Critters of the Lembeh Strait | Episode 12 – 2016 | November Highlights

You asked for mantis shrimps, and you got them! OK, even if you didn’t ask for them, November’s highlights include some fascinating behavior (what were the mantis shrimps doing?!) and weird wildlife. A rare Polycera nudibranch (check out that beard!) makes an appearance feasting on red arborescent bryozoans, a wunderpus (Wunderpus photogenicus) pulsates color change on its eye-stalks and a rare green shrimp with eggs flexes its brood. Bonus points for you if you spot the bobtail squid covering itself with sand, one of the cutest things you can see when night diving in Lembeh Strait. Enjoy!

Move you strobe(s) or Light(s) around

I see it all the time. Photographers don’t even touch their strobes for a whole dive, or even worse, for all their dives. But it’s so easy to get different results when we move our lights around. Macro lighting is quite easy, yet still complex. We can change the look of an image a lot by just changing our strobe position(s). There is no one recipe for good results, it all depends on the situation. Play with the shadows and see what you like best.

Sometimes I like to create strong shadows, this often works better with only using one source of light (strobe or continuous light).

Take this example of a frogfish here in Lembeh. I didn’t change the position or settings on the camera, I only used one light (1x SOLA 4000), but I still got many different images of the same subject just by moving the light around.

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Painted frogfish lit up from the top left. This is an example of fairly standard lighting.


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Painted frogfish lit up from the left. Note how it is very similar to the one above, but the tail of the frogfish is not lit up.


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Painted frogfish lit up from the top left but this time I positioned the light further behind the subject to get a backlighting effect.


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Painted frogfish lit up from the bottom right – the coral makes a nice shadow on the body and only a tiny bit of the frogfish gets illuminated. That gives a nice spooky effect.


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Some more examples of the same frogfish. It’s up to you which one you like best. There is no right or wrong!

You can also watch the video how I shot the frogfish here:


When will you start moving your strobe(s)/light(s)?

Critters of the Lembeh Strait | Episode 02 – 2015

Attention divers: some very unusual, weird and beautiful critters inside! A sea moth, tozeuma shrimp with eggs peeking out (can you spot them?), a tambja nudibranch with a surprise hitch-hiker on its backside, a close-up of the startlingly beautiful sand-diver’s eyes (like rays of sunlight) and more Lembeh surprises are featured on this newest video release

Critters of the Lembeh Strait | Episode 01 – 2015

Here’s a new episode of critter awesomeness. Watch for incredible close-ups of charismatic animals such as the blue-ring octopus, ornate goby, and juvenile star puffer fish – you can see their eyes moving, their breathing and every movement they make! There’s also spectacular footage of an embryonic flamboyant cuttlefish pulsating within its egg sac and plenty of rare and colourful nudibranchs that resemble bizarre works of surrealist art. Enjoy the spectacle! All the Critters of the Lembeh Strait say “HI”.

Critters of the Lembeh Strait | Episode 20/2014

It’s an underwater party and all your favorite critters of the Lembeh Strait are there – anemone fish, blue-ringed octopus, ornate ghost pipefish with eggs (yes, children are welcome at this party!), various frogfishes and a graceful free-swimming ribbon eel. Also keep your eyes peeled for a very special, seldom seen little goby, the Priolepis vexilla, whose blue-and-red striped face, dotty body and spiky dorsal fin will surely charm you. Sit back and enjoy!

Critters of the Lembeh Strait | Episode 19/2014

We have been unusually fortunate these past few weeks in Lembeh with many sightings of mating blue rings, a beautiful red weedy rhinopias, and baby flamboyant cuttlefishes hatching, all of which are beautifully captured in this week’s episode. As an extra cute factor bonus, there’s also footage of a baby clown frogfish waving its lure around as a tiny sponge isopod flirts with death! Enjoy the Critters of the Lembeh Strait.