After loading the plug-in and starting Adobe Photoshop CS6, I opened my first image – a West Indian manatee:

I like the photo but it is far from artsy. I open up the Redfield Fractalius plug-in:

Where the arrow is at the bottom right hand side of the screen is a drop down box that has a number of choices. I have tried each and found that some look much better on some photos than they do on others.

There are also many sliders in the dialog box that allow you to make additional changes to the image. For the examples that I will show in this post, I have used the standard settings for all images.

This is not a tutorial on how to use the plug-in as much as it is one to show you the plug-in and the results available using it.

So here is the manatee photos with the Glow100 setting:

Now that is a much better artsy photo. I really like the way that it came out. Below you will find more examples with different settings.

I think that they all came out pretty well. I did use the “Shaggy” setting twice but it seemed to fit the photos the best for me. This is the closest that I am going to get to artsy so I am happy to have the Redfield Fractalius filter. I think that you will like it if you give it a try.

© 2013, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

On May 4th, the New Jersey Historical Divers Association will host their Shipwrecks and Sunken Treasure Symposium at the InfoAge Science/History Learning Center at 2201 Marconi Road in Wall, New Jersey. I will be doing a presentation along with Dan Lieb, Gary Gentile, David G. Concannon and Ken Hayes. The proceeds from the symposium will benefit the New Jersey Historical Divers Association.

I am presenting a program called “New Jersey Marine Life.” I know that a lot of you have seen my presentation “Beneath The Garden State – Exploring Aquatic New Jersey.” The presentation that I am giving is brand new. It may cover some of the subjects that my book presentation covers but all the photos will be new. I think there are only two photos in the presentation that are in both.

There are a few ways that I tried to make this presentation different. I am showing beautiful marine life photos (like I always try to do) but I also am trying to teach people about the marine life that I encounter and photograph. I am taking this further and talking about some of my experiences (good and bad) over the last thirty-one plus years.

An example is this “free swimming” baby crab. It is only about 1/2” long. I shot it in the water column.

This blue shark is nowhere near as beautiful as the one that I will show you. I will also talk about a near death experience on a dive many years ago and how we all will learn how we will react when we are stressed to the max.

All of you who have been diving as long as I have have stories to tell. Some are good and some are bad. I think that they all benefit newer divers. None of us know how we will react in a stressful situation until we are in it but knowing how another diver reacted might help turn the tables in a favorable direction.

Why is this photo important. What kind of story can I tell with this photo? I guess that you will need to show up to find out.

If you are a New Jersey diver or wish to be one, you should attend this symposium. We all need to support the groups that highlight New Jersey Diving and help make it the great sport that it is. Dan Lieb and the New Jersey Historical Divers Association (NJHDA) work hard to promote diving in the Garden State and we need to support Dan and the NJHDA.  A flyer for the symposium is below:

If you want to download a PDF of the file, click here.

I thought that I would end this blog with another photo.

Ocean sunfish (Mola mola) are one of the most amazing animals that you can see and swim with off the New Jersey coast.

The grow up to be huge. They can be ten feet tall from the bottom of the their bottom fin to the top of their top fin and reach a weight of 2000 pounds.

They feed on jellyfish so they are not a danger to people. When we find a mellow sunfish, we get into the water and snorkel with it. If it is really mellow, you can rub the side of the animal as it swims along.

My wife and son have done that and you will see a photo of that in the show.

Please join me and the other great presenters on May 4th for a great afternoon of amazing and interesting photos and information. Dan Lieb is running a morning workshop about Mapping Shipwrecks and Gary Gentile has a workshop on The Mechanics of Shipwreck Photography. Both are must attend workshops.

© 2013, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

While scanning and correcting my 35mm slide library, I come across images that vividly remind me of certain situations. A group of photos reminded me of a dive when I really wished I had a wide angle lens or at least that was my thought at the time. I was diving in the northern Bahamas with my great friends, Robin and Warren Reed. Warren was our guide and pathfinder. I am pretty poor at underwater navigation and Robin isn’t much better. Warren always finds his way home (well almost always) but the times that he does not, I could count on one hand. I think that Robin and I both had a Sigma 28-80mm macro lens on my housed film camera.

We were wandering around across a flat plain that was devoid of wide angle subjects. There weren’t many large sea fans, sponges, gorgonians or anything else that would fill the lens. Initially, I felt that I had picked the correct lens and looked close to find suitable subjects. About half way through the dive, Warren started pointing excitedly. I turned my head to see what he saw and found myself staring at a huge loggerhead turtle, Caretta caretta, slowly meandering along. I looked at my camera and lens combo and felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t have very many photos of a loggerhead turtle swimming in the open ocean. Most that I have seen in the northern Bahamas were on a little wreck named the Hesperus in about fifteen feet of water on the Gingerbread Grounds near Bimini. The turtles came to this spot in the evening to sleep so although I have quite a few loggerhead photos from the Hesperus, most were of turtles on the bottom.

This may have been the first turtle that we saw on the trip and I really wanted to increase my library of loggerhead turtle photos. I knew that I would not be successful on this dive. Rather than give up, I swam towards the turtle and tried to figure out what I could do with the lens that I had. It was swimming slow enough that I could easily stay with it. Then it occurred to me to shot the head of the turtle as it swam along – kind of like taking headshots of a person. Why waste the opportunity completely?

As I swam parallel with the loggerhead and looked through the viewfinder of my camera, I was pleasantly surprised. The loggerhead was not alone. He had a juvenile pilot fish swimming with him. I never would have seen it if I was shooting with a wider angle lens.

I shot at least a dozen photos of the head of the loggerhead turtle and in everyone but one, the pilot fish was in view.

While I shot photos of the turtle and his little friend, Robin was shooting the same type of shot on the other side of the turtle. Unfortunately, she never got to see the pilot fish and the opportunity was over so fast that there was no time to tell her what I saw. In the end, we were both pleased with our results.

So what is the point of this story? Even without a wide angle lens on my camera, many divers (myself included) often take a wide angle view of the underwater world and we miss so much. We also miss opportunities like this one when we get bummed out for not having the right equipment. In reality, the equipment that we have with us on any dive is the right equipment. We just have to figure out how to make it work in our situation.

Sometimes, it means looking at different lenses to be ready for the unknown. My standard lens while diving in New Jersey right now is a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens. That seems like an odd lens to take diving where visibility isn’t always ideal for wide angle photography.

One of the advantages of the Tokina lens is that it will focus just about to the surface of the camera housing dome port.

I use a 100mm (4”) Zen port for this lens which makes it easier to light subjects when they are very close to the dome port. The disadvantage of this port is it is not very useful for over/under in/out of the water) shots. Since I don’t shoot over/under shots in New Jersey, it is not a concern.

To give you an example of how this works to my advantage in New Jersey. If the visibility is good, I shoot the lens as a wide angle lens as in the shot above. The photograph of the artificial reef Dykes (Steel Schooner) on the Sea Girt Artificial Reef was taken at 10mm.

If visibility is not so good, I can move the lens very close to the subject and use the 17mm end for the shot. This common sea robin was shot on the same dive as the wide angle photo above. This photo was shot at 17mm with the lens less than six inches from the fish. I could have gotten closer to fill the frame even more with the fish. I have been to the Caribbean since I purchased this lens and also use it as an all around lens in clear, tropical waters.

The bottom line is that we must make the best of our current situation. Many of the subjects that we are exposed to may present themselves to us only once and if we miss the opportunity, it is gone forever. So when you are in my “wrong lens” predicament, try thinking outside the box and find a way to turn the “wrong lens” frown upside down.

© 2013, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

First, I want to talk about my car. I have a 2005 Toyota Land Cruiser with 236,000 miles on it. It looks almost like new and runs almost like new. I know other people that have high mileage on their vehicles and they are still running strong. That is a testament to auto manufacturers. That’s really what we, as consumers, want.

My question is: Why can’t the same thing hold true for appliances? Ronnie and I did an addition on our house five years ago and we put in all new appliances. I was a little ticked when I had to replace my microwave last year when it was just four years old. I could never remember appliances going that quickly when I was younger. Okay, it was only a microwave oven. I bit the bullet and replaced it and it is humming along just fine.

2012 was a pretty bad year for me. I had some health issues (which since have resolved) and superstorm Sandy put three feet of water on my entire business property. I lost all my trucks, equipment and supplies. But when I looked around, I realized that I didn’t have it as bad as many others in my area. Again, I bit the bullet and am trying to restart the business on a smaller scale which actually fits my business model better right now. Ronnie has been up and down health wise and she seems to have turned the corner on that. I am hoping that she stays that way.

As 2012 winded down, I was hoping that all the bad stuff was gone and that 2013 would bring much better times. On the 27th of December, we lost power for a few hours. When it came back on, one of the power supplies on one of my computers would not work. I replaced it and everything seemed fine.

Sometime during the day, I opened the freezer and noticed water dripping from the ice maker. That didn’t seem right so I explored some more and found the meats in the freezer starting to thaw. I wasn’t sure what happened but I thought that maybe I had left the freezer door open and that was the cause of the thaw. I was to find out that I was wrong. Something had gone wrong with the refrigerator. I did some googling and found lots of reasons – but none that I could fix myself. The next morning, I called a repair company and was told that the soonest that they could come was on the 31st.

We started scrambling and moving things that we could save. We have a refrigerator in our basement that is at least 35 years old and it runs like brand new. We moved a lot of the things from the freezer and the refrigerator to the unit in the basement. We have a cooler that plugs into a wall outlet so we put refrigerator items that we would use most in there.

We improvised until the morning of the 31st when the repairman arrived. He was disappointed that we had unplugged the refrigerator days earlier because he said it would be harder to diagnose the problem because he couldn’t see symptoms that would be evident with a running machine (list frost on the interior walls or hot spots between the refrigerator and the freezer. He started his diagnostic process and after ten or fifteen minutes, he gave us the bad news. It looked like the compressor was bad and that meant a new refrigerator. This side-by-side until was only five years old and I was really disappointed. Why is my 35 year old unit running so well and this one wasn’t’. I asked the repairman if he could recommend what we should purchase. He immediately said, “No, I don’t like any of the brands.” He did say that our brand (GE) is one that he fixes frequently. He was carrying four motherboards in his truck for that brand. He also told us that Samsung and LG were brands that were hard to get serviced. I pushed him as hard as I could and he finally said that Whirlpool or Frigidaire would probably do well.

I thanked him, paid for the service call. Ronnie and I left on our quest for a new refrigerator. We settled on a Whirlpool side-by-side. We purchased it on New Year’s Eve and Lowe’s delivered it on New Years Day. We will keep our fingers crossed and hope that this one lasts much longer.

So why do appliances last much less time now that they used to? Someone asked me if I thought the manufacturer’s built in obsolescence into the appliances. When I sat down and thought about it, I realized “Why would they want them to last forever?” No one would ever need to buy new appliances. Even with cars lasting much longer, people change cars much more frequently than they do appliances.

What do you think? Is there any reason that modern technology has left the appliance industry in the dust? There are so many more bells and whistles on appliances so why don’t they last as long as my 35+ year refrigerator in the basement?

© 2013, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

As this year comes to an end, my wife, Veronica and I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Holidays. We hope that 2013 will be your best year ever.

© 2012, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

I have also tried very hard to learn about my subjects so that when I am searching for suitable subjects underwater I can find images that the normal photographer might miss. One that had eluded me for a long time (and it is my own fault) was the eggs on the underside of a female lobster’s tail. When a diver catches a lobster, they must first look at the underside of the lobster. If it is a female with eggs, it must be released. The reasons for this are obvious. I am not sure why I never thought to photograph the eggs but I didn’t. I think that it is really cool that they look like green peas.

After checking to see if it is a female with eggs, a diver must measure the size of the lobster to ensure that it is big enough and also to measure that it is not too big.

The last measurement is the newest requirement and it was put in place to make sure that the cream of the breeding stock remain. In 2012, the minimum size is 3-3/8” from the back of the eye socket to the beginning of the tail and the maximum is 5-1/4” from the back of the eye socket to the start of the tail. All of these requirements are great and they help to ensure that the lobster population remains strong.

I went to visit my doctor. Actually, Ronnie, my wife, had the appointment and I came along for the ride. The first thing that I want to say is that we both LOVE this guy. He is everything that we think that a doctor should be. He takes his time to make sure that he hears everything that you have to say and explains everything that you need to hear. To show that he does not pay me for this endorsement, he is quick to tell me when I am not doing what I should not be doing. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he loves to fish and he loves the ocean so that we have a great deal in common to start with. He also has a great family (whom I have never met but have heard about). I want this next tidbit of information to go out to Owen, Seamus and Maggie – his children. I understand that they love the ocean and its inhabitants.  I told my doctor today to tell them about what I had learned but I wanted them to know that I was thinking about them. I am not going to tell you my doctor’s name because you will all want him to be your doctor and I don’t share well (LOL).

I started this blog off about North American lobsters for a reason. Scientists have not been sure exactly how old lobsters get but they think that they get pretty old. A scientist has come up with a way of measuring a lobster’s age and it is similar to the way that they tell the age of trees.

There are two ways that they believe they can accurately predict the age of a lobster. One is by counting the rings in the lobster’s eye stalk which protrudes from the lobster’s body and holds the lobster’s eye. You can see the stalk in the picture to the left below the lobster’s eye. In order to count the rings, they have to dissect the eye stalk and look at it under a microscope. This means that the lobster will not be alive when it is done.

They can also count rings on a cross section of  the lobster’s “gastric mill” which is  part of the stomach with three teeth-like structures used to grind up food.

The second method can also be used to determine the age in crabs.

Until now, scientists estimated age based on size and a few other variables. In reality, it was an educated guess. This way will be much more precise.

My question is “how long have lobsters been around and why has it taken so long to figure out how to tell how old they are?’” I think that one of the reasons is that the sea is not quick to let go of her mysteries and that is okay with me.

While I am talking about lobsters, let me through in another interesting fact. If something or someone has hold of a lobster’s claw and it feels threatened, it can release the claw from its socket so that it can get away. Within a few molts, the claw will regrow and continue to grow to reach its former size.

It seems that I learn something new about the ocean inhabitants every day and I am amazed by it.

© 2012, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

I suppose that I would now answer that question with “Maybe!” Now that  is an ambiguous answer if I ever gave one. I think that if I was looking to get into underwater photography and owned a Nikon D300 like I do now, I am not sure that housing it would be my choice. Here are some things to think about when you are considering an underwater camera system:

• Where will I use it? At home or when traveling.
• If I use it at home, how often will I use it?
• If I use it while traveling, how often will I travel?
• If I travel, will the size of the system restrict my baggage requirements?
• Will my photographs be used commercially or just for pleasure?
• Will I print my photos or just show them on the web, computer and tv?
• What is my budget?

Let’s look at the reasoning behind some of these questions:

Scenario 1-House an Existing Camera:I have a Nikon D300 and want to house it for underwater use. The least expensive alternative is to purchase an Ikelite housing. Least expensive does not mean a terrible product. Ikelite makes a great housing that will suit the needs (and pockets) of many. This will set me back around $1400-$1500 USD. I will need ports for at least two different lenses like the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom and the Nikon 60mm macro lens. If I don’t own either lens, I will need to purchase the lenses and associated ports.

That will set me back another $2000. I will need at least one underwater strobe. If I stay with Ikelite, I will buy an Ikelite DS-160 or DS-161 (if I want to do video later). The strobe with synch cord will be another $1150. My investment is now up to $4650.00 without the cost of the camera body. If I add a second strobe, my investment is $5800. If my budget can stand it and I am going to do most of my shooting close to home, this is a good choice. Suppose that I will travel to do my shooting rather than doing it close to home. How will the bulk of my system affect my baggage allowances. These are becoming more-and-more of a major concern. If I am traveling with a family, the bulk makes the baggage situation even more annoying.

Scenario 2-Travel Only: I am only going to photograph when I travel and my travel will be limited to one trip a year. Should I house my digital SLR? This one could go either way. I suppose the answer would depend on budget considerations. As an alternative to housing a digital SLR, how about buying a point-and-shoot camera with a housing and a small strobe. I have seen some amazing results with this type of system. Since I have very little experience in this venue, I decided to use the experience of my good friend, Chris Bain of Somerset, New Jersey. Chris has a very good eye when it comes to composing images and his first system was a point-and-shoot system. Here are his comments on his first system:

3.2 mega pixel Olympus Stylus 300 in an Olympus housing with wet mount Inon wide angle and macro lens attachments. The “package” is compact so I selected an Inon D-2000 strobe because it is also compact and received good reviews.

The good:  Compact, thus good for travel.  The camera has taken photos good enough to win competitions over SLRs. Inexpensive.

The challenges:  Slow to power up and significant shutter delay.  Fish movements needed to be anticipated to capture the image.  This was especially difficult for fish with fast, sudden movement such as Sergeant Majors.

Here are some examples of photos from this system:

This system was inexpensive (as underwater camera systems go) and was a great starter system for Chris but he found that he wanted more. Chris photographs in the waters off New Jersey, Florida, in the Great Lakes and on dive vacations to various locations around the world so he needed a system that was easy to travel with.

He decided that he did not want the bulk of a housed digital SLR so he looked in a different direction. I think that it is a direction that many traveling underwater photographers should consider. It will not be right for everyone but I think that it will be right for many. Here are Chris’s thoughts about his new system:

Olympus PEN E-PL3 in a Nauticam housing. Added a second Inon D-2000 strobe.

The good:  Larger than a point and shoot but smaller than an SLR thus still compact and good for travel.  Compact interchangeable lenses.  I consider them to be smaller than the competition.  Good choice of lenses.  I really like the 9-18mm zoom (which is equivalent to a 18-36mm zoom for a 35mm camera).  It’s fast to power up and shutter lag is small.  The ergonomics of the housing are great plus the housing is reasonably compact.

The challenges:  I haven’t found any significant issues so far.  The camera itself is not too expensive.  However, the price mounts when a wide angle lens, housing, and port are added.  The acrylic dome port is easy to scratch though there are products available to polish out the scratches.

Let’s look at an example of costs. The Olympus PEN E-PL3 camera is around $600 USD. The Nauticam housing adds $1650 without ports. The 9-18 zoom lens is $645 and the Nauticam port for this lens is $499.00 and two Inon D-2000 strobes are $689 each. This totals out at $4772. This is a lot of money but when you compare it to housing a digital SLR and adding two strobes in my example at the start of this blog is $5800 without the camera body.

Here is a photo taken by Chris with his new system:

The next photo was taken in the St. Lawrence River of the stern of the S.S. Keystorm at a depth of 115’ with no flash.

If I were to look at a new system right now, I might consider the Olympus OM-D EM5. It is one of Olympus’ newest offerings. It is about the same size as Chris’ system but I personally like it over the PEN E-PL3. Cost wise, it will be a little more expensive than the PL3. I would venture to guess that either of these systems are half the size of my Nikon D300 camera in a Subal housing.

Rather than go into detail about the OM-D EM5, follow this link to a great review by Alex Mustard, one of the world’s leading underwater photographers. His review uses the Olympus housing and shows some comparisons in camera size between the EM5 and a digital SLR. Personally, I would purchase the system with the Nauticam housing as all reviews that I have read about it shows it to outshine the Olympus housing with very little difference in cost.

I truly believe that the old school thinking of housing what you own is not necessarily true for the exciting world of digital photography. You really need to assess your needs to decide the correct path for your underwater photography equipment.

I would like to thank Chris Bain for his thoughts and images.

© 2012, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

I was really impressed with the small size of the camera and the quality of it’s video. After I received it, I started my research about the GoPro Hero2. The first glitch that came up is that the housing that comes with the camera is terrible underwater. I was flabbergasted. Why make a housing if it doesn’t work well underwater? It turns out that the housing has a domed port to match the curve of the video camera lens. In theory that should work but it doesn’t. To make the camera shine underwater, a flat port is necessary. Until recently, choices included buying a separate housing from Backscatter, BlurFix, EyeofMine, or a lens replacement from Mako. The prices of the housing vary from $49.00 to more than $139.00. The lens replacement from Mako is $21.00 and is a do-it-yourself project.

Recently, GoPro has added their own housing with a flat port. I sure would have liked to see it as part of the housing package but so far, it is not. Their housing with flat port costs $49.00.

I decided to purchase a new housing from Backscatter. One of the reasons was the introduction of a flip up Magic-Filter that could be mounted to the housing. The housing was $119.00. So my total for the system is $418.00. I also thought that I needed a way to mount the camera to my housing so I bought a tripod mount for about $8.00. I am not up to $426.00.

Doing more research, I found a ball mount for the bottom of the GoPro housing made by Ultralight Systems. The ball mount is the same style that I use for my underwater strobe arms.

That set me back an additional $39.00. The total is now $465 and I am not quite done. I needed a memory card since the GoPro does not come with one. I ordered a 32GB card from NewEgg. The card cost $38.75 with free shipping. GoPro offers an LCD back for their camera with an extended housing back to accommodate the LCD back. I felt that this would be a good addition to the system. Cost: $99.00. The grand total is $602.75 and I was pretty much done as the few other things that I needed, I already had. They were a ball mount for the top of my housing and a clamp between the two ball heads.

The next part of my project was to mount the GoPro to the top of my Subal housing. I have a mounting hole on top of the housing and I secured a 1” diameter ball head to the housing and installed the Ultralight Control Systems GoPro ball adaptor to the GoPro housing and used a clamp to connect the two balls.

This is a front view of the Subal housing with the camera mounted on top. The clamp allows me to move the video housing to suit my needs. The camera is so small and light that it’s like it’s not there.

I shot my first underwater video with the system while making a dive on the Axel Carlson Artificial Reef off Bay Head, New Jersey. I was diving a 95’ long tug named the Joan LaRie III. I did not use any lights so the video was done in available light. The water had a green cast to it because that’s how our water is.

My first thought was that I was very happy that I bought the LCD back. It allowed me to see exactly what I was shooting. I have seen many videos where people mount the camera to a helmet and let it run throughout the dive. That is okay as long as they edit the video. I have seen too many videos that make me seasick watching them.

As I stated earlier, I bought my housing for the GoPro from Backscatter so that I could purchase their flip up Magic-Filter. I use a blue water Magic-Filter in the tropics and a green water Magic-Filter in New Jersey although to successfully use it in New Jersey, a tripod is a must. To my disappointment, I found that they only make the flip up system for use in blue water which is found in tropical locations. Apparently, the 2-stop light loss through a green water filter would cause the resulting video to be too dark. So now I have to rethink my direction.

One thought is to use the modeling lights from my twin Ikelite DS-125 strobes to light the video when I get close to a subject. I am going to try that the next time that I am out.

This is a back view of the housing with the camera mounted. Easy to use and easy to remove. On my first dive with the setup, I shot still images first. The video camera did not interfere with that process at all. After making a tour of the tug and shooting stills. I turned on the video camera and made another tour of the tug. I found that the housing added stability to the video system. I think that there would have been a lot more shake if I was hand holding the GoPro.

I did some minor editing to the footage and produced a video that was just short of eight minutes long. I used Cyberlink PowerDirector 10 to do my editing. I liked that when I was finished, I could produce and upload the video directly to UTube.

If you would like to see the finished video, click here. I have some other projects in mind for the GoPro. I purchased an extendable aluminum pole with a detachable end (squeegee) from Lowes. I removed the squeegee and mounted a ball head to the detachable end. I can now mount the GoPro to the extendable pole and lower it into the water to shoot underwater video from the surface. One place where I think that this might be interesting is in parts of Barnegat Bay in New Jersey that are infested with sea nettles. These jellyfish are making it impossible to swim in the bay. The initial problem that I have run into is the terrible visibility in the bay. I am going to keep trying and hope for some good results. Lowering the video camera in with a pole means that you have little control over what you are shooting.

I have tried my GoPro on a pole and found that using it from a drifting boat in the bay presents problems as the bottom rushes by during a drift and keeping the camera in position to get an useable video is tough. I have since made some other modifications.

I have added a gorillapod to my pole system and we anchor the boat before placing the camera on the bottom. The gorillapod holds the camera steady and that solves one of my problems. There still is the problem of getting good video in less-than-ideal visibility.

In one test, we anchored near one of the Sedge Islands near Barnegat Inlet. The tide was coming in at a pretty good pace. The video looks like a sandstorm in the desert. I have posted a small sample below. The good thing is that the bottom stays in good focus because of the gorillapod.

I left out the telescoping handle in the photo at left. The plastic part that is attached to the gorillapod is a window squeegee. I removed the squeegee and bolted a ball end to the plastic end.

I was planning on posting this sooner but I have now had a chance to use it some more and would like to add those thoughts. If you are going to shoot underwater and not wear the camera on your helmet or strap it to your chest, the LCD monitor is worth every penny. I found that framing a shot, especially as you get closer to a subject, is a snap with the LCD monitor. Not so without it. I also found out that in bright sunlight, the LCD monitor can be difficult to see. I suppose somewhere down the line someone may make a hood for the LCD back but looking today, I did not see one. My pole attachment works well but it is difficult to place the camera in low visibility situations.

Wes Dalzell and I have been trying to get video of the oyster reef place by Reclam the Bay but it has been an ordeal at best. I used my gorillapod but because of tidal currents and boat wakes, I tend to push down on the pole which causes the gorillapod legs to collapse and before I know it, I am shooting video of the sand. This is definitely a work in progress.

Bottom line: I am extremely happy with the GoPro Hero2 and it has added more depth to my underwater excursions. On land, I would probably opt for a video camera with a zoom lens as I don’t always want to shoot extremely wide angles on land. The saga continues.

© 2012, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

Okay, this has gotten me off on a tangent from my blog post but a worthwhile one indeed. On Wednesday, Wes got permission for Veronica, Beth, Wes and I to visit Sedge House on Sedge Island for the day. It has been a long time since I have tried my underwater photography in Barnegat Bay so I was excited. We all brought our snorkel gear, still and video cameras and drove almost to the end of Island Beach State Park to catch our shuttle boat to Sedge Island. Before our driver arrived, we met Debbie, a member of Reclam The Bay, who was heading out to Sedge House for the day. Debbie has clammed on Barnegat Bay for many years but it wasn’t until this last year as a member of Reclam The Bay that she really felt like she was giving back for all the enjoyable times in her life on Barnegat Bay. We also saw many kayakers launching from the shores of Island Beach State Park to explore the shallow waters around the Sedge Islands.

We also met a few state workers who were heading to the island to move an osprey nest from Sedge Island back to the mainland. It was an old nest and it was replaced by a newer one. The old nest was going to be displayed in an interpretative center.

After placing all our gear on the dock, Jeff arrived. He was the captain of the Reclam The Bay boat that was taking us to our destination. It was a short trip on the calm bay waters. Sedge House reminded me of visiting a tropical isle in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. We prepared ourselves for the usual bad guys – green flies and no-see ums. We were all excited to see what lie ahead in this not-so-normal adventure. I heard stories about John Wnek who is a diamondback terrapin turtle expert and learned about the caretakers on Sedge Island who arrive in the summer and depart in the fall for Florida. It all sounded cool but the real experience was much better than the hype.

We had just unloaded our gear at the dock when Jeff took us for a quick tour around Sedge House. We saw the fenced-in diamondback terrapin nests and the baby diamondback terrapins in the back shed. These only whet our appetites for things to come. It seemed that our tour with Jeff had just ended when John arrived with his son. John took me to the diamondback terrapin nests and looked to see if any of the babies were ready to hatch. One had broken its shell but after close observation, John deduced that it might be another day or so before it was ready to meet the world.

John then took me to the back shed and showed me the baby diamondback terrapin turtles in plastic containers. All were offspring of a mother that John knew. He and his son would weight each baby, measure their size and mark them. I was amazed at how small they were – not much bigger than a half dollar.

Diamondback terrapin marking: John marked the shell of each of the juvenile diamondback terrapins. He would notch the shell in different areas around the perimeter.

My understanding was that he looked at the shell of the terrapin like a clock and notched using the locations of numbers on a clock face (see below).

Our next adventure was to snorkel and hopefully photograph and/or video the marine life around Sedge Island. Beth, Wes and I donned wet suits, mask, fins and snorkels and entered the water. The first thing that struck me was the visibility or should I say, lack of visibility. I had to get my face a few inches in front of anything to see it. I have to admit I found a few hermit crabs (very small) and some Forbes sea stars.

The tide was just starting to go out so I made my away around the clam pens and along the shoreline. I didn’t really find a whole lot to photograph so I headed back to the dock. The current was moving out much faster now and as I made my way along the bulkhead to get back to the entry ramp, it was a struggle. I did stop at the dock and tried to get some video of an oyster that was growing on one of the pilings. There was also a lot of red sponge growing on the piling. I had to really fight to stay in place and shoot video. I could never have done anything with still photos as I could not hold myself in the current and use my housing.

Beth, Wes and I joined Jeff, Mary Jo (another Reclam the Bay volunteer and a sweet person) when they took the boat out to do some clamming.

Beth and I tried to snorkel and photograph near the sand bar where they anchored the boat. Marty, a retired pilot, and his dog, Daisy were at the Sedge House and he came to the sand bar in his own boat to clam. The visibility in the shallows around the sand bar was as bad as it was at Sedge Island and the current was moving pretty fast so Beth and I didn’t get much in the way of photos but it was fun all the same.

That about did it for us and Jeff was nice enough to give us a ride back to the dock where we said our goodbyes to Jeff, Mary Jo and Debbie and headed home to clean up. It was a fun day and very different for all of us. We hope to go back again real soon.

© 2012, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.

Normally, we try to grapple into the bow because we have found the best mussels there. They are up high and don’t have any grit in them. I guess old age must be setting in as I did not remember that I have the GPS coordinates for the bow and choose to steer to another set of numbers that was away from the bow.

Beth and I splashed and there was a moderate current on the surface. I clip off my camera housing and attached strobes to a rope that is connected to my Nitrox tank and that hangs over my shoulder in front of me. This way, I can let go of the entire assembly and let it dangle below me. I have done this hundreds of times and it still makes me nervous.

I realized when we got to the bottom that we were not near the bow. There were plenty of blue mussels but there were a lot of small ones. Beth is our designated mussel picker and she was going to have her hands full on this dive. I started roaming around a little to take some photos.

One of the first things that I ran into was an abandoned lobster trap wedged in between two ribs. It was in there so solid that I am not sure that it could be removed.

Juvenile blue mussels are beginning to cover the trap and spanning the openings. It won’t be long before they carpet the trap.

The juvenile blue mussels were not the only juveniles that I saw. There were many, many juvenile black sea bass. I easily saw hundreds of them. Many in little clumps of six or seven individuals.

I tried not to stray too far from Beth and I would come back to where she was to make sure that everything was okay. She was working hard to get food for today.

I saw quite a few common sea robins roaming around the sand looking for a meal. I think that they are pretty cool and I really like watching them.

As I came up over the top of a rib, I looked down onto the ground between the ribs and I saw a very nice-sized fluke laying there.

I shot some stills of the fish until it had its fill of me and decided to move off. I moved back to check on Beth and decided now might be the time to shoot some video.

I turned on the GoPro Hero2 which is mounted to the top of my housing. I spent the next fifteen minutes swimming around and shooting video. Having the GoPro mounted to the top of my still camera housing helps it to stay steady when I am using it although the weight of the camera rig takes its toll on my arms.

Another issue that I have been running into lately is backscatter problems with my  Tokina 10-17mm lens at the 10mm end. When there is a lot of particulate matter in the water column, it takes some concentration to position my dual strobes so that they do not illuminate the particles in the water column. I also have to make sure that the strobes are behind the fisheye lens or the brightness of the flash will be evident in the corner or side of the photo.

My problem trying to make this work well is that I can’t see the problem in the small LCD screen on the back of the housing. I think that I have things aimed well and when I download the images into the computer, I find that I didn’t do so well. If I zoom in to the 17mm end like I did above with the photo of the sea robin and the summer flounder, I don’t have any trouble getting the placement right. It is the extremely wide angle of view at the 10mm end.

If I tilt the strobes more towards the center when using the 10mm end of the lens, I tend to get some glare and backscatter from one or both strobes in the photo. Usually, the problem seems to be inherent with my left strobe. I am not sure why I have less problems with the right. Here is an example:

I just wanted to impress how important strobe placement is when using two strobes and a fisheye lens like the Tokina 10-17mm. It is an amazing lens because it focuses so close that I can photograph a large portion of the wreck or reef and still move in close enough to shoot a sea robin or summer flounder. Personally, I like a rectilinear lens rather than a fisheye but there are currently no lenses available for my Nikon system that will focus as close as the Tokina and allow so much diversity in a single super wide angle lens. I have a Nikon 12-24mm and although I like non-fisheye results more than the Tokina, it is not as sharp or does not focus as close.

I wasn’t planning on getting off into an underwater photography tangent in this post but if I struggle with this, I am sure that others do also. The key to making this better is strobe placement. Keep the strobes back behind the plane of the lens and angle them outward so there is still strobe coverage with the edge of the strobe’s light in the middle of the photo. As the strobe is turned inward, the backscatter increases as does the brightness on the side of the image nearest the strobe. Option 2 would be to zoom in a little on the lens.

The 17mm end is much easier to light without backscatter and edge brightness than the 10mm end. Wide angle underwater photography in New Jersey is tough enough. I am happy to supply any information that I have to help others through the progressive struggle that I have gone through.

You can see in the photo at left that there is some backscatter in the lower left hand side of the photo.

That’s about it. I am just about finished with the video and it has some nice clips of the juvenile sea bass, common sea robin and summer flounder. I will probably be releasing it next week.

© 2012, Herb Segars. All rights reserved.