follow soon on our website.

Many, many years ago when I had salt-and-pepper hair and a beard as black as night, I was hell bent on becoming an underwater photographer.

In those days we did not have the fancy systems with auto this and auto that. Everything about the cameras, housings, and flash units were manual this and manual that. Skill was the all- important factor in getting all the elements together to get the shot. The save rate from a 36-exposure roll of film was less than 10 percent in those days.

Today’s underwater systems driven by the computer chip make a lot of divers instantly good at taking pictures. Completely automated, the camera and strobe have become a point-and-shoot system. However, these new space-age systems with all their bells and whistles do not make one a great photographer.

Let me relate a story about some of my more ambitious students a few decades ago. It was the 1980s and we were shooting with the Nikonos V, the most advanced amphibious system on the market. I was asked if they could follow me with their cameras and mimic every move I made in taking the picture. They thought they would then get the same results as me.

Well, we tried it on several occasions. We all set our cameras and strobes to the same settings. We composed the shot from the same distance. You have probably guessed by now that no two images were exactly the same. However, following closely by example can greatly reduce the learning curve. The final element, creativity, is left up to you.

So let’s go on a dive with our new digital camera systems and see if you can duplicate the macro image below.

For our purpose we will simply define Macro as doing three things:

1. Magnifying images
2. Getting in as close as your lens allows
3. Filling the frame with the image

1. Service our camera and strobes with fresh batteries and memory card. You should have at least 100 shots remaining on the memory card.
2. Use the highest resolution available. I don’t recommend you use Raw unless you have the means to download the data.
3. Set camera to ISO100, auto focus, auto white balance, and exposure compensation to “0”.
4. Place camera in the housing. Inspect, clean and lube all serviceable O-rings on the housing before sealing.
5. Once the camera and strobe are sealed, turn on power to make sure they are powered up. Shoot a few test shots. If the system is working, let’s move on.
6. Perform a pre-dive leak test in fresh water before diving. Make sure no air bubbles are escaping from areas housing O-rings.

How I took this picture

1. I set the camera in A/M mode.
2. I selected aperture f/8 and 1/125 sec shutter speed.
3. I set the internal flash for force flash mode.
4. I raised the flash diffuser for the internal flash to prevent the flash from illuminating the image in front of the lens, causing backscatter.
5. I set the camera to the macro function and zoomed the lens to the wide-angle position. I do not use the telephoto function to fill the frame. Doing so will compromise sharpness. I move in closer to fill the frame.
6. I set the flash mode to Auto 2 and slave control to On.
7. I aimed my camera at the subject with a slight upward angle. The camera is rotated a few degrees to capture the image at a slight angle to create a three-dimensional effect. I always try not to take straight on shots.
8. I positioned the strobe at approximately a 45-degree angle, approximately 18 inches from the subject. The power control dial is set at 3.
9. The image is composed looking at the LCD. There is no viewfinder on this system.
10. After taking the picture, I reviewed the results in the LCD. Exposure corrections were made by moving the strobe position to slightly more overhead and changing the power on the flash. Since the dark green of this nudibranch absorbs light, I increased the number to 4.
11. I took another shot and liked it. I took another just in case

How I took this picture

1. I used a Nikon 60mm macro lens.
2. I set the camera for Auto Focus and ISO 100.
3. I set the camera to Manual Mode with the aperture at f/22 and shutter speed at 1/125.
4. I set the strobe for TTL. I use a strobe diffuser to reduce light output. Note: TTL produces consistent correct light for macro imaging.
5. The strobe-to-subject distance was approximately 12” and camera-to-subject distance approximately 8”. The strobe is positioned to the left of my housing and aimed at the highest point to the right and slightly behind the apparent image.
6. I took the picture and of course reviewed the results in the LCD. I then set the aperture to f/32 and took another shot. The background was darker and slightly out of focus, making the details of the nudibranch more distinct.
7. I adjusted lens angle slightly upward, took another couple of shots and decided I had it.

It’s one of the wonders of the diving world with big animal action and glorious walls and mega schools and exotic little critters. It has it all and we’re going there February 2007. It’s a customized trip with sites divers rarely visit. We have only 5 spots left! Check out the trip on our site by clicking here. And get your reservation in fast!