Gems of the Sea

                             
                                 
Here come de judge!

                                   
                                    
This French Angel swam straight into my lens when I was shooting macro with my Nikonos II underwater camera. The Nikonos II is a rangefinder camera, meaning you are looking through a viewfinder that shows you approximately but not exactly how you have composed your shot. In addition, the lens must be focused by estimating the distance to the subject and setting it manually with a knob on the side of the lens. So.... I am still amazed that in my great surprise when this beauty swam into my lens, I still managed a good composition with sharp focus!

Gems of the Sea

                                
                                    
Drum
                                                                    
Now here's an actual underwater photo I took with the Nikonos II I'm using for the selfy I posted yesterday. The "drum" is just one of hundreds of tiny tropical fish that inhabit the coral reefs of the Caribbean. This isn't the best photo from the standpoint of composition; I barely kept him in the frame. But... getting these little guys in the frame at all is no small feat! And he's in focus!
                     

Underwater

                                       
                                                       
Queen Angel

                                                   
This photograph was taken in the Caribbean back when I was scuba diving much more often. I was using a Nikonos II underwater camera, which I still have but have not used in many years, in part because I no longer have a working strobe for it. It uses film, and this image is a scan of a 35mm slide.

Without a strobe, the yellow of the fish and the red encrusting sponge on the coral below the fish would be muddy brown. Even the blues would not be so brilliant. The sea is a giant blue filter. Only in very shallow, clear water are bright yellows and reds visible to the naked eye.

Aiming an off-camera strobe at a moving target underwater is no small challenge. In this instance, I got it just right, not only the angle but the distance, such that the strobe cast the perfect amount of light on the subject. It particularly pleases me that the scale pattern shows through the transparent yellow of the pectoral fin. With too much light, that would have been washed out and not visible.

This fish is one of many angel fishes found on coral reefs in the Caribbean. She/he is called "queen" because of the crown on her head.