Coleman’s shrimp pair on a fire urchin, originally uploaded by echeng.

Coleman’s shrimp (Periclimenes colmani), a beautiful commensal shrimp that lives in pairs on fire urchins (Asthenosoma varium), are fairly common in Ambon. Fire urchins are typically found here at depths of 60-90 feet, and about one out of 20 will have at least one of three kinds of commensal crustacea living on them.

Using the INON insect eye lens (Underwater Micro Semi-Fisheye Relay Lens UFL-MR130 EFS60), I was able to capture two Coleman’s shrimp in a valley of fire urchin spines. Shots taken with traditional lenses cannot capture the colorful environment in which these shrimp live.

Pregnant harlequin swimming crab (Lissocarcinus laevis), Ambon, Indonesia, originally uploaded by echeng.

The most well-known dive site in Ambon is called Laha. Laha is known as “Twilight Zone” by the folks who first dove it – and for good reason: its mucky slope is packed full of the strange and outrageous. When we came here in April of 2009, we enjoyed the site so much that we spent 6 full days diving its mucky slope.

The new moon is approaching, and everywhere in Ambon, animals have aggregated to spawn. In a single large hole in the reef, we saw 4 large stonefish fidgeting about with their heads nearly touching. Many of the critters we are finding down there are stuffed full of eggs. During a midnight dive last night, I spotted a pregnant harlequin swimming crab (Lissocarcinus laevis) hiding under some sort of tube anemone. After a few minutes, the crab walked out slowly from under her protective umbrella and extended her brood pouch – a sure sign that she was about to release eggs. After 4 minutes of gentle egg aeration, she sprang into the water column without warning, releasing all of her eggs in a few seconds of spastic gyration. This photo was taken moments before she released her eggs.

Panda anemonefish eggs (Amphiprion polymus), Ambon, Indonesia, originally uploaded by echeng.

The Wetpixel Ambon Night Safari is underway in full force; we are doing 3 night dives each evening and are enjoying being immersed in a soup of the bizarre creatures that inhabit the waters of Ambon, including discarded diapers, tampons and other desirable subjects. Unfortunately, the nasty stuff thrown into the bay is part of what creates such an interesting underwater habitat.

Most of our group is shooting with standard macro rigs, but there are 3 insect eye relay lenses here at the resort. Julian and I are both shooting INON lenses, and Tony has a custom job from Japan. They can be incredibly frustrating to use, but successful images often describe scenes that have never before been seen. The photo in this post is a screen grab from HD video taken with my Canon 7D and insect eye lens. The main subject, a mass of eggs from a panda anemonefish (Amphiprion polymus), is normally photographed using a super-macro setup. Using an insect eye lens, I was able to capture video of both the tiny eggs and attentive parent fish. Each egg houses a late-stage baby anemonefish, an in the video, you can see tiny hearts beating and eyes moving.

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My recent video featuring sharks biting a GoPro HD Hero camera in an Eye of Mine underwater housing has just been released on DiveFilm HD. It is similar to one of the videos I posted earlier, but now has a “making of” section and a voice-over description of what is going on.

DiveFilm is an underwater video podcast put out by Mary Lynn Price and sponsored by Wetpixel. We are very excited because it is currently (as of today) the #1 Sports & Recreation Podcast on iTunes! Since the iTunes ranking is based on downloads, I encourage you to watch the video through iTunes even if you streamed it from this post. Support DiveFilm! :)

I’ve listed my Light & Motion Z1u/FX1 Bluefin housing and travel package for sale through Backscatter (located in Monterey, CA, but will ship).

Description: Used Light & Motion Bluefin Z1U/FX1 housing for the Sony Z1U or Sony FX1 camera. The housing comes with the stock flat port and when used with the internal flip down macro diopter gives you the option for extreme macro. Also included is the 80 Super Wide angle lens that allows full zoom through on the camera. This housing is in good condition and comes with the incredible Sunray 2000 light system, two chargers, four batteries and a Pelican 1620 case that holds everything. [more information]

Emma the tiger shark and a bunch of reef sharks and lemon sharks feed on a bit of fish bait (bones, mostly) in the Bahamas.

This is probably the most effective blue-water 3D video I’ve posted to date. It is a bit bright, but it’s hard to do color correction for anaglyph 3D. I need to find a way to preview my work on proper 3D displays!

UPDATE: I just looked at this video, and the Vimeo upload’s compression has made the 3D anaglyph effect much less pronounced. At 1080p pre-Vimeo compression, the 3D effect is tremendous. I need to upload a better version…

Reef sharks, lemon sharks and nurse sharks investigate a gorgonian, where an injured fish must be hiding. Bahamas.

Two goliath groupers (Epinephelus itajara) on the wreck of the Zion, Jupiter, Florida

While shooting video today, I had quite a few moments in which I wished only for a strobe or two.

3D anaglyph (red/cyan) video of a school of Atlantic spadefish (Chaetodipterus faber). Jupiter, Florida. September 11, 2010.

This particular video looks great at 1080p full screen on a 17″ monitor, but suffers greatly when reduced in resolution and viewed as a postage stamp-sized video.

The Eye of Mine underwater housing for GoPro cameras is simple: it’s a stock GoPro housing with a replacement flat port. Although the standard GoPro housing is waterproof and rated to 60 meters, it won’t focus underwater because of its tiny little dome port. Eye of Mine’s simple solution lets you capture sharp images underwater using a GoPro Hero HD camera.

I took an Eye of Mine-housed GoPro Hero HD camera to the Bahamas a few days ago and played with sharks:

Although I’m used to cameras many times the cost of a GoPro, and I was really impressed by the footage I managed to capture. Specifically, I can’t imagine putting any other camera inside a shark’s mouth! (Also, the footage does actually look pretty good.)

Special thanks to Russell Latimer of Eye of Mine for the loaner housing (which is still in relatively good shape, considering the abuse I put it through); to Jim Abernethy, my good friend and shark guide in the Bahamas for 9 years now; to Sterling Zumbrunn for providing third-party camera footage, and to Ultralight Control Systems for providing the AD-GO ball adapter to connect the GoPro housing to my rig.

A spawning aggregation of goliath groupers (Epinephelus itajara) off of Jupiter, Florida, taken just before sunset (hence, the noisy video).

3D video (anaglyph red/cyan) of a moral eel hunting at night in the Maldives. Shot underwater with a custom BS Kinetics underwater housing for dual Sony CX550V camcorders.

If you would rather see a side-by-side format or row interleaved, check out the YouTube version of the video.

If you don’t have anaglyph 3D glasses and want to see the footage, click through for the left eye view. (read more »)

Inspired by Rob Stewart’s self-cam footage in Sharkwater, I turned my camera around and took some footage of me swimming with whale sharks off of Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Shot with Canon 5D Mark II, Tokina 17mm/3.5 lens. 0260619

Rob was in Isla Mujeres the week before I was, and shot similar footage (although he dove down, whereas I stayed on the surface).

Whale shark poop

A couple weeks ago, I posted images from my first attempt to capture a whale shark silhouette with a sunball behind it. The attempt produced a decent photo.

The following few days presented many more opportunities to go after such a shot. (read more »)

Full Seacam housing for Canon 5D Mark II digital SLR

This is a complete kit, including multiple ports, extension rings, gears, and accessories. If you add a camera body, lenses, and Ikelite strobes, you will be READY TO SHOOT. If you do not want to shoot Ike strobes, you will also need new strobe sync cords.

Full details over at the Wetpixel classifieds.

UPDATE: Housing has been sold.

This is an attempt to show the number of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) in the water during the aggregation in Isla Mujeres. I only wish it were possible to show the hundreds more around me!

I’ve finally succeeded in uploading a follow up to my 3D video of a cenotes diver going through a halocline. The new video contains the original clip plus a few more:

3D video is a huge pain to produce.

Our group has transferred to Isla Mujeres from Puerta Aventura and has just finished our first day of photographing the whale shark aggregation that is here feeding on bonito spawn.

3D video workflow has proven to be the downfall of my relatively-new MacBook Pro, and so I am unable to show you any new video at this point. I have a 1:36 video that is ready to show, but uploading is proving to be difficult from my connection here in Mexico.

Cave diver at Cenote Chac-Mool, Mexico

Instead, I’ll leave you with 4 images taken during my 2 dives with a still camera. These images were taken at Cenote Kulkulkan and Cenote Chac-Mool. (read more »)

For my first underwater 3D shoot, I dove cenote Chac-Mool, which is about 20 KM from Playa Del Carmen (just outside of Cancun). I had never taken my modified BS Kinetics 3D housing underwater, so I had to first mount lights on it and do a pool test for buoyancy. Adding 4 lbs made the housing almost exactly neutral, although it is just a little bit back heavy.

I was quite worried because a dark cave is not exactly the best place to use a camera system that relies on auto-exposure for its picture. I set the camera to underexpose 3 units (whatever that means in Sony land) and hoped for the best. The results were actually quite good!

Here is the first clip I processed, which shows Mario, our dive guide, swimming through a halocline (the layer between fresh water and salt water, which is more dense). Don’t worry — the fuzzy halocline water clears up after a few seconds.

I’ll do a more formal write-up about my 3D workflow when it is fully tested, but at the moment, it includes ClipWrap¹, MPEG Streamclip, PluralEyes, Final Cut Pro, Dashwood Stereo3D Toolbox, and Compressor. I shot 107 clips (214 total, since each camera shoots separately), taking up a total of 16.6 GB of space (8.3 GB x 2).

3D workflow is extremely time-consuming. (read more »)

Here’s a short video shot in Lembeh Strait, Indonesia, with a Canon 7D in a Nauticam underwater housing with 60mm macro lens and INON Underwater Micro Semi-Fisheye Relay Lens UFL-MR130 EFS60 (AKA “bug eye” or “insect eye”) — effectively, and underwater endoscope.

The INON bug eye lens produces images with a perspective otherwise impossible to achieve — like seeing the macro world from a small critter’s perspective!

Here’s a shot of the rig I used:

It looks like an insecticon, no?

Special thanks to Tony Wu, David Cheung / Scubacam, and Kasawari resort, who hosted me during a special Lembeh night safari.