Entries by Robert

'Portrait Of A Diver' is one of those images that I just can't work out how to categorise. It was one of those surreal images that you never actually see for real. But the image and everything in is real, exactly as the photo was was taken.

Please comment on what you think you might be looking at in my 'Portrait Of A Diver' and what state my friend Gerry might actually be in?

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath 5DMkII on 'L' plates. (Please ask if you want to know more about how this image was taken.)

This mating pair of Lightning Volutes, Ericusa fulgetrum was a stunning find on our recent midnight dive under Edithburgh Jetty. We had seen a single volute earlier in the dive in the same location so probably the same guy ( or girl, does anyone know how to tell? ).

This brings me to the wonderful subject of night diving and picking your time. Most night dives take place around late dusk. This is more a factor of logistics and convenience with the added advantage of being able to prepare in some remaining daylight. But just as you will see different things at different times during the day the same applies to the night. As a youngster I remember being on holidays when some of the grownups would head out fishing after we had all gone to bed. The reason, picking the time based on the tides.

In and around Adelaide we often have low tides around midnight so if you can delay your start a few hours and don't mind a late night then try a few midnight dives. You will almost certainly see a level of activity different to a dive soon after sunset. Another good time to see different things is in early morning hours before sunrise. The combination of running tide and remaining darkness will again provide opportunities to see creatures and behaviours different again. And finally try a dive just before dawn and watch first light creeping into the underwater world.

Next time you are planning on doing a dive after sunset try and get creative with the timing. Getting in the water at midnight or getting up at 2am is not for everyone but then neither is experiencing the full scope any one location has to offer.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath 5DMkII on 'L' plates. (Please ask if you want to know more about how this image was taken.)

The Southern Pygmy Leatherjacket, Brachaluteres jacksonianus is a common sight under Edithburgh Jetty and always a very cute encounter. This little guy is trying to get some sleep considering it's well after midnight!

He was just one of many wonderful encounters on Friday evening's night dive with our good friends Iain and Susie. Actually Jennifer and Susie ran from the room when I suggested we go for a dive just about the time normal people go to bed. I think Iain only agreed because he thought I was actually joking. The dive that followed was one of our best night dives ever!

Notice something new? Yes, bigger and better photographs! I just love seeing big images and am distressed to find nothing bigger than tantalising thumbnails when I see an image I really like. So from now on I will be trying out a new image size of 900x600. Please let me know what you think and if I should keep with this size or go even bigger! Of course if you really want BIG images we can negotiate an off-site deal!

There will be more Edithburgh images from last weekend along soon. Stay tuned.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath 5DMkII on 'L' plates. (Please ask if you want to know more about how this image was taken.)

Delicate yet tough. Wild flowers grow in impossible conditions, near the abandoned Bollabollana Copper Smelter, Arkaroola-Mt Painter Wilderness Sanctuary, northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia.

The photos at this link are extraordinary, distressing and deeply moving giving an emmotional glimpse into the Sumatra tradgedy .

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/2009_sumatra_earthquakes.html

Yesterday's dive at Port Hughes heralded the beginning of a new world for me with my first foray into underwater DSLR photography. Over the past four years I have been using Olympus compact cameras for all of my underwater photography. For the last two years I have been planning my transition to taking a DSLR camera underwater. Finally all of my research, planning, purchasing, customising and doing came to fruition as I stood looking out over Port Hughes Jetty with new rig in hand.

I was very nervous taking 'so much' camera down with me. I double-checked all the seals. I fitted the camera and snapped shut the housing. I fired a few shots to test the strobes. Something was not right but I could not put my finger on it. Then a few more shots revealed to my annoyance that the lens was switched to manual focus mode. So off came the back, out came the camera and I switched the lens to auto focus mode before reassembling everything.

Note to self 1: check lens auto focus switch.

My walk to the dive site was like carrying my buddy's weight belt. This rig must be five times heavier than my compact! When in the water, however, the beast became gently positively buoyant and I forgot about the weight.

Note to self 2: attach a lanyard so it doesn't float away.

My first 10 minutes in the water were spent in a state of paranoia and fear of a drowned camera. I continually peered into the front of the domed port looking for any hint of leaking seawater. After about 20 minutes I had calmed down enough to actually start using the camera only to discover that when I re-assembled the housing I had misaligned the focus preview lever.

Note to self 3: check the focus preview lever when fitting the housing back cover.

Here are my first impressions.

I found the rig clumsy and awkward. Swimming with it felt like I was dragging around a sea anchor. The strobes poked out at all angles and kept bashing the bottom or the jetty pylons. The quality of my shots was all over the place. The photos ranged from being drastically overexposed to being patchily lit as I struggled with all the controls being fully manual. I was rapidly starting to wonder why I had spent all this money. I realised for the first time how reliant I had become on using automatic aperture priority with TTL. I wondered what I had let myself in for.





But now for the good part! Operation of the controls was an absolute delight. The shutter performance through the housing felt amazing, with a sensitive but positive action. I could fire off shots as quickly as I wanted (strobes permitting) without having to manage the eight seconds per frame I was used to from my Olympus in raw mode. The ultra fast low-light auto focus caught me by surprise again and again as the camera was ready to take the shot before I was! In short, every gripe I had ever had with my previous compact experience was not only put to rest but done so spectacularly.

So, even though I did not get any fantastic images from my first dive, I know this will only be a matter of time, practice, lots of diving and just getting to know my way around all the controls.

Maybe I'll never really tame the beast, but we've got off to an excellent start. I know we'll make a great team.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Photos: Robert Rath, 5DMkII, Port Hughes Jetty

New housing, initial configuration, first dive, first photograph. This image taken from the bottom of the tank looking skyward is quite a fun shot but after a little while it became evident to me that something was not quite right. After 30 minutes of 'snaps' and subsequent review I noted that the edges of my shots were often soft and my close focus capability was not what I expected. It was time to take a crash course in dome optics to try and understand these issues.

My initial configuration of Nexus M6 underwater housing , FP-160 dome with 40mm extension for the Canon EF 17-40mm zoom was set up for me by the guys at Sea Optics here in Adelaide. David and Carey have looked after me well over the last few years, given good advice and been patient with all my questions. This configuration was a first for them so they are just as eager as I am to get this combination right. After dive one it was time to debrief.

Dome ports provide underwater photographers with the ability to use wide angle lenses without field-of-view robbing diffraction and the well understood underwater magnification factor of 1.3x. For a wide angle photograph, you really need to restore the full field of view and this is what dome ports are good for. Unfortunately they are not always easy to get right, especially if you try and use a lens not actually designed for the job.

After a first round of googling, I discovered the existence of three key magic parameters in getting a dome configuration right: 'dome focal point', 'virtual infinity' and 'entry pupil'. The first of these is quite easy to get your head around. The focal point of a spherical dome is at the radius of its curvature. The second, the virtual infinity is some point in front of the dome where everything from you out to infinity has been compressed. The general rule of thumb here is three times the internal dome radius. In other words, if you have a dome with a radius of 8cm, then the entire undersea world will exist as a virtual image somewhere between the surface of the dome and the virtual infinity at 24cm. The last and most mysterious of these magic parameters is the 'entry pupil' of the lens. This is the point through which all rays of light converge within the lens on their way to the CCD, imager or film pane. It is generally the same point where the aperture control of the lens is placed. Now just to really mess with your head, it's not the real location of the aperture but the virtual one, and it moves around as you change zoom, focus and F-stop setting!

A bit of searching will reveal a host of techniques for locating the entry pupil location of a lens. This is a hot topic for photographers who stitch together multiple photographs for panoramic image creation, especially panoramas involving objects at close range. My favourite method involves simply placing your camera on a sheet of blank paper and drawing two parallel vertical lines up the left and right edge of the image as seen through the viewfinder or preview screen. Take away the camera and then extend these two lines to find where they cross. This is the point within the lens where the entry pupil exists. You will need to repeat this for all combinations of zoom length, focus and aperture and then use the average.

Armed with a bit of knowledge I sat down with my gear, rulers, paper and pencil and here's what I found my initial set-up actually looked like geometrically:

Figure 1. Evaluation of Initial Optical Performance



Test Details

Housing Nexus M6
Lens: Canon EF 17-40mm F4.0L
Body: 5DMk2
Port Dome: Nexus FP-160-6/41345
Port Extension: 40mm

Evaluation Range Zoom: 17mm, 26mm & 40mm
Evaluation Range Focus: 0.28cm & Infinity
Evaluation Aperture: F4.0 (chosen for worst case)

Aim: To determine required geometric corrections.

Findings

All test/measurements were done at F4.0 on the assumption that this is the worst possible F-stop to get right. Subsequent measurements show a small movement in 'entry pupil' location as F-stops changed, but insignificant compared to the benefits of smaller apertures.

What I found was that the lens appeared to be located 30mm forward of the optimal location based on dome curvature. In an ideal world I'd just add another 30mm of extension and repeat just to confirm the measurements were correct, but alas, nothing is simple with underwater photography. Moving the dome forward will create significant vignetting of the image as the dome structure obscures some of the light and competes as a virtual aperture. This is because the dome is not a full hemisphere.

I plan to experiment with a combination of diopters and extension lengths to address the following three issues:

a) Correcting the entry pupil location to assist keeping the entire frame sharp.
b) Removing the vignetting associated with moving the dome forward.
c) Bringing the virtual foreground closer to the dome surface for better close focus performance without losing infinity.

My next two tests will be done with:

a) An extra 20mm of extension and a +2 diopter, and
b) An extra 30mm of extension with a +4 diopter.

I will write about my rationale for their selection in a later post along with my results.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

I recently became the proud owner of Nokia's new n97. One of the included trial applications which just blew me away for its 'utility' value is 'JoikuSpot' by Joikusoft.

Please visit my post titled Finding The J-Spot On The Nokia N97 at Innovation Mentor for my thoughts.

...Robert

A couple of weekends ago we were in Edithburgh again joining Paul McDonald for his first PADI DUWP course. It was fun just being involved without leading the course. A chance to just dive and take photos and be with a bunch of people who love diving and cameras. Over the weekend we dived at Edithburgh and Wool Bay. I even had the chance to do my first night dive here in ages even if it was cut a little short as I watched the tide rising inside the lens of my torch. Oh well it had served me well for more than 15 years so time to get a new one anyway.

I am delighted to say that Mr. Ray was here under Edithburgh Jetty again to pose for our cameras. I have seen this ray on many dives here over the last year and I am convinced it is the same ray. So officially or not I am declaring Mr. Ray an Edithburgh local.

I'll be posting a few more images from this weekend over the next few days so keep an eye out for some of the interesting critters we came across.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath C7070 1/125s at f/3.5 ISO200 Inon UWL100-28AD Lens, Strobe + Natural Light

I have just had the pleasure of spending the last two days diving with my new Japanese friends, Yuko, Hiroko and Masashi, who all made a special trip to Adelaide in South Australia to see our wonderful Leafy Seadragons.

Two things that always go through your mind when organising to dive somewhere are that you hope that the weather will be nice, and you hope that you get to see or do what you are planning.

The same goes for those who host such dives. We always want to show off South Australian diving in its best possible light. I had been very stressed in the days leading up to these dives as South Australia had just experienced some of its worst weather in years. Our beautiful waters had turned into silty chaos and the sea was looking decidedly uninviting. As luck would have it, the two days we had planned turned out to be the calm between two storms. We at least got blue sky and gentle seas, but the visibility would be a challenge.

We spent a day at Rapid Bay and a day at Victor Harbor. Although visibility ranged from 1-3 metres both days, that did not stop Yuko and Masashi from going camera crazy and being the cause of future Leafy cataracts with their strobes. I do not envy them the backscatter they will have to peer through when they get home. Hiroko was happy to just look on; I'm sure I heard her squeal with delight on more than one occasion.

Thirteen beautiful Leafy Seadragons and one stunning Weedy Seadragon; result, three ecstatic Japanese guests taking photos and stories home.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving (if that's what you do!) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath C7070 1/90s at f/2.8 ISO200 Inon UWL100-28AD Lens, Natural Light

I took some quite ordinary photos at the beach yesterday and was about to throw them forever into the eternal pit of hard drive wilderness but then decided instead to play around a little first. Inspired by some of the photographic art of Stephen Kiernan, I took a very average JPG photo with blown out exposure and all sorts of other faults. The only thing going for it was that I liked the composition.

I then started plying around disrespectfully with the controls of my photo editing program. Colour saturation was the first casualty, set to maximum. I played around with the gamma on individual colour channels and finally did a little colour replacement. All very uncool things to do to a photograph but the result is quite interesting.



For some really stunning examples of HDR (High Dynamic Range) images, visit Stephen's Flickr Stream and let me know what you think.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep doing stuff ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Just in case any of you wondered, yes I do take photographs on dry land from time to time.

I had just finished a tutorial in lighting and was eager to try out some new ideas. Looking around the room I spied a beautiful vase of lilies Jennifer had bought to brighten up the house. A likely candidate I thought and started playing with various combinations of natural light, strobe light and composistion.

This final image was made using mostly strobe light bounced off the ceiling with only a small amount of natural daylight coming in through the windows. The dark background is from the dining room table.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep taking fantastic photos ( if that's what you're into! ) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath 40D 1/15s at f/6.3 ISO500, Zoom 73mm, Strobe + Natural Light

Well the new Rapid Bay Jetty has been open now for a few weeks and I can honestly say it is worth the wait and worth the cost.

I have been diving Rapid Bay Jetty for more years than I care to remember. I remember the long walk to the old T-section and the original diver's platform. Back then you would cart your day's diving gear out in the morning, set up camp and dive and enjoy surface intervals right there where you jumped in the water. All that came to an end with the closure of the old jetty some years back.

For many years now diving the jetty has meant an ankle twisting rocky shore entry and exit and a very long swim out and back leaving little strength or enthusiasm for multiple dives. That has all changed now with the opening of the new jetty along side the old one.

The new jetty runs parallel to the old one and for about half the original jetty's length providing a nice easy walk from the car park to the new divers platform. The divers platform has been staged so that there is 'walk in' access over quite a range of tide heights. On a really low tide you might need to use the ladder on the bottom platform. All this beats scrambling over an unstable rocky beach by far.

Rapid Bay Jetty is a wonderful dive and a photographer's dream when the visibility is good. It is famous as a haunt for Leafy Seadragons and attracts visitors from all over the world who come to see these fantastic creatures. With the new jetty they can now dive in safety and comfort.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath C7070 1/125s at f/2.8 ISO100, Inon D2000 Strobe + Natural Light, Jetty - Courtesy ten.com.au

All my friends know I love gadgets and so it will come as no surprise that Jennifer gave me a very, very cool gadget for my birthday called a 'Chumby'.

What is a Chumby? Well it kind of looks like a little bean bag with a LCD screen. The real question is what can you do with a Chumby or more importanly what can a Chumby do for you?

Wired magazine dubbed chumby one of the cool gadgets of 2008, praising it for bringing "the friendlier face of the Internet into our homes...it did it while disguised as a teddy bear for the 21st century".

The first thing my Chumby did on being brought to life was to show the time in San Diego and stream snippets of late night American chat shows. Impressive but not useful. However after a short time my Chumby, renamed Scuby, was showing my Facebook updates and streaming my favourite podcast at Killer Innovations.

So a Chumby is a WiFi multi-media marvel in a bean bag. It will sit on your desk, the mantelpiece or by the side of your bed and do what ever you want it to do. Just install the widgets you like or roll your own as it is fully 'open source'.

Until the next post, take care out there and keep playing with gadgets ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

The Weedy Seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus , is also one of our two famous and unique Southern Australian seadragons.

There is much debate in our diving community here in Adelaide if the Weedy Seadragon is more common than the Leafy Seadragon. I guess that depends on where you dive. In my experience with shore based shallow diving here in South Australia I would say that the Leafy Seadragon is more common and the Weedy Seadragon is less common. On deeper off-shore reefs I have only ever found Weedy Seadragons. Even so, I have dived other parts of Australia where I have seen plenty of Weedy Seadragons in shallow shore based diving. In any case these dragons are hard to see even when right in front of you due to their magnificent camouflage.

This photo was taken at Victor Harbor a couple of weekends ago. It was a juvenile, around 10cm in length and was spotted by my dive buddy. Note that this little dragon is all covered in white silt! Many thanks to my buddy who left both of us in a cloud of muck and silt has he raced off after a cowfish swimming past. Note to non-photographer dive buddies; be aware of your fins and fragile bottoms!!

Until the next post, take care out there and keep diving ( if that's what you do! ) ...Robert

Photo: Robert Rath C7070 1/90s at f/8.0 ISO100, Inon UCL165AD Macro Lens, Inon D2000 Strobe + Natural Light