Blennies are small reef fish that can often go unnoticed due to their often shy nature and cryptic camouflage. Here's a nice set of blenny portraits...

Secretary Blenny (Acanthemblemaria maria)	Diamond Blenny (Malacoctenus boehlkei)	Spinyhead Blenny (Acanthemblemaria spinosa)
Arrow Blenny (Lucayablennius zingaro)	Saddled Blenny (Malacoctenus trianculatus)	Yellowface Pikeblenny (Chaenopsis limbaughi)

I've shared other posts with blennies in the past, and it seems that they are a favored photo subject for me.

A fun story with the pikeblenny... Anya found this little guy during our shark feeding dive on our last trip. While the rest of us were completely engrossed in the twenty-or-so sharks ranging in size up to about eight feet long, Anya was interacting with this little fellow on the sandy ocean floor. I managed to get a few shots with the wide-angle lens, but focusing was a bit of a challenge. If you look closely, that feisty little guy is coming up out of its hole to bite Anya's finger. It also took a few nips at me as well - so we can say with complete honesty that we've sustained multiple bites during a shark feed dive!

- Bill

A nice shot of some Atlantic Spadefish (Chaetodipterus faber) in both color and black & white... take a look, then cast your vote for which version you like better!

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 38mm. 1/200 sec at f/8. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in eTTL mode. Raw conversion in Adobe Camera Raw.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for voting!

- Bill

This Southern Stingray (Dasyatis americana) has a groupies in the form of a Bar Jack (Caranx ruber) and a pair of Blue Tangs (Acanthurus coeruleus). We followed this stingray around for a few minutes while it fed on various things that it would find in the sand, and the others would snap up any scraps that they could find.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 55mm. 1/200 sec at f/11. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in eTTL mode. Raw conversion and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 55mm. 1/200 sec at f/11. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in eTTL mode. Raw conversion and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

If you look closely, you can see a field of Garden Eels (Heteroconger longissimus) in the background.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a nice B&W conversion...

- Bill

A nice portrait of a Barred Hamlet (Hypoplectrus puella) today. This is another image that honestly at first glance I was about to toss. The positioning isn't as typical as you would think for a fish portrait and the depth of field and the positioning of the focus point ended up giving the photo a fairly soft look. Fortunately, after looking at it a bit, I decided that I really liked the different perspective (and honestly, it ends up doing a good job of drawing attention to those nice iridescent blue spots and lines on its face), and then I thought that perhaps that softer look gives this photo more of a feel of a painting as opposed to a photograph. I still wish I had framed this a little better (the edge of its tail is cropped off) and a tiny bit better focus and eye contact probably would have made it a bit stronger, but all in all, I am really starting to like this shot...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/250th sec at f/6.3. Image Stabilization on. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port and Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion and cropped in Photoshop CS5.

More nudi photos tomorrow, so be sure to check back!!!

- Bill

Ugh... Mondays!

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200th sec at f/9. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in eTTL mode. Raw conversion and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

Ok - time for just an assortment of photos, this batch is of some of the fish we saw on the reef...

Goliath Grouper (Epinephelus itajara)	Hogfish (Lachnolaimus maximus)	Caribbean Reef Shark (Carcharhinus perezii)	Silversides (Atherinidae sp)
Queen Triggerfish (Balistes vetula)	Stoplight Parrotfish (Sparisoma viride)	Blue Chromis (Chromis cyanea)	Nassau Grouper (Epinephelus striatus)

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

Ok - trying something different tonight... here's a nice little squirrel fish.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200th sec at f/11. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

Hopefully this post looks normal because it was a challenge to write because I posted it from my new tablet...

- Bill

Ok - I figure I'll continue this series. This entry is a look at the beautiful pattern on a Peacock Flounder. Normally, you don't get to see this amount of color because they stay on the bottom and mute their colors to camouflage on the sand. This one I found up on the reef, so he had all of his colors as bright as possible to blend in there.

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.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

So if you've been following along, you'll know that I love finding the little stuff. On land, it is one thing... and I'm constantly looking for bugs and spiders. On the reef, it takes on an entirely new challenge. Like the search for the Gaudy Clown Crab, finding interesting and beautiful tiny little creatures while on a dive is something I take great pride in doing.

Normally I would post cropped photos with their originals available with a mouse-over action. Instead, for these, I'm going to post the original and let you see if you can spot the tiny little critter. If you're having a hard time, simply mouse-over the image for a cropped view that should help...

We'll start off with something easy...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200th sec at f/16. Image Stabilization on. ISO 160. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

Too easy? Ok - well, think about it this way. That shot was taken at 1:1.5 magnification. That means the frame is 1.3 inches x 0.9 inches. Looking at how much of the frame that Roughhead Triplefin (Enneanectes boehlkei) takes up, I'd estimate that it was only a mere 0.75 inches long. Sure - he stands out while sitting on top of that sponge, but still... that is a translucent bodied fish with some white markings (that mimic the white detritus stuck to the sponge) in a vast ocean.

Ok - this next one should be fairly easy too...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200th sec at f/16. Image Stabilization on. ISO 160. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

That shot is also at 1:1.5 magnification, which makes that little guy about 0.15 inches high if my math is right. It is either a Roughhead (note the fringes above its eyes in the zoomed version) Blenny (Acanthemblemaria aspera) or a Secretary Blenny (Acanthemblemaria maria) - I can't tell which without more visibility to the markings on the side of the fish. I posted another blenny from last year's trip as well for more examples of these tiny little fish.

Alright, that's enough of the easy ones. Now we'll take a look at where camouflage and tiny size come together to make for an truly difficult find...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/160th sec at f/11. Image Stabilization on. ISO 160. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

That little guy is some sort of crab. I'm not able to find it in any of the identification books I have (not really surprising). Who knows - it could be a baby of some larger species of crab, or it could be that small all the time. Perhaps I found something no one else has ever seen before. All I know it is was tiny - probably in the range of 1/5th of an inch - and blended in perfectly with the sand.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200th sec at f/11. Image Stabilization on. ISO 160. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

That ridiculously tiny and cryptic thing appears to be some sort of shrimp or maybe even a lobster larvae. Once you see it, that dark stripe really stands out, but considering this was spotted just out on the sand, it really wasn't easy to spot.

Having said all that, don't ask how I spot these things - the answer is "I just do". I can't explain it, I can't tell you what specifically I look for - I just scan constantly and things jump out at me. A line that breaks a pattern (eyes are usually a dead giveaway), or a pattern itself in some camouflage, or a tiny bit of movement - regardless of what it is, my eyes are constantly searching when I'm on a dive. Searching for the next awesome little critter to zoom in on and reveal a view on something most people don't get to see.

When's my next dive trip scheduled???

- Bill

Sorry - been a little lax with posting, so I'll try and get back to sharing photos from the trip more regularly. I still have about seven more dives to process the photos from.

Last year, I shared a shot of a Pederson's Cleaner Shrimp on a Spotted Moray Eel. Well, this year, I caught one on a Coney.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200th sec at f/11. Image Stabilization on. ISO 160. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion and cropped in Photoshop CS5.

- Bill