Sharm El Sheikh Trip

[Tjsnapper 0]

Before I start rambling on about my recent trip, I would like to thank all of the guys on Wetpixel who have helped me take my first, small, steps in underwater photography. I have literally spent days on the site, reading and researching all things underwater, it is a fantastic resource, (although I guess you knew that already). Also thanks to Peter Mooney from Scubapix in Cairnes for his advice and ability to move mountains, (and UPS), so that I could get all the photography kit together before going on this trip.

 

 

I have just come back from 2 weeks at the Red Sea, more precisely, Naama Bay, Sharm El Sheikh. It was my first diving trip abroad and the first time I had dived since 1996!! I had manage to tempt my girlfriend to come with me so she could learn to dive and being that I had not dived for about 12 years and not having my BSAC logbook or record of my brief, (40 or so dives) diving past, I thought it would be prudent to start from scratch again so we both enrolled in the PADI course at the Red Sea Diving College at Naama Bay. I was a little apprehensive going into the water for the first dive, as the last time I went diving I arrived at the surface with a banging headache and a mask full of blood ☺ (burst eardrum etc). Anywhoo we both raced through the first five days with no worries, did our advanced open water and Nitrox bits and pieces and were keen to dive without the attentions of an instructor.

 

I previously used a Canon A640 and canon housing for snorkeling in Taba last year where I re-ignited my passion for all things underwater. For this trip I gave that to the other half along with an Ikelite AF35 just to stop her using the on board flash, and bought a Canon EOS 5D for myself with Aquatica housing, Macro and 8” dome port with shade. Lenses were the 17-40mm f4 L for the wide angle stuff and a 100mm f2.8 Canon Macro lens for the little stuff / fish portraits. I also bought a couple of Sea & Sea YS-250 Pro strobes with UCLS arms and joints. (all the gear and no Idea)

 

I would image that most of the European divers here will be pretty familiar with the dive sites round Naama Bay. We did all out diving through the Red Sea Diving College, who have a number of boats that depart daily from Naama Bay. The first “post qualifying dive” was at Shark Reef and Yolanda in the Ras Mohammed National Park, a nice drift dive along a wall and over the coral gardens of Shark reef that then leads to the debris of the Yolanda, a ship that sank carrying bathroom furniture etc. We had the resident crocodile fish and it was a great place to find blue spotted stingrays and I think in the 3 times we dived it we saw a minimum of three on each time. I also saw the only nudi of the trip which was a shame as it was on the bottom in a real current. Being a drift dive with some healthy currents that seem to come from all directions as the dive progresses it was difficult to get too close and manoeuvre round the wreckage to get a good shot. I was hopeful that “Shark Reef” would live up to its name but sadly not, a school of tuna racing overhead and a turtle out in the blue was about as big as the life got there.

 

The Straits of Tiran offers several nice dive sites namely Jackson and Gordon Reef with Woodhouse reef between the two. The back of Jackson reef is meant to see some decent hammerhead action during the season, however not so on our trip There is however a nice red anemone with resident clown fish at about 28 meters along with a long nosed Hawkfish and (although we were the only group not to see it) a white Frog Fish.

 

The best dive of the trip, in several peoples opinion, was a drift dive over the saddle between the back of Jackson to the front of Woodhouse Reef, and when I say drift I mean drift…the current was whipping us between the reefs at 30meters and out into the blue, a really exhilarating dive although I did wonder why I took the 8” port out that day as it seemed to catch the current and drag me through the water and I think I took the sum total of one shot. I think that was mainly as I was trying to hang on to my better half to stop her from drifting too far away as he is considerably less sturdy than me.

 

We thought that it would be remiss of us to visit Sharm and not dive the SS Thistlegorm, even though it meant a 4am start. It was worth it though even though as we closed on the site, we noticed that we weren’t alone, only about 15 other dive boats were there. Still, it was not too overcrowded with only one other group on the wreck at the same time as us. For a first wreck dive it was pretty good, a little murky, the guide said!! I thought that 15m visibility was bloody good compared to the soup I had dived in the past. The Russian guide, Victor, was really into his wrecks and gave us a potted history of the Thistlegorm on the way to the site, which I think, really enhanced the dive, to see all those shells, bikes, boots and trucks there in the hold was fantastic. Sadly the second dive, the penetration dive as Victor called it, to the sniggers of the Brits in the group, (some people never grow up ), started in disaster with my A640 springing a leak in the first 6 meters of water, coincidentally or not, it was the first time that I let my other half put the camera an housing together herself without interference from me. Still a quick ascent to dump the camera on the boat and we were back down to the wreck. (Needless to say I will not bring up the flooding in future arguments or disagreements)

The next problems was with the rear focus button (*) on the 5D started sticking in so I could not review the photos or check exposure or focus on the internal parts of the wreck . Sadly I did not realise this until getting to the surface and checking the camera out, a problem easily fixed by changing CFn 4 back to shutter button focus etc. Still it was a fantastic dive and we have been told that are spoilt for wreck diving now.

 

We ended the 2 weeks having logged 21 dives, experienced trying to get on to and off a boat that is bucking in 5-7 foot swell (not great for handing cameras up or down), and diving in the fastest current that the instructors had been in as well as my first camera flood, so all in all it was a pretty good experience.

There was the obvious disappointment of not seeing anything bigger than a 3’ eagle ray in the depth below us, not that I was expecting to see Mantas or Whale Sharks but I would have loved to see a small to medium shark, or even a large Napoleon.

 

The big positive for me is that the other half now wants to book a live aboard trip to the Maldives in Feb and maybe go to the Brothers and Elphinstone to see the Oceanics in Jan (Thanks for your report and photos Stew, I owe you a beer).

 

I have put my first U/W photography efforts on Flickr if you want to have a look and comment on any of them, please do so, I would appreciate any critique of any of them from you guys.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjsnapper/set...57608426389760/

 

Anyway, I am off to the dive show at the NEC on Sat to catch Alex and chums giving their lectures as well as purchasing a drysuit so that I can freeze my fingers off during the winter months in the lovely soup they call the Solent.

 

Cheers and safe diving.

 

Tristan

[Steve Williams 0]

Wow! Great job Tristan. Very impressive for your first trip with the 5D. What software are you using to process your images? I'm curious because a couple of them are right on the edge of over sharpened to my eye. I'm just being nitpicky, you did a superb job. Looks like you had the 250's dialed in. Congrats! and welcome back.

Steve

[Tjsnapper 0]

Wow! Great job Tristan. Very impressive for your first trip with the 5D. What software are you using to process your images? I'm curious because a couple of them are right on the edge of over sharpened to my eye. I'm just being nitpicky, you did a superb job. Looks like you had the 250's dialed in. Congrats! and welcome back.

Steve

 

Hi Steve, thanks for the comments, I use Photo Mechanic for sorting and grading photos then PS CS3 for the processing, not that I have done a great deal most of them, just a tweak in RAW. I know what you mean about the over-sharpening I think it is because I ran an actions on the shots to save them once I have edited the RAW then the batch processing for resize to "Flickr size" and each action has an unsharp mask part to it. Normally I wouldn't do it this way but I wanted to get the photos up there.

 

The 250 ISO seemed to give an OK exposure for most of the deeper shots but as we spent much of our time in a group, there was not much time to experiment as we were being rushed along most of the time. Personally I would have been happy to be left at 10m for an hour or so to really get some practice in and see how the camera reacted to differing ISO and shutter speed combos. On my first test dive one of my Strobes batteries shorted so I was left with only one strobe which some say might be a blessing, but it did limit the flash coverage a bit.

 

Out of interest, what ISO settings do you tend to use, other photographers (on land) that I know call me the "50 ISO guy" as i usually get a nosebleed if I go above ISO 100 as I really hate noise, but to get the aperture I wanted and to keep the shutter speed reasonable I resorted to the higher than normal ISO. In reality though I thought the 5D handled the noise pretty well.

 

I hope that makes sense.

 

Cheers

 

 

Tristan

[Steve Williams 0]

Out of interest, what ISO settings do you tend to use,

Tristan,

My jump setting on the 40D is at ISO100. I found myself on the last trip bumping up to 200 on occasion. I think I'm learning that to reduce noise it's probably more critical to nail the exposure than worry about 100 vs 200 etc. I'm with you, when I was shooting film I used 50 velvia for years. Still learning the digital.

 

What happened to the YS-250? I'm very curious, where did it short?

 

Steve

[Tjsnapper 0]

What happened to the YS-250? I'm very curious, where did it short?

 

Steve

 

Still a little confused about it, i have spoken to the supplier from whence it came and am sending it back for them to look at. I noticed that something was wrong when it was not flashing on every fire. Our instructor took a photo of both of us and in that I noticed that there was a trail o bubbles coming out of the pressure release valve in the cap of the strobe. When I got it to the surface and opened the cap there was a brown sludge, probably about a teaspoon, coming out of both ends of the battery. I am not sure whether it was water ingress, but would have assumed a greater amount of water to have been present upon opening as the cap was still quite tough to get off and the seas appeared to be intact with no problems. The unit still works intermittently with the original battery and fires every time with the battery from the other strobe, although there has been some corrosion of the contacts in the strobe, be if from battery acid or sea water. Someone on one of the boats thought is was a battery short but i will await a full inspection from the specialists.

 

Can you shed any light on the matter?

Tristan

[stewsmith 14]

good report and nice pics.

 

i would be very happy if i had a selection like that from my first outing with my dslr. actually i would be happy with a selection like that now.

 

well done

 

stew

[KirkD 7]

I just purchased a Nikon D90. I hope my pics look this good. Great job! Soory about the flood.

 

Kirk

[Tjsnapper 0]

i would be very happy if i had a selection like that from my first outing with my dslr. actually i would be happy with a selection like that now.

 

 

Ok Stew I'll swap them for your Oceanic shots

[Tjsnapper 0]

I just purchased a Nikon D90. I hope my pics look this good. Great job! Soory about the flood.

 

Kirk

 

 

Thansk Kirk, good luck with the D90, you planning on getting it in the water soon? Let me know when you have taken some pics.

 

Tristan

[leonandclaudia 3]

Thansk Kirk, good luck with the D90, you planning on getting it in the water soon? Let me know when you have taken some pics.

 

Tristan

 

Very good pics! Now you must invest in an even wider lens, and you will be pleasantly surprised!! Try and do your next trip to Raja Ampat; the world's richest reefs!!! The water is a steady 29-30 degrees Celsuis, and you will find more species of fish and coral than anywhere else in the world...

[Tjsnapper 0]

Very good pics! Now you must invest in an even wider lens, and you will be pleasantly surprised!! Try and do your next trip to Raja Ampat; the world's richest reefs!!! The water is a steady 29-30 degrees Celsuis, and you will find more species of fish and coral than anywhere else in the world...

 

Sounds perfect but maybe it will have to wait untill this time next year as I have already promised the better half a trip to the Maldives in Feb/March. I do have a 15mm Fish Eye that is pretty wide on a full frame camera, but I did not give it a go on this trip, even though I carried it all the way out there an back.

 

On another note, I noticed that the corners were pretty soft and smudgy on the 17-40mm with the 8" dome, anyone have any suggestions as to a cure i.e. what sort of diopter etc.

 

Thanks

 

Tristan

[Lennart 0]

Very nice pics Tristan! Next week I will depart for Wadi Lahami, where I will be using my 5D with 17-40 and 100 mm macro for the first time. I would be very happy if the quality of my pics will be the same as yours. Thanks for sharing, because your pics with EXIF data will be really helpful in figuring out which settings to use.

 

Very well done.

 

Lennart

[Spacker 0]

Fantastic photos. Just got back from Montenegro with 350D and mine are terrible. What a learning curve.

 

Nice to see the cockmunchers are still mooring up on the thistlegorm though.

[Bent C 18]

Sounds perfect but maybe it will have to wait untill this time next year as I have already promised the better half a trip to the Maldives in Feb/March. I do have a 15mm Fish Eye that is pretty wide on a full frame camera, but I did not give it a go on this trip, even though I carried it all the way out there an back.

 

On another note, I noticed that the corners were pretty soft and smudgy on the 17-40mm with the 8" dome, anyone have any suggestions as to a cure i.e. what sort of diopter etc.

 

Thanks

 

Tristan

 

I use a B&W 2x diopter on my 17-40 on a 5D with an 8 inch dome, and as far as I can judge it, corners are markedly better now than before I added the diopter. Far from perfect, maybe not even great, but not as horrible as before I added the dioter. An example:

 

http://www.pbase.com/borneobent/image/101788159

 

Regards

 

Bent C

[DeanB 19]

Nice to see the cockmunchers are still mooring up on the thistlegorm though.

 

Too easy....

 

Dve safe

 

DeanB

[Tjsnapper 0]

Nice to see the cockmunchers are still mooring up on the thistlegorm though.

 

Yeah, it is a shame to see them all mooring on what would seem to be about the thinnest part of the wreck, all the talk out there is about preserving the ecosystem and reefs and then they do something like that, i must say that I was a little disappointed to see it to say the least, not to mention the time it takes to get rid of the bloody things in PS. You would not think it outside the bounds of possibility to drop several permanent moorings out there onto the sand, it's not as if there is a lack of diving expertise out there to help with the process either.....

 

 

Tristan

[Tjsnapper 0]

I use a B&W 2x diopter on my 17-40 on a 5D with an 8 inch dome, and as far as I can judge it, corners are markedly better now than before I added the diopter. Far from perfect, maybe not even great, but not as horrible as before I added the dioter. An example:

 

http://www.pbase.com/borneobent/image/101788159

 

Regards

 

Bent C

 

Thanks Bent, I will have a look at the B&W filter, I use them for my polarizers and the quality is pretty good. The other alternative is to shoot wider that you need then crop the corners out... not ideal but ... beggars cant be choosers when you are in the middle of the sea I am also looking at getting a wider lens or just use the 15mm Fish eye instead.

 

I have just bought a drysuit so will be sampling the UK waters for the first time in ages, I can't wait

[Tjsnapper 0]

Very nice pics Tristan! Next week I will depart for Wadi Lahami, where I will be using my 5D with 17-40 and 100 mm macro for the first time. I would be very happy if the quality of my pics will be the same as yours. Thanks for sharing, because your pics with EXIF data will be really helpful in figuring out which settings to use.

 

Very well done.

 

Lennart

 

Please don't me, I haven't got a clue about it , I just took what i used on land and tried it underwater. There are so many ways in which they cold be improved. I look forward to seeing your shots though

 

Have a great trip

 

Tristan