Mehmet Gungen

In case I would stay at Panglao how far would be the dive sites.
JA wrote that  Cabilao is 2 hours approximately.
What about closer dive sites?
Are there dive sites worthwhile diving with not more than 30-40 minutes boat ride?
Or with shore entrance?
At the moment i am focusing on Panglao since there are couple of accommodation alternatives with acceptable quality and still available during the New Year holidays.

Finally the last place I went to was in Cebu. I hada very nice time there, they had a great shore dive and you can dive whenever youd like. It was a compromise of the two other places.

Dear Jose,

Out of these three Cebu sounds interesting since just like Manila there are direct international flights to Cebu.

Besides i like dive sites with shore entrance where you can dive whenever you want.

I believe in Cebu there should be decent accommodation opportunities also.

Any dive operator or accommodation you could recommend there?

Mehmet

I decided to try getting the real color of that anemone during another dive after I posted here.

I had a wide angle lens and magic filter when we were diving there with a different route. I had chance to get down to that location with around 2 minutes non deco bottom time.

I spent almost half of it trying to make custom white balance however my D200 failed. Than I decided to shoot and making white balance afterwards. (with this purpose i shot my hand too)

I took several shots while the anemone fish absolutely not be corporative and swimming elsewhere instead of being in front of the anemone till the end of my non deco bottom time.

Even though the attached photo is far from being an example of a good composition the color of the anemone is totally the same as it looks there at ~30meters. It is shot without any strobes. Even The fish is with underexposure while anemone glowing there has a contrast with surrounding objects.

I think it would be possible to get a good shot with a new generation SLR with higher low ISO performance and with a macro lens with a magic filter on.

On the other hand i think the anemone fish would still be underexposed if the exposure shall be based on anemone :-/

As I understand it, the fluorescence is the result of light refraction from existing ambient light.  It doesn't actually glow, and you would not be able to see in the dark.  Hence, the strobe overpowers and washes it out.

If this is the case, filter photography using the ambient light should be the only way to capture it.

I also visited Maldives the first time in February 5 years ago.

Here is my post to this forum before making my decision and the answers to it

http://wetpixel.com/...gungen maldives

Based on these information i selected the Sun Island Resort which is geographically located close to the Southern edge of the South Ari Atoll.

I preferred this particular resort due to it's big size and variety of non diving activities. However the diving boats were too crowded.

Probably White Sands would be a better choice for diving since it was a smaller resort.

It looks like the ex White Sands is now the Diva Resort and quite expensive.

I remember that we saw Manta's in each dive and met once a Whale Shark. Other than the abundance of mantas i do not remember a very dense macro life. However even stuff like ghost pipe fish were occasionally available during dives. However since manta's are the highlight of South Ari especially in this time of the year it is a though decision to dive with a macro lens.

Hope this helps.