Small Wall Dive
Copyright © 2003 by Jake Richter - All Rights Reserved
11/29/2003
Shot with an Olympus 5050 in a PT-015 housing and combination of internal and external DS-125 strobe
- First use of that combination.
jake@richterscale.org

This was a dive taken with Martin DeWeger, behind our house on Bonaire. I wanted to experiment with the Olympus 5050 with an external strobe. Results are pretty reasonable - not quite as much Photoshopping required (in some cases none at all). One real nice thing is that I find I can get dark blue and black backgrounds on images by stopping down (I was shooting macro at f8 @ 1/250th).. That was something not possible with my Sony F-707 and Ikelite housing (at least not in my hands).

One really cool thing we saw on this dive that I was not able to get a picture of was a tarpon with a small remoraz (also known as a shark sucker) on top for a ride. All other cool things were captured on digital film.



Schoolmaster with inquisitive look



Obligatory shot of schooling Goatfish with a couple of grunts

This barracuda zoomed between Martin and myself - tried matching my rotational speed with the speed of the barracuda as I hoped the camera would focus properly (did pretty well)


The last time Martin and I dove Small Wall / ReefCam Reef together we also saw a large blue parrotfish, but not quite as large as this one (which was about 2 feet long).



This was one of my first shots with the external strobe for macro work. I simply liked the contrasting textures and colors of the elephant ear sponge and brain coral, visually separated by this cool branching anemone.

And, the obligatory cleaning shrimp shot...

Christmas tree worm

I had problems getting good lighting on this star coral and sharknose goby, but this shot showed some great purples in the center of the coral polyps, and a nice shot of the lines of the goby

Found this little guy by the mooring line at the ReefCam - I believe this is a baby horseeye jack - only about 1.5 inches long. Checking with the experts on positive ID.

This is Martin with a message for fellow BonaireTalk co-moderator, Cynde Lee :-)


Here's a self portrait of me, underwater. Strobe makes my face seem a lot redder than it really is. I guess the lack of sleep due to late night reading and early starts to program can also be seen in my bloodshot eyes!


Notes/Observations about the Olympus 5050 in the PT-015 Housing with the DS-125:

  • Had problems getting the right strobe exposure in super-macro mode
  • Really like that I can shoot stopped down far enough to get dark and even black backgrounds during the day using the external strobe.
  • Still need to work on what works best with the external slave strobe, which may also involve blacking out the internal strobe's external diffuser on the housing.

Back to the Richter Visual Dive Diaries Index Page