I'm a sucker for all those tiny reef invertebrates. Shrimp are among my favorites, and I've often seen Banded Coral Shrimp (Steopus hispidus) in the pet trade. So it is quite fun to see them in their natural habitat. Fortunately, I got to see plenty of them on the reefs on this trip.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/120th sec at f/16. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

Since I got to see so many of them, I'll surely be sharing some more shots of them in the future.

- Bill

Ok - it took Anya and I four dive trips to finally get to see an octopus. Fortunately, we saw plenty of octopodes on this trip, so I got plenty of good shots. So rather than spend more time typing, I'll just share a handful of shots from our first night dive where we had out first real octopus encounter (technically we saw some during the afternoon dives, but they were hiding, so it doesn't count like this).

This is a Caribbean Reef Octopus (Octopus briareus), which you can tell by that fantastic coloration of bluish-green mottled with reddish-brown.

Mouse-over the thumbnails to view the larger image.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/120th sec at f/16. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

That alone was worth the price of admission!

- Bill

We'll continue today with the tiny little reef fish. Like yesterday's Goldspot Goby, if you slow down and pay attention, these diminutive fish are quite numerous just about everywhere you look on the reef.

At first, I thought today's fish was a Secretary Blenny (Acanthemblemaria maria), but after looking more closely, I'm not so sure. It is definitely in the Blenny family (Acanthemblemaria spp.), but it is lacking the yellow irises and white bar behind the eyes that the Secretary Blennies possess.

Regardless, the behavior is the same - each seems to live in the holes in corals and sponges that are left by various worms. They usually sit in these holes with just their heads protruding, until a morsel of food drifts by, then they dart out, grab the food, and then return to their hole with lightning speed.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/120th sec at f/16. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

Looking at the EXIF data, this shot was taken at the lens' minimum focusing distance, which produces a 1:1 magnification. That means that the image is 22.3mm x 14.9mm, which makes that fish pretty darn tiny.

Just another treasure of the reef if you know where to look.

- Bill

Ok - till slogging my way through hundreds of RAW conversions, so just stopping by tonight to post another quick shot. Today, we have a Goldspot Goby (Gnatholepis thompsoni). These are small little fish - about an inch or two max, that live on the sandy bottoms of the reef. If approached slowly, they will sometimes sit nicely like this little fellow and allow for a decent photo.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/120th sec at f/16. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

Stay tuned! The octopodes are coming soon!

- Bill

Well, I'm back! I have a bunch of photos still to process (not nearly as many as the Wakatobi trip because I decided going in that I was going to not use burst mode). Turns out, I came home with 821 photos, and the first round of culling brought me down to 602, so a much higher rate of keepers than before. I can't really spend much time on this post, so I'll just get to the photo...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/120th sec at f/16. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

Today's subject is a Yellow-Lined Arrow Crab (Stenorhynchus seticornis). They are a fairly common resident of the reef, but I really love the patterns and colors they possess - those beautiful lines, and the strange red eyes, and even those odd bluish claws.

Stay tuned as I have some really awesome photos coming!

- Bill

I had to dig deep into the archives for this shot, but as we head into autumn, this shot of these seeds and the warm sunset glow filling the whole frame, just really made me think of the colors and feel of a autumn sunset. To be entirely honest, this shot was taken in the dead of winter in December, but if it still gives the feel, who cares, right?

Technical Data: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, Tamron 180mm f/3.5 Di SP LD 1:1 Macro, 1/100 sec at f/8. ISO 400. No post production. McConnell's Mill State Park, Lawrence County, PA.

Speaking of going into fall, I have a hockey game to finish watching, so I'm off to do that...

- Bill

Just another quick photo to share again today... I've been putting in a ton of extra hours at work, and it is just so mentally draining that it is having a physical toll too. Can't wait to get to this trip coming up and relax for a bit.

Anyway, it has been a bit since we've done a spider shot, so we'll take a look at a cool crab spider on a dahlia bud. I'd seen (and shot) several of these crab spiders this summer, and having this one on this richly colored dahlia was just so nice. I probably should crop it differently, but for now, here's the shot right out of the camera (with RAW processing of course)....

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/250 sec at f/16. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

I think after jumping spiders, crab spiders are my second favorite variety of spiders.

- Bill

It is getting late, and I'm fairly tired, so just a quick shot to share tonight...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/32th sec at f/11.3. Image Stabilization on. ISO 400 (Auto). Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite DS161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Removed color cast in Photoshop Elements 8 (mouseover for original).

Dive trip is coming soon! Can't wait to get a bunch of new shots to share.

- Bill

Well - the weather today is brisk and certainly gives the feeling of fall, so I looked back through the archives and came up with this fun autumn shot using Tom's Sigma 10mm fish-eye lens.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 10mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM Fisheye (borrowed), 1/50 sec at f/12.9. ISO 200. No post production. Ohiopyle, Fayette County, PA.

What Works: The distortion caused by the fish-eye lens produces a nice effect of making both sides of the creek loom a little larger while causing the hillside at the middle of the frame where the creek turns seem much smaller. The 10mm focal length allows the floating leaf in the foreground to appear much larger than it might have otherwise looked.

What Doesn't Work: Unfortunately, the clouds are completely blown out, and there is absolutely no detail there, producing a large area of dead space and a very uninteresting sky. The position of the leaf is just a little bit off - preferably it would have been a little more up and to the right... and ideally on a slightly different rotation (but it drifted out of reach before I could get it right).

Hopefully we'll have a colorful fall and I can get out and get some more autumn shots this year.

- Bill

Another thing I spotted when we were out on our little hike at Round Hill Park (see yesterday's post) was this fly.

I have no idea on the species, but if the government is going to make spy bugs or if an alien race of space bugs invades, this is what I would expect them to look like....

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200 sec at f/16. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw. Round Hill Park, Elizabeth, PA.

I only got off one shot of this guy as it struck this pose, but those huge red eyes just screamed out to me and I got in as close as I could and fired off a single shot before it flew away and I couldn't find it again.

... probably to report back to the mothership.

- Bill