Hello,

I was in Coco island early november, and I made some UW pictures.

All the shots are my flickr photo stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigeyebubblef...57622702127621/

A small selection.

Hammerheads


School of Jacks


Eagle rays and Two red sea stars


Scrawled filefish


Sunrise


Sunrise 2


Turtle


Morey Eel


Whitetips


Hammerhead on Dirty Rock


Damien

Really enjoyed your pics. Hoping a trip report can follow.
Were you using your 10-17 or 17-70 more often?

Thank you very much. I do have a trip report, but it is in french. If anyone can help me to translate it into a decent english, I am more than happy to post it here on wetpixel.

I purchased the 17-70 following Alex M. advice, before going to Coco. This is a good lens, but it focuses slowly. For this reason, I've spent 95% of the dives with the Tokina 10-17.
The scrawled fish is shot with the Sigma 10-17.

PURA VIDA Costa Rica.

Damien

Hi Damien, very nice photos. Your english is very good, I wouldn't be concerned translating your trip report.
Mike

really like the rays and stars shot

Pura Vida Damien. Love the ray shot with the sea stars. I never think of doing something like that. Can you believe that I went to Cocos in July, wrote the trip report on the flight home, and still haven't posted it? I have to still work on more photos. Call me the most excellent procrastinator.

Pura Vida Ellen,

Thank you for your nice comments about about the rays and the sea stars. The shot was taken on Dos Amigo Grande, in the cave.

What about your trip report?
And your pictures...

You should post them. There must be great stuff to read and watch.

Damien

I will. I'm going to Bonaire tomorrow so I won't have much time before then. But I vow to get it done by the end of 2009

I will try and remember to do that tomorrow.

great shots!!! although i would not have taken that shot of the dive master juan manuel ; ). were the hammerheads there in BIG schools? any whalesharks or silver tips? what were your camera settings?

Thank you Matt.

Look at Juan Manuel. He is carrying a map of Alcyone.
There is a story behind the name of that dive site, and surprisingly, it is linked to my family.
In 1987, JJ Cousteau went to Coco with his new boat "Alcyone". They discovered that new sea mount with big schools of hammerheads. They found it so incredible that they named this site "Alcyone".
My grand-father was a naval architect, and he is the designer and idea man of the "Alcyone". This picture of Juan Manuel is then IMPORTANT to me .

The hammerheads were in BIG school on Alcyone. We had hundreds below our fins on the first dive, while we were drifting during deco stops. On the second dive, few of them. On the last dive the were hundreds, from the bottom until the surface, passing at few meters only.
No pictures posted as they are not looking good.

We have seen all sharks, whitetips in big schools (almost on every dive, but the biggest school was on manuelita at night), hammerheads (Alcyone, Manuelita, Dirty Rock, Punta Maria, Dos Amigos, etc...), silvertips (silverado), blacktips, galapagos (Punta Maria, Dirty Rock, Alcyone), silkies, tigers (Manuelita), etc... but no whaleshark.

My camera settings???
Do you mean for each shot speed, aperture, ISO, etc... or you want to know what was my gear?

Damien

I have heard that story about the discovery of alcyone. very cool that you have a personal connection to it.

I am interested in your camera settings because the colors in your pictures are tres bien! Ils sont magnifique. The colors are dark, saturated, and "rich". The blue water is beautiful. so, i am interested in your camera settings (aperture, shutter speed, iso) and how you produced the dark colors. I have heard that a higher aperture setting (small opening) will make the background blues darker. it seems to me that if you under-expose the shot and use strobes to light the foreground, you'll get this effect. anyway, good job!

Matt,

Thank you very much for your nice comments about the dark and saturated colors of my pictures. I received many comments saying the opposite, too dark, too blue, too satured, but I don't care, as this is the way I like the BLUE .
I am using the following path:

Usually you have to set the exposure based on the spot metering on the water column.
I do it, but I underexpose my picture using a higher aperture (small opening). I have no concerns to go between f/14, f/16 or even f/20 depending of the amount of light available.
For the shutter speed, i rarely go under 1/60.
ISO: this is the trick, I compensate under exposure with higher ISO (250, 320, 400). New bodies provide high quality shots even with high ISO.

For the blue itself, it will depend of your color calibration on your camera.
On Nikon, I choose "landscape". I manually change the landscape settings on my D90 body: Accentuation is +2 grades, Contrast +2 grades, Saturation as is, Hue as is and luminosity +1.

Then, for my strobes, I use them full speed.

You can visit my photostream on flickr, www.flickr.com/photos/bigeyebubblefish for each image that you like, click on "more details" on the right side of the page, you will access EXIF with all infos about the shot.

Damien

Damien - nice photos. Great to know about the name Alcyone. After diving Alcyone and declaring it in my dive log as "my best dive ever", I started my own company and named it Alcyone.

I wish you all the best with your new company. Alcyone, on its way to success.

Ha Ha - thanks Damien! I hope so!