Size DOES Matter

I just saw the Palau pictures of CH on her Multiply blog and I suddenly feel inadequate.

Here are two pictures of the same Napoleon wrasse:

All the pictures on the left were taken by CH using a Canon 300D with a beautiful, domed u/w housing and two strobes.

The pictures on the right were taken using my little Sony.

Spot the changes eh? The amazing thing is that I actually felt good about my pictures when I first saw them. At least until I saw CH's output!

CH's blog address is minischnauzer.multiply.com and it is worth a visit to see all of her great photos.

Here's another example of what strobe lights do to improve color underwater:

This black manta was really amazing. He (or is it a she?) stayed with us for about 40 minutes, all the while doing loop-the-loop turns as he fed on plankton. I've got some pretty good videos of this feeding behavior on my YouTube site.

The black manta is also very identifiable because a piece of his left wing tip has been bitten off. Perhaps he was attacked by a shark when he was younger, as the crescent-shaped bite looks about the size of a shark's mouth. Luckily he survived to regale us with his u/w antics at German Channel.

I'll end the post with a couple more comparison shots. The first set are of grey reef sharks at Blue Corner.

Here we can see the greater color variation in the Canon, as the silhouettes of the sharks are more pronounced against the lighter surface. The Sony produced a more monochromatic image.

The last set are of the spinner dolphins that visited us twice. The first shot was taken by CH during the dolphins' sunset visit.

T took this second image, the shot of CH and her husband R with the dolphin - a perfectly timed shot! This one was taken during the dolphins' day visit though, which is why the sunset has disappeared.

My complete pictures, together with T's, can be found on my Kodak Gallery site.