Here are some tips to help you get better results photographing nudibranchs:

Try to get down low – It’s always a good idea to get down as low as possible, as we learned in TT&T#2 (avoid helicopter shots), but how can we do this in practice? Well, we have to find subjects in the right position. If a nudibranch is just sitting in the sand it’s often very difficult or even impossible to isolate the subject from the background. Look for opportunities to shoot nudis at least horizontally (we can sometimes achieve this with getting down very low), or even better, shoot slightly upwards. Sometimes the dive guides here will not show you a nudibranch which is sitting in a perfect position, because they showed you two or three of them already and there might be something “more interesting” (rare) in that area. Getting good images is not so much about capturing the rare species, it’s more about good composition. It’s better to have a great photo of a common species than a poor or mediocre shot of a rare one. If you see a nudi sitting on a hydroid stick, a rock or coral where you can separate the subject from the background and not include the sand for example, go for it and take a few shots. Remember that the focal point should be the rhinophores (those cute little ‘horns’), or, if it is a species with eyes such as Costasiella kuroshimae (the ‘sheep’ nudi) then it’s important to have the eyes in focus. If you can convey something to the viewer about nudibranch behavior (while adhering to the principles of good composition) this also makes your image more interesting – examples include photos of nudis eating, mating, sniffing the water column or laying eggs. Nudibranchs are most photographers’ favorites. Why? Because they don’t move that fast and this makes it possible to try out different techniques while photographing nudibranchs.

Here are some examples of nudibranch shots (good and bad ones):

This is a poor shot of a very pretty nudibranch, the Hypselodoris bullocki. Shot from the top, no “eye contact” and not separated from the background.

Same nudibranch (Hypselodoris bullocki), but interesting angle, “eye (or rhinophore) contact”, made to stand out from the background (by getting down very low and minimizing ambient light) and some behaviour (laying eggs/mating) going on.

Flabellina rubrolineata on top of a little rock, made to stand out from the background by bokeh (out of focus) technique.

Costasiella kuroshimae (the ‘sheep’ nudi) – “eye contact”, made to stand out from the background by bokeh technique.

Nembrotha milleri sniffing the water column, made to stand out from the background by bokeh technique.

If you want to create a bokeh (out of focus background) effect, you have to open up the aperture. Settings depend on your lens setup, but frequently used settings are somewhere between f4.5 and f11. This is useful for eliminating ugly or busy backgrounds commonly found here in Lembeh such as sand and rubble. Here are some more example shots:

Nembrotha chamberlaini sucking on a tunicate

 f11 – 1/200sec – ISO 160 – 1xSOLA 4000, 1xSOLA1200 – Canon 7D – Subal CD7 – 60mm macro

Gymnodoris rubropapulosa attacking a Hypselodoris whitei (watch the surprising video here)

f10 – 1/60sec – ISO 160 – Canon 7D – Subal CD7 – 60mm macro – 1xSOLA4000, 1x i-Torch Pro7

Hypselodoris bullocki abstract shot

f5.6 – 1/320sec – ISO 160 – Canon 7D – Subal CD7 – 100mm macro – Kenko 1.4 Teleconverter – 1x SOLA 4000, 1x SOLA 1200

Shooting with this shallow DOF (depth of field) is sometimes very tricky. It’s very easy to miss that crucial focus point and the image doesn’t look that good if the wrong part of the image is in focus. For nudibranchs we usually aim for the rhinophores to be in focus, as we learned in TT&T#16, or at least the one rhinophore closest to the viewer. The next image could be more powerful if both rhinophores were in focus in order to better distinguish them from the very similar-looking cerata. In the above image however, having just one rhinophore in focus ‘works’ because its eye-catching colour, detail and texture makes it stand out against the very blurry background.

Phyllodesmium serratum – the rhinophore on the right in this photo (or the nudi’s left rhinophore) is not in focus

f5.6 – 1/200sec – ISO 160 – Canon 7D – Subal CD7 – 60mm macro – 1xSOLA 4000, 1x SOLA 1200

The above image at 100% – the right rhinophore is just a tiny bit further ahead of the left one, but at f5.6 and very close distance that’s enough to render it out of focus.

If you’re shooting with constant light, you can even combine the shallow depth of field with a dark background by using a very fast shutter speed (due to synchronization speed limits not possible with strobes).

Flabellina exoptata on hydroid

f5.6 – 1/800sec – ISO 160 – Canon 7D – Subal CD7 – 60mm macro – 1xSOLA 4000, 1x SOLA 1200

Glossodoris cincta laying eggs

f5.6 – 1/1000sec – ISO 160 – Canon 7D – Subal CD7 – 60mm macro – 1xSOLA 4000, 1x SOLA 1200

It is important to set the right time and date on your camera after you change location. It is always good to know when you took that special shot whether it was sun rays in the right position, fishes mating or other animal behaviour you’re trying to capture which may only occur at a specific time of day.

If you look at your images later you will always know exactly what time you took that shot of the manta with the sun rays at the perfect angle, or of that fan on the wall. It might be crucial to know what time those frogfishes mated – if you set the right time on your camera this will be easy, because it gets embedded in the metadata of every image. There will be no speculation about when the sun is right, you will know with 100% certainty by looking at your images, and you can then decide to go back to a particular location at exactly the same time, or try at a later or earlier time if the sun wasn’t right.

If you don’t check the date at all, it could even indicate the wrong month or year, which could lead to problems when trying to submit your image to a photo contest.

If the time stamp on your images is wrong and you’re using Adobe Lightroom, you can adjust the capture time like this:

In the Library module choose:

Metadata – Edit Capture Time…

You then have different options, if you just didn’t set the time difference from your home location, you can choose: Shift by set number of hours (time zone adjust) and just dial in the number of hours – and then click change.

If the time is completely wrong (because of a camera reset), you can Adjust to a specific date and time.

If you want the best image quality possible, shoot in RAW!

Raw vs. JPEG? Why does my JPEG image look better than my raw image? Do I have to shoot raw and JPEG? – There are still many photographers undecided which format to use, this article should help you to make a decision.

Many digital cameras today, including both DSLRs and higher end compact cameras, give us the option of saving our images as either raw files or JPEG files or both, raw & JPEG files at the same time.
Every time you press the shutter the camera takes a picture and saves it to the memory card. If the camera saves that picture as a JPEG file, a lot of data contained in the original file gets thrown away in order to get a reduced file size. A lot of this detail is lost forever when shooting in JPEG.
When shooting in raw format, all this detail is saved to the memory card and we have a lot more information to work with. As a result we can push the images a lot further than we could with JPEGs. Little mistakes we made in relation to exposure and white balance settings can be corrected without loosing detail, giving us the flexibility to produce images of the finest quality.
A raw file is like taking the original film negative into the dark room and developing the photo yourself, with complete control over the final result. Raw files are often referred to as digital negatives, and we use programs like Lightroom or Photoshop as a digital darkroom to process the raw files and convert them to JPEG, TIF or PSD before it can be published or printed.

Here’s one example of how you can get details back from a raw file, which are lost in the JPEG file:

When I was shooting this manta ray in Komodo, the ray was too far away and my strobes didn’t really do anything (other than creating some backscatter). When I tried to process the image in Lightroom, all I could do with the JPEG file was this – the image is very blue, the water on the left is totally burned out and there is absolutely no color or light in the reef.

Because I recorded RAW & JPEG at the same time, I was able to get some of the details back with the raw file. With a simple white balance and a little processing in Lightroom I managed to get an acceptable image.

Of course it would have been better to get it right in the first place, but sometimes it is impossible. The Mantas on that day in Komodo were just very skittish and didn’t want to come close. This image was shot in 2011 while diving on MSY Seahorse. This was the last time I recorded JPEG & RAW images at the same time. After that trip I set my camera to record only RAW. When will you make the change?

If you don’t already use Adobe Lightroom, I strongly recommend using it. It does not only let you process your raw files, it will also help you getting organized with your images. Adobe Lightroom is available for MAC and PC.

There is the option of getting Lightroom and Photoshop as a bundle with the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop CC + Lightroom) for $9.99/month, which I find is a pretty good deal, given that you will always have the newest version of Photoshop and Lightroom.

In some situations we end up having trouble getting everything we want to be in focus. It can be for various reasons, for example not having enough light to close the aperture. If that happens there is still a way to get around that in Adobe Photoshop. It’s called focus stack.

Here’s what you can do if you shoot multiple (in this case 2) images of the same scene with different subjects in focus:

In this image the frogfish in the front is in focus, but the one in the back isn’t… (F5.6, 1/200sec, ISO 160)

In this image the frogfish in the back is in focus, but the one in the front isn’t… (F5.6, 1/200sec, ISO 160)

Focus stacked images – both frogfish are in focus ! (F5.6, 1/200sec, ISO 160)

Here’s how you do it:

Open Photoshop and go to Edit – Scripts – Load Files into Stack…

then select your files with clicking Browse

Select your images and click Open

then click OK

Then go to Edit – Auto-Allign Layers…

usually Auto does the right thing, so just keep the default Auto setting and click OK

Now you’ll have two (in my case) images aligned up nicely and you can use the Crop Tool, to crop the image slightly to get rid of unwanted pixels.

After that go to Edit – Auto-Blend Layers…

Photoshop detects automatically if the blending mode should be Panorama or Stack Images and you just click OK

and here is the result – stacked images, with both frogfish in focus…

a tiny little bit of tweaking in Lightroom and here’s the final result:

Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom are available as the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop CC + Lightroom) for 9.99/month only.