diver dave1

Turtles often are shy and move away or perhaps tolerate me briefly.  I seem to find one consistent exception.  When they are feeding on sponge, they ignore me when they are eating.  Once finished, they are nearly always as friendly as a puppy.  Sometimes they follow me and I stop and rub their neck, fins, and generally have an amazing time.  Seen it in both the pacific and carib. on numerous occasions.

Anyone else have this happen to them?

Anyone tried Topaz Lab Plugin's?

Which one's, if any, are worthwhile? 

Is the noise reduction substantially better than LR4?

I was talking with someone with more knowledge than me regarding cameras recently.  He indicated that ISO 800 was not a good setting for the D7000 and recommended 1250 instead.  My testing at home indicated 800 had less noise than 1250 so I find it a bit confusing.  Anyone shed a bit of light on this topic for me?

Starting posting photo's from the recent Sailfish Photo adventure.

So far, there are 3 series posted.  Shots are 0.2 seconds apart in each series.

In the first series, the Sailfish has lunch in his jaws.  Easier to see on some shots than others.

http://www.shiningse...47993&k=5gNxTfw

Just finished an adventure with Shawn Heinrichs off Ilsa Mujeres.  The goal was to photo sailfish and baitballs and we did a good bit of that.  Seeing sailfish attack at close range is just beyond what the pictures show.  And many of the pictures turned out rather nice.  Have not had time to sort them as yet, only a review of a few.

But the amazing part of the trip was the last day.  Due to a wind shift, food for manta's was at the surface. Mobula and Manta's were everywhere.  When I mean everywhere, standing on the flying bridge of the boat, using binoculars, there were manta's on the surface as far as you could see in every direction.  The debate in the boat was if we could see more than 1000 or not at once on the surface.  Not a bad topic for debate.

They were far more shy around us than Manta's I have encountered before in Fiji and Hawaii so encounters with an individual was brief, at least for me.  The milky water was not the best for photography so my Manta photos are not as clean as other locations but who can complain?

We saw at least 11 Manta's do a full body breach with many of them doing a back flip with it.  Jim Abernethy got a photo of a breach but I have not seen it so not certain how great the photo turned out.

While the Manta's were everywhere, so were running sardines.  They made the water look like it was boiling on the surface for as much as 500 m2 at a time.  Often you could see a dozen patches that size at once.  When they ran at you, it was amazing as they passed.  I kept expecting to see something following them but never did.

While watching the Manta's, a sailfish would swim by from time to time, as did not sea turtle.. He was as shocked to see me as I was to see him and he ran away immediately. 

I had never seen Mobula before but I have many photos and at least 7 together in some of them but sadly in milky water.  When I get home to a better screen, perhaps some post work will help with it.

If the water had been clear, we likely would not have seen the spectacle so just enjoying it for what it was.

Quite an experience, to say the least.

dave