Philippines, Southern Visayas route with the Philippine Siren

Finished this trip a couple days ago; doing rescue diver course in Puerto Galera now. Ear trouble caused me to miss eight out of the total thirty-two dives, but almost all of the rest were great.

I was shooting a Sony A6300 in a SeaFrogs Salted Line housing. Brought four lenses with me (7Artisans 7.5mm f/2.8 fisheye, Sony 10-18mm f/4, Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ and Sony 90mm f/2.8 G Macro) along with four ports (4" dome, 8" dome, basic flat port and macro/telephoto port) and got the chance to use all of them in various combinations.

One photo from each dive that I took photos on (carried an empty housing on the first dive, so 23 total)

Nudibranch, Capitancillo Islet

Two Nembrotha kubaryana (variable neon slugs) mating, Chocolate Island Northwest, near Malapascua.

T-bar nudibranch, Chocolate Island Northeast, near Malapascua.

Thresher sharks, Monad Shoal, near Malapascua.

Mantis shrimp, Gato Island, near Malapascua

Porcelain crab, Gato Island Nudi City, near Malapascua.

Decorator crab with a large piece of broccoli coral, Gato Island Cove, near Malapascua.

Large jellyfish - no idea what species, but it was a couple feet across - at Monad Shoal, near Malapascua. Didn't meet any thresher sharks that dive, so it was a consolation prize.

First attempt to use a Weefine WFL05S +13 diopter in front of my 90mm macro lens - just some hard coral detail at Lapus Lapus, near Malapascua. These discs are maybe 5mm across.

Warty frogfish, Pescador Island, near Moalboal.

Corals, Tongo Point, Moalboal.

Sardines, Panagsama Beach, Moalboal. Missing EXIF data is due to 7Artisans 7.5mm  fisheye not having any electronics in it.

Hermit crab carrying anemones, Turtle bay, Moalboal.

A pair of harlequin shrimp, Thalatta Resort house reef, Zamboaguita.

Nembrotha milleri nudibranch, Masaplod North, Dauin.

A pair of robust ghost pipefish, Secret Corner, Dauin.

Snake eel, Guinama-an, Dauin.

Whale shark, Oslob.

Tomato anemonefish, Napaling, Panglao.

Big-eye trevallys, Doljo Point, Panglao.

Dancing shrimp, Cambaquiz, Cabilao.

Seagrass, Talisay Tree, Cabilao.

Sea fan, Lighthouse / Gorgonian Wall, Cabilao.

Really wish the Retra Pro strobes I preordered in December hadn't been delayed as much as they have been - my SeaFrogs ST-100 Pro strobes clearly lacked reach on the large schools of fish, as well as, oddly, coverage on some CFWA scenes. UW-Technics TTL converter may have helped with the power issues of ST-100, but it wasn't ready in time for the trip either. Attempting to play with creative strobe positioning frequently yielded backscatter, massive dome reflections, or both - clearly I have a lot to learn there. On Monad Shoal and Oslob dives, we were prohibited from using any form of artificial lighting at all, so the quality suffered.  On the second Monad Shoal dive, I decided to experiment by putting my 90mm macro lens behind a dome and shooting it wide-open at f/2.8, but the threshers never showed up and instead I got to play with a jellyfish. Really bummed about missing Apo Island, which should've produced some fabulous wide-angle shots, but better a missed dive than a torn eardrum.

Philippine Siren is a truly luxurious boat. Normally I wouldn't have even considered it due to cost ($4200 for ten nights/32 dives), but divebooker.com advertised a 40% off sale, and at $2520 it was a lot more reasonable. It is quite a large boat, too large to approach the dive sites by itself, so all the diving is conducted from two rigid-hull inflatables, and it only carries sixteen guests and fifteen staff - my previous liveaboard in Egypt had fourteen guests and seven staff in a boat that was half as long and half as wide.

The crew handle all the gear for the guests, including washing the wetsuits in dedicated tanks of water that are changed after every dive. There are two large camera rinse tanks, dedicated camera tables, a literal wall of power outlets for charging stuff in the main saloon, personal drawers at the camera tables and at diving gear stations. Before every dive they bring you a glass of water, and after every dive a glass of juice - after a night dive, it can be hot chocolate or a beer, on request.

Nitrox is free (as a matter of fact, nobody on the trip was using air), as is gear rental, though renting computers and torches carries a small surcharge. Soft drinks and beer are also free, but wine and cocktails are charged. The only mandatory fees are $155 Cebu port fee, plus an optional $30 for diving at Oslob (or $25 if you choose to snorkel rather than dive there) which some people avoid due to whale shark feeding there - for those, they organize a parallel dive in a nearby location.

My luggage - containing all my dive gear, all my clothes, and a part of my camera rig - was delayed by the airline (they forgot to load it at a connecting airport) and arrived two days late; when the boat was leaving its home base at Mactan Yacht Club, it was just landing in Manila - but it got to Cebu the next morning, and they had someone pick it up at the airport, drive to to Maya, and by the evening of the first day of diving, it joined me on the boat.

There are fire extinguishers everywhere, cabins have escape hatches going onto the main deck, there were multiple drills (muster stations, fire drill, emergency diver recall) conducted at the beginning of the trip, a round-the-clock watch is maintained at all times, and each of the two dinghies carries an oxygen kit onboard in addition to oxygen on the main boat, so they take safety quite seriously. Being made of wood, the boat creaks a bit, but I hardly noticed it. Incidentally, the dinghies also carry folding ladders, so getting out water does not require any special acrobatics.

Sounds like a fabulous trip - and a really good price!  Especially for 10 days.

Whale shark and snake eel in hole?  Amazing!   Did you find your smaller subjects yourself, or have a divemaster find for you?  My vision isn't good enough to find half the stuff  a good divemaster can.

What was your travel like (and cost) to get to the liveaboard?    Did you have a cabin to yourself?

I've only been diving in the Pacific once, on a liveaboard in Fiji in 2009.   That was $6000 (for two) for only 7 days, but it sure was a fabulous trip.

Also - what do you think caused your ear issues?   More than 3 dives a day does put a premium on taking good care of them.

Very nice shots.  And encouraging that you were able to nail focus with the 90 mm and diopter added - autofocus or manual?

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

Sounds like a fabulous trip - and a really good price! Especially for 10 days.

Whale shark and snake eel in hole? Amazing! Did you find your smaller subjects yourself, or have a divemaster find for you? My vision isn't good enough to find half the stuff a good divemaster can.

With the small stuff, it was probably 70% dive guide, 30% myself - often enough I would have no idea what I'm actually looking at until the guide pointed it out.

There were actually multiple different snake eels - here's a crocodile one:

What was your travel like (and cost) to get to the liveaboard? Did you have a cabin to yourself?

Tel Aviv -> Athens -> Doha -> Manila and back was $960 with Qatar Airways; Manila -> Cebu and back was $100 with Air Asia, including 30kg baggage allowance. I believe it's considerably less expensive getting to the Philippines from USA though.

Cabin was shared with another guy, but by liveaboard standards, it was a huge cabin - at least ten feet square, probably a bit more. En-suite bathroom too.

I've only been diving in the Pacific once, on a liveaboard in Fiji in 2009. That was $6000 (for two) for only 7 days, but it sure was a fabulous trip.

Also - what do you think caused your ear issues? More than 3 dives a day does put a premium on taking good care of them.

Not sure, probably just a cold - we were anchored off Dumaguete, and another diver was having similar trouble, so the cruise director (who was also not diving due to ear trouble) took us to an ear-throat-nose doctor at a hospital there. He prescribed an antibiotic and a decongestant and two days later I was able to equalize, albeit with some difficulty and a lot more frequently than I'm used to.

daveco2 wrote:

Very nice shots. And encouraging that you were able to nail focus with the 90 mm and diopter added - autofocus or manual?

Thank you. I only have AF on the 90mm, as the SeaFrogs port for it fits very snugly and doesn't leave the room for a zoom gear even if I were to make one. I was using DMF and moving the camera to achieve final focus; getting that shot took some time and multiple failed attempts. I'll be in Anilao next week - should have more opportunities to play with it there.

Barmaglot_07 wrote:

daveco2 wrote:

Very nice shots. And encouraging that you were able to nail focus with the 90 mm and diopter added - autofocus or manual?

Thank you. I only have AF on the 90mm, as the SeaFrogs port for it fits very snugly and doesn't leave the room for a zoom gear even if I were to make one. I was using DMF and moving the camera to achieve final focus; getting that shot took some time and multiple failed attempts. I'll be in Anilao next week - should have more opportunities to play with it there.

I too have the Seafrogs case, but with an a6500, in addition to the a7RII setup. I found that with the 90 mm macro on either, the in-focus rate was much higher if I just trusted the autofocus and released the shutter in one motion. The success rate with the alternative approach of checking focus before shutter release was far lower, I think because my drifting caused so much uncertainty that I lost track of peak focus.

With the a7RII setup, I was not very successful with manual focus on the 90 mm - chasing focus manually while drifting.

Was battery life ok for a day of diving, or did you make a change at each dive?

You don't do video, correct?

Do you pack all your dive gear?

Looks like you have exposure dialed in. Your shots are studio quality. TTL?

daveco2 wrote:

I too have the Seafrogs case, but with an a6500, in addition to the a7RII setup. I found that with the 90 mm macro on either, the in-focus rate was much higher if I just trusted the autofocus and released the shutter in one motion. The success rate with the alternative approach of checking focus before shutter release was far lower, I think because my drifting caused so much uncertainty that I lost track of peak focus.

I use AF-C with 10-18mm and 16-50mm, but with 90mm macro, I find DMF + peaking to be more reliable. The supermacro shots with diopter requred steadying myself on something; floating freely introduced too much movement. Next trip, I'm bringing a pointer stick and hanging it off the camera tray so that I can stick it into sand and use it as a monopod.

Was battery life ok for a day of diving, or did you make a change at each dive?

On the liveaboard, I downloaded photos off the camera and swapped batteries after each dive.

You don't do video, correct?

Correct, I have no idea how to edit it, so I stick to stills.

Do you pack all your dive gear?

Yes.

Looks like you have exposure dialed in. Your shots are studio quality. TTL?

SeaFrogs ST-100 Pro strobes over fiber optics, so TTL is my only option. Camera was set to manual mode with f/8 and 1/160 (most of the time; I played with aperture and shutter speed some), auto ISO 100-800, and rear curtain flash. Most of the shots were actually slightly overexposed, but adjusting exposure by -0.5-1 stops in Capture One Express took care of that.

Got to use the diopter on some actual live subjects this morning. Both of these required bracing my elbows on the sand to hold the camera steady enough. Size is approximately 1cm across the frame, both are uncropped.

The nudibranch is, unfortunately, out of focus. The front rhinophore is in the focus plane, the gills almost are, but the body is blurred.

This candy crab, on the other hand, was shot without a diopter, and had to be cropped to 5.6mp from the original 24mp:

1cm? Truly incredible. And the subjects were still enough.

What’s that ominous thing behind the crab?

Are the subjects plentiful?

Do you have enough time to get these shots, diving in a group?

Once set up, can you rely on strobe placement?

daveco2 wrote:

1cm? Truly incredible. And the subjects were still enough.

Well, nudibranchs don't move very fast, and the shrimp was content to sit still in front of its burrow.

What’s that ominous thing behind the crab?

Just some coral, I think. I actually though it was a crinoid at the time, but looking over the photo, it definitely isn't one. Maybe an anemone, not sure. Here is an uncropped shot, with a little shrimp doing some photobombing:

Are the subjects plentiful?

It was at Coral Cove, Puerto Galera. In that specific spot, we found half a dozen large (10cm+) sea horses, this candy crab, a bunch of various small shrimp and a few nudibranches within maybe 10-15 minutes.

Do you have enough time to get these shots, diving in a group?

I was actually doing a PADI Rescue Diver course, and Puerto Galera is slow right now, so it was just me, instructor, and another guy from dive shop who is doing the same course - we were doing the exercises on each other, but the instructor padded them out with regular dives either before or after the training. Setting up the diopter shots took a couple minutes though, and I had to chase them down afterwards. I was lucky it was in a sandy area where I could brace myself on the bottom, or it would've been a lot harder.

Once set up, can you rely on strobe placement?

Depends on the surroundings. In general, shooting macro, I can keep the strobes at the sides of the camera, angled in a bit or facing straight forward. With supermacro (diopter) I move them forward and angle them in more; otherwise the port will shadow the subject as the working distance is only a few centimeters. Sometimes stuff gets in the way and I have to maneuver them clear of obstacles. They are mounted on twin 8" arms (300g carbon fiber floats with macro setup, normal arms with dome), but I very rarely use the full spread - I have a rope lanyard with a bolt snap at each end bridging the two joints on top, which acts as a carrying handle/shoulder strap, so I generally just maneuver the outer segments. One exception was the trevally school shot in the original post - I was deep (about 25m) so there wasn't much light, but there was a lot of plankton in the water, enough that I could tell I was getting backscatter right away, so I unclipped one end of the lanyard and moved the strobes as far as they would go. Being ST-100s triggered off the camera flash in TTL, they don't have much power, but at that depth and visibility there wasn't much natural light to fight against, so I was able to get close enough to the school to light a part of it. Really with I had the Retras on that dive.

kelpdiver wrote:

for a full screen nudi shot, you're generally going to have to decide what gets to be in focus. It won't be all of it. The rhinos are the obvious first choice. if you can shoot head on, or parallel to the body (or close), then you get more in the focal range. When you have the more active ones moving over terrain, you get a lot of potential different poses, some with half the body in the water column.

on the super macro, your best bet may be to actually flip the strobes to point at you. just remember to close your eyes or look elsewhere. Mike at Crystal Blue has written a few articles on this. The other gimmick I first heard from him is to use small handheld light in the sand to backlight or even sidelight the subject. Then there is the snoot stuff, but that strikes me a great way to frustrate the hell out of oneself - save that for after you're bored with the normal?

Dave - Anilao is just across the straight from PG. It's basically shooting fish in a barrel at times. Might see a half dozen leafy scorpionfish on the same dive. Format is 2-3 dives with a dive guide. spend a few minutes shooting your subject, find another or have the DG insistently lead you to one. Only the must haves like the pygmy sea horse or perhasp the blue ringed are a take a few shots quickly and let the next person in. For macro, it's the greatest, and cheapest 10 day trip I've ever seen. Lembeh I believe is on par, but for me at least, more expensive/much harder to get as opposed to an easy San Francisco to Manila + 3 hour van ride.

This is all great information and very exciting - all those strange and colorful creatures.

A couple of months ago, I scheduled resorts at Moalboal and Dumaguete for next April.

I definitely need to go back for Anilao, an easy trip from LA.

Puerto Galera is really slow right now for some reason, I'm the only customer at the dive shop, so I got a private guide by default Diving Verde Island right now, very nice reef, tons of fish, nudis by the dozens. Most are pretty big, with the 90mm lens I have to stand a couple feet back to fit one into frame.

Barmaglot_07 wrote:

Puerto Galera is really slow right now for some reason, I'm the only customer at the dive shop, so I got a private guide by default Diving Verde Island right now, very nice reef, tons of fish, nudis by the dozens. Most are pretty big, with the 90mm lens I have to stand a couple feet back to fit one into frame.

Pictures, please.

Part of today's haul:

This guy was struggling to stay put in the current, hence the corkscrew twisting.

Spanish dancer egg ribbon

Bearded scorpionfish

Nembrotha kubaryana

Naughty nudis

Side profile

Some wide-angle shots

Huge frogfish - was probably over 40cm long.

Amazingly rich colors and variety.  Have the shots from this trip exceeded all that you have gotten before?

I don't know how close you were to the eel with the macro, but it looks a little risky.

daveco2 wrote:

Amazingly rich colors and variety. Have the shots from this trip exceeded all that you have gotten before?

They have, but I'm also diving more than before - this liveaboard was longer than my previous two put together.

I don't know how close you were to the eel with the macro, but it looks a little risky.

SEL90M28G gives you a lot of standoff distance for non-macro subjects. I was at least a couple feet away for that shot, maybe more than three feet. 90mm on 1.5x crop behind a flat port is basically a short telephoto - about 150mm effective focal length.

Some from this morning, diving in Puerto Galera, two dives, both less than 10min away from the dive shop:

Yellow-spotted moray? Not sure, color doesn't look quite right.

Some kind of nudibranch, can't find the species quickly.

Close-up on the same nudibranch; note that this was without a close-up lens mounted - it was a pretty big slug.

Bouchet's chromodoris

Some kind of flatworm?

Nemo

Porcelain crab with food

Bungled attempt at shooting a tiny shrimp with a close-up lens

Mantis shrimp. Accidentally shot it at f/22 and ISO 100 after mucking around with the diopter a minute earlier and it came out almost black, but surprisingly, +3 EV in Capture One nearly recovered the shot.

Some kind of nudi. Need to edit out the few spots of plankton.

A rare success at getting a totally black background.

Christmas tree worm

kelpdiver wrote:

on the super macro, your best bet may be to actually flip the strobes to point at you. just remember to close your eyes or look elsewhere. Mike at Crystal Blue has written a few articles on this. The other gimmick I first heard from him is to use small handheld light in the sand to backlight or even sidelight the subject. Then there is the snoot stuff, but that strikes me a great way to frustrate the hell out of oneself - save that for after you're bored with the normal?

Thanks, I tried pointing the strobes toward camera this morning with some of the smaller subjects; the results were encouraging. Couldn't get them directly behind the subject though, it was more like above and behind, pointing down at about a 45 degree angle, and angled in at maybe 30 degrees.

Regarding snoots - a Retra LSD is on my roadmap, but I don't feel that I'm anywhere near ready for one; maybe in a year or two when I get more practice shooting normal macro. Fortunately Retra Pro strobes (should be shipping any day now!) have a center-mounted modeling light and a ring flash around it, so aiming should be simplified.