khathlan

A collection of nudibranchs from a recent trip to Indonesia (several islands). Photos were taken using Nikon 60 & 105 mm lenses. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks guys for the replies. Komodo is an excellent dive destination , with a variety in marine life. Just be ready to deal with the strong currents that make the area full of marine life. As for lenses, I use 60 & 105 for macro, and a Nikon 18-70 mm for wide angle.

Just back from a 2-week trip to Central Indonesia covering Komodo, Tulamben and Amed. Very interesting area for photography as you will see most of the critters that make Lembeh famous, plus some coral , fishes and big stuff. Although you do not want to be caught with your 105mm Macro lens when a Mola Mola comes from the deep ! I use Nikon D90, Ikelite housing and twin 160 strobes. I hope you like this sample. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Thanks to all for the comments and tips. " several of those shots would have looked good with a vertical orientation " This reminds me of an intersting point. When I switched to DSLR 3 years ago I noticed that less and less of my photos are in vertical (portrait) orientation. When I was using slides , almost 25% of my photos were vertical, as the slide viewing or projection made it a good/easy choice. But with DSLR less than 5% of my shots are vertical, even if many subjects are crying for it. The only (lame) explanation is that the horizontal viewing of digital photos (laptop, PC, large LCD ...) forces vertical shots to be compressed and hence not really pleasent. So naturally I started shooting less of them ,or even worse, cropping them into horizntal orientation.

I was in Lembeh in late July, and have these photos for you to see and critique. So hammer me, I can take it. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

I consistently get 3 dives , about 100 TTL shots per dive, from fully charged dual Ikelite 125s. Average subject brightness and day dives . Of course it depends on the used f-stop ! In the rare case the strobes are running out of juice at the end of 3rd dive I might switch to 1/4 power manual, but rarely.

I use a very similar system and use it a lot in similar conditions (Saudi Red Sea). But I must say that I find your D300 setting surprising as I expect it to give dark WA shots. Your D80 setting seem more reasonable. I beleive that f18 with ISO100 will not give you nice blue bkground at 20m in Red Sea. Just my 2 cents worth. Good luck

IMHO it is Lembeh , no doubt. More subjects, calmer seas, better photo conditions, better facilities , and less cost. You can not go wrong with Lembeh, if you do not insist on coral dives.

I use twin Ikelite 125s on my Nikon D80, and shoot RAW + small JPEG for each shot. I use TTL 99% of the time. The only exception is for wide angle with small shiny object , like a jack in the blue. I am very happy with the results and it allows me to shoot many photos per dive.

I think that the DS125 should be sufficient given that there is good sunlight in your destination. Using the diffuser will cover most typical reef shots within 1.5-2 meters