underwater | Divermaiden Travels Underwater and Topside Photography

Komodo Reef Fish Ballet

Posted by Kathy on Mar 26, 2012

While I was diving in Komodo Marine Park I was fascinated with the small reef fish. They were all different colors and they would swoop in and out of the coral in a choreographed fish ballet. Here are a few images of the reef fish dancing along the reef.

Reef Fish and Coral Gently Waving in the Current

Nudibranchs, Slugs in the Sea

Posted by Kathy on Mar 16, 2012

Glossodoris cincta

Translated literally nudibranch means naked bronchi (lung). The name is due to the fact that they carry their bronchi (gills actually) externally, outside of their bodies. So their lungs are naked in a sense. Nudibranchs are snails, phylum Mollusca. Unlike most land slugs nudibranchs are beautiful! They often have brilliant colors and their gills and cerrata can be simple or intricate. They don’t need shells for protection as they carry poison in their bodies. Their brilliant coloration is a warning to predators to stay away, “I may be beautiful but I taste awful!” Some have obvious heads and others it is hard to tell whether you are looking at the head or tail. I always take pictures of both ends if I am not sure just in case what I am looking at is not what I think it is.

Monterey Shootout, Winning and Non-winning Images

Posted by Kathy on Sep 26, 2011

This is going to be a photo blog featuring a few images from the recent Monterey Shootout which I participated in. The shootout was organized jointly by the Northern California Underwater Photographic Society (NCUPS) and Berkley White (owner Backscatter Underwater Video & Photo). It was really fun although the diving was not the greatest. The film festival Saturday night had excellent presentations by top underwater photographers/videographers featuring big animals; whales, sharks, manta rays. So cool!

Underwater Photography, Large Camera Systems and Arm Strain

Posted by Kathy on Jun 17, 2011

Underwater with my camera in Macro mode. Good thing I don’t model often.
Photo by Randy Herz.

One thing I had problems with on our dive/underwater photography trip to Komodo was right-sided wrist, arm and shoulder strain. I’m shooting a Nikon D300 underwater in a Sea&Sea housing, both macro (60 mm lens) and wide-angle (16 mm fisheye). After a few dives in Monterey prior to our trip I realized that this system was considerably more negative than my old D70 system and bought some floats for my arms.

AMAZING KOMODO!

Posted by Kathy on May 22, 2011

One word for Komodo diving and the Indo Siren…AMAZING!
We saw and photographed so many things that I have never seen before, mostly big stuff, like huge schools of Fuseliers, Trevaly jacks, big and little white tip reef sharks, bumphead wrasse, and….yes Big Bird! Yes we dove with manta rays! There were also turtles, masses of colorful reef fish, and a couple of divers were buzzed by a dolphin! There were also lots of small critters which I will show in another post.