Robert's Ramblings

Over the last few weeks I have been following the progress of a brooding Tasseled Anglerfish (Rhycherus filamentosus) with a clutch of eggs. During this time I became concerned that they did not look healthy and now I am pretty sure none will be viable.

During my dives however I was fortunate to find another brooding parent and these eggs looked great with large healthy yolks.

This image show the progress of the new clutch and the embryonic anglerfish with clearly defined eyes, body and fins. About a week to go I'd say!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 653, Babies, Babies, Babies', 1/50s f/11 ISO320 100mm

This image is unashamedly something akin to a scene from 'the animated 'Hunchback of Notre Dame'.

The Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity is a long way from Paris and maybe some might call the HDR rendering a blasphemy but I really wanted to try something different. With its almost animated look it feels much more 'European' than 'South Australian'. I intentionally kept the colours muted with attention to the blues, greys and the soft texture in the sky.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 652, Nativity Bell Tower', 5s f/7.1 ISO800 115mm

The historic Port Adelaide Lighthouse has an amazing history,

Prefabricated in England, installed in 1869 at the entrance to the Port River. Moved several times and served until 1985 on South Neptune Island overlooking the seals and the great whites.

In 1986 the Lighthouse was moved to its current location here as a tourist icon and is now lit at night with gaudy colored lighting. This image was captured in saturated red and blue lighting but I felt that black and white was needed to properly respect its heritage.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 651, The Lighthouse', 4s f/7.1 ISO1000 15mm

There is something in the water down there at Rapid Bay. Everything seems to be pregnant!

Well this Leafy Seadragon is not exactly pregnant. In fact it's not even a girl but a male expressing its fatherly love.

The male Leafy Seadragon takes care of the eggs immediately after they are fertilized for the entire term until hatching. In fact, once the female lays her eggs she plays no further part in child rearing and is free to go off and do what female seadragons do.

By the look of his eggs and how clean they are I'd say these were freshly hatched. Very soon they will be covered in a green algae so they become less conspicuous. I am looking forward to watching their progress.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 650, Fatherly Love', 1/50s f/10 ISO320 40mm +2

Rapid Bay is finally starting to clear up again after a few weeks of northerly swell turning the water into milky white.

This dive was very late in the day and as much as I would have not thought there was an undersea equivalent to 'the golden hour'. Well now I know there is! The soft subdued light still had the quality of a sunlit day with all its specular highlights from the surface and below but the water itself did light up with the diffuse scattering normally associated with turbid water. Note to self, 'dive this time of day more often'.

A young spider crab checks me out as I swim past and I can almost guess what he is thinking.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 649, My Turf', 1/50s f/8 ISO320 40mm +2

At first it was the reflections in the window that caught my eye; the cafe across the street, the roadside bench, the exit sign.

Then I noticed the textures in the window itself; the misaligned frame, the scratches in the wood, the distorted panes of translucent glass, the dribbled stain of grime.

No longer was 'Exit' my subject.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 648, No Exit', 1/5s f/16 ISO400 200mm

This is my favorite time of the day when the colours in the western sky take on the most gorgeous and saturated hues of red, orange, blue, green and purple. In fact it is one huge rainbow wall.

What a perfect back-light for a twilight silhouette.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 647, Twilight Silhouette', 1/160s f/2.8 ISO800 145mm

I can easily imagine this place in a rural town with adjacent cemetery.

In reality it is on a very busy main road in Port Adelaide.

I am not really a big fan of this style but once I saw the grungy drama I got a little carried away. After that it became an exercise in restoring overall tonal sensibility and having some fun.

There's nothing sacred at all about what I have done with this image.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 646, Sacred Abode', 1.3s f/11 ISO100 15mm

Is it possible to make blur look interesting?

For various technical reasons a panning shot of passing cars with an FE lens was never going to produce the classic 'speed' look. For starters the radically changing geometry of the subjects through the panning sweep as absurd. Still it was worth some experimentation to see what could be done.

Even though nothing is actually sharp in this shot I like it. It feels strong as a composition. Hmm, now if only I'd started the pan a fraction of a second sooner!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 645, Cruising in Colour', 1/13s f/11 ISO100 15mm

This guy was sitting perched atop a structure of sponge and ascidian encrusted twisted jetty wreckage.

Like many of our wrasses the brownspotted wrasse (Notolabrus parilus) behaves around divers with a mix of curiosity and timidity. Not one to anthropomorphise our local critters I still can not help see the resemblance to human traits.

Anther bad visibility day at Rapid Bay Jetty and having a 100mm macro lens fitted made this image look all washed out. The monochrome rendering really brought it back to life.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 644, Brownspotted Wrasse', 1/160s f/10 ISO320 100mm

What's the most intimidating badass camera you have ever seen?

The bane of every suburban motorist is the speed camera lurking in out of the way 50km/h limit backstreets. Oddly enough most mobile phones these days have higher resolution cameras than these brutes. It's only 11 megapixels but seems to do the job well. I also got a good look inside and the optics sitting in front of its sensor would make most DSLR enthusiasts happy even it the resolution did not.

No speeding fines ensued this time around but I'll be keeping a watchful eye out around those backstreets in future.

Disclaimer: Yes I have edited the number plate to protect the innocent!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 643, BadAss Camera', 1/2s f/11 ISO100 15mm

When the doors are closed, locked, uninviting there is not need for a 'sorry we are closed' sign.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 642, Closed For Business', 1/250s f/6.3 ISO400 15mm

Am so used to seeing the moon set upon the ocean. Tonight's setting moon was an unexpected delight.

Almost all the light coming from this new waxing moon is coming from light reflected back from our Earth. Although a common sight it is one I never seem to capture.

The only part of the moon lit by sunlight is that thin crescent gently kissing the trees.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 641, Waxing The Treeline', 0.8s f/4.0 ISO2500 170mm

The second time this year a sea mist has made the beach a mystical place to be.

Shooting directly into the sun it was impossible not to blow out the middle of the image but it was worth it to capture the tones in the sand and weed.

Just another day on the beach.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 640, Mistycle', 1/800s f/11 ISO320 15mm

Gently pressing down on delicate skin this gift seemed far weightier that I would have imagined.

Metal and stone, made with artistry, given with love and worn with pride. I would have thought it would lay there on an unblemished surface. Instead I see the burden.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 639, The Gift', 1/200s f/11 ISO100 100mm 2x Off Camera Strobes

It came in from the cold, circled a few times and then the moth landed on a soup ladle. Fortunately I noticed before he became part of the evening meal.

I normally escort uninvited guests from the house but this guy got to have his photo taken first before being sent back out into the cold again.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 638, The Moth Has landed' 0.5s f/14 ISO100 100mm

How can something be so beautiful and so ugly at the same time?

Easy if you are broody Tasseled Anglerfish (Rhycherus filamentosus) and she (or is that he?) is being very motherly about that brood of babies being guarded.

Many northern hemisphere anglerfish could not care less about their eggs letting them float away in the ocean currents enshrouded in a gelatinous raft. For this reason their habitat and distribution cover vast areas.

Our Tasseled Anglerfish on the other hand guards its young until they hatch when they will simply sink to the bottom (according to Rudi Kuter) and make their home in the nooks and crevices of the local habitat. For this reason the Tasseled Anglerfish is unique to the Southern Australian coastline.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 637, Motherly Love' 1/160s f/16 ISO640 100mm

'Obelisk' A tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument with a pyramid-like top.

This monument stands in memory of Norwood Primary School graduates who died in the first world war. It was a powerful symbol even before I read its plaque.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 636, Obelisk' 1/10s f/5.6 ISO4000 40mm

Snakeskin or crocodileskin or starfishskin?

It might look similar but that is where the similarity ends. The 'last' of a starfish is made of this amazing substance which can change from being as hard as bone to as subtle as leather.
This starfish is a biscuit star, so named as their arms are so squat and close to the body you'd think it was all one structure.

Notice the strange plate with the little striations? Its the only plate like it on the the entire body of the starfish and it is the other of only two openings, the other being its mouth. This 'grate' allow the starfish to pass water and extract oxygen it without it it would drown.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 635, Starfishskin' 1/160s f/10 ISO320 100mm

Whenever I see these on jetty pylons or on reef I think of flowers and bluebells.

In reality these little critters are ascidians or seasquirts and anything but bluebells. These are Blue Throat Ascidians (Clavelina australis) and live in compound clusters. Most interesting is they are chordates, the same phylum as us! Even though they don't really have a backbone and ribs, though it looks like it through their transparent bodies, they do have a long nerve running the length of their body in the same way our spinal column does.

This image was captured at Rapid Bay, South Australia, where they were attached to a metal stake driven into the sea floor.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 634, Blue Throat Ascidians' 1/160s f/10 ISO320 100mm

I have never really thought about how the direction of long exposure cloud streaking can relate so strongly to the subject.

It's not quite there in this image where I would have liked the movement to be perfectly aligned with the jetty itself. It is close though and perhaps now that I am aware of it I will pay more attention to it's role in future long time exposure images.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 633, Jetty Perspective' 30s f/14 ISO640 15mm

On my last dive at Rapid Bay a few days ago I discovered a brooding Tasseled Anglerfish (Rhycherus filamentosus) with a clutch of eggs.

Now a few days later I decided to see how they were going. I am not sure I can make out much of a difference just yet so perhaps I will space out the visits a little more from next time.

The Tasseled Anglerfish is very protective of its eggs and guards them well. In this image they have not been abandoned, you can just see the parent's dorsal fin running along the bottom edge of the frame.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 632, Frogfish Caviar' 1/160s f/16 ISO640 100mm

It's like a scene from some futuristic laser skirmish with the Adelaide CBD under siege!

But under siege from what? It's zoomed in evil twin of course! The real story is that this is nothing more sinister than a quick twist of the zoom during a the image exposure.

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Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 631, Adelaide Under Siege' 4s f/5.0 ISO640 100mm

Of all our amazing local critters, this Tasselled Anglerfish, Rhycherus filamentosus, at Rapid Bay would be one of the most difficult to spot.

Plenty of patience (which means plenty of air) is part of finding these in the algae and sponges. The other part is a willingness to see past the obvious. The technique I have found most useful is to look around for a likely habitat and then carefully work my way over every bit of rock, weed, sponge and algae and at each interesting feature try and imagine I am looking at an anglerfish. It's a little bit like staring at the patterns in the clouds trying to find an elephant or a giraffe. With a little patience and of course with a little luck, one might just magically appear before your eyes.

Tasselled Anglerfish are not great swimmers and prefer to sit lying in ambush for a test morsel to swim past. The yellow worm crawling amongst the tassels is the angler's lure. When it attracts a passing fish to investigate just a little too closely that partially open moth snaps up dinner in the blink of an eye.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 630, Tasselled Anglerfish' 1/160s f/10 ISO320 100mm

Perhaps bokeh is a little overdone in abstract photography but for some reason I am always drawn to it in other people's images.

Bokeh is the shape and quality of they way a captured image blurs when a lens moves away from focus. The characteristics of what makes bokeh pleasant or ugly are driven by the makeup of the lens, the shape of the aperture and the composition of the image. As far as I know we never perceive bokeh with our own eyes. Perhaps it is there in our vision but our brains have become so programmed at removing it that it is all but impossible to see.

What ever kind of bokeh a lens creates what fascinates me is the magic of rendering the invisible into the perceivable. After that the shape, the quality and the composition can make bokeh simply beautiful.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 629, Simply Beautiful Bokeh' 4s f/8.0 ISO640 200mm

This was one big mean spider crab with attitude!

At about 60cm across this guy put himself right in the middle of my return path to the exit . I went forward, he bared his mandibles at me. I went left, he went left. I went right, he went right. I went back, he chased. I went up, ha ha, spider crabs can't swim!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 628, Who You Staring At?' 1/160s f/10 ISO320 100mm

What better place to capture the new Henley Beach Surf Lifesaving Club than from the surf?

Well it would be if the tide was not all the way out!! A wonderful combination of a still evening, a very low tide and and a huge bright moon. Night time beach photography does not get much better than this!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 627, The New Henley Surf Club' 30s f/7.1 ISO100 15mm

There are two things I really like about opening a bottle of champagne, the pop and the vapor.

For one reason or another I have not been about to capture that initial release of vapor in the way I envision. Here is a view looking directly into the bottle just after that initial release with the neck still full of vapour. I wonder if there is a genie hiding in there!


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 626, Looking For The Genie' 0.4s f/11 ISO320 100mm

This impressive mountain range is not all that it seems.

In truth it is just a small crystal of gypsum catching the afternoon sun on the kitchen window sill.

Aside from various glass household objects to craft the light the way I wanted no other tricks were involved. It's just a matter of perspective.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 625, Crystal Ridge' 1/100s f/22 ISO320 100mm

I have captured a few images like this one with seaweed washed up on the beach.

The challenge in an image like this is depth of field. It is not easy to have both that jetty shelter in focus as well as the bedraggled clump of tangled weed in the foreground.
Even though choosing the smallest aperture available on the lens will maximise depth of field, it will also make the image soft with diffraction.

The secret is in understanding something called the hyper-focal distance which is simply the distance at which everything from that distance to infinity will be in focus at a given aperture. There are plenty of tools for calculating the maximum aperture for a given distance but in practice I never use them. Almost always I use the depth of field preview (DOFP).

First begin at an ideal aperture like f/8.0. Using the camera's live preview at maximum magnification and with DOFP enabled, manually focus on the foreground and then move the panning cursor to a point on the background and assess how much the background is out of focus. Repeat this in the opposite direction, ie focus on the background and assess the foreground. If neither is good enough then stop down, ie to f/11 and repeat. Continue this process until you eventually get to a point where you are happy with focus in both the foreground and the background and then set the actual manual focus mid way.

All of this all assumes you have the time to manually setup the camera which fortunately is usually the case for landscapes.


Photo: Robert Rath, ‘Day 624, Bedraggled' 1/6s f/18 ISO640 15mm