PhilMedcalf

Coral Guard Crab

E-PL3

Aperture f/13.0 ISO 200 Shutter 1/160

upload_date

Mar, 2014

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166

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Awards

Staff Winter Selection 2015

Superb Composition

Absolute Masterpiece

Outstanding Creativity

Top Choice

Peer Award

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Behind The Lens

Location

This shot was taken in the Egyptian Red Sea while on an underwater photography trip run by a friend of mine.

Time

The image was taken on a night dive. These coral guard crabs stay deep inside the coral during the day and only come out at night.

Lighting

I lit this shot using a single strobe. Strobe is the term used by underwater photographers for a flashgun specifically made to be used underwater. My strobe is linked to the camera via fibre-optic cable that allows it to be triggered by the camera's flash.

Equipment

The camera I was using at the time was an Olympus EPL-3, micro 4/3 camera in an underwater housing made by Olympus. The lens was a Panasonic Leica 45mm F2.8 macro and I augmented this with a wet dioptre made by Inon that screwed onto the outside of my underwater housing's port. The lighting was produced by a Sea & Sea YS-D1 strobe.

Inspiration

I love taking macro shots of small creatures while diving. These crabs are particularly challenging as they only come out at night and often hide in the coral when a torch beam passes over them. To get a clear shot of such a small creature is always exciting for me.

Editing

I often quite heavily edit images using Adobe Lightroom but this needed relatively little. I removed a few spots where the flash had reflected off debris in the water and adjust the colour saturation somewhat. I also used Lightroom to remove chromatic aberration caused by the dioptre fitted to the housing.

In my camera bag

Underwater photography limits you to a specific lens on the camera per dive but with some cameras like the EPL-3 you can fit different wet lenses to the outside to broaden your options. When shooting with a 45mm macro I would take one or more dioptres to use with it so I can get in closer to the subjects. When using a 14-42mm I would take a wet wide angle lens also made by Inon and again dioptres to give me wide angle and macro options on the same dive. Beyond these choices most of my equipment is the same for every dive, with handles and an articulated arm system made by Nauticam that attaches to the housing.

Feedback

To shoot subjects like this underwater you need to have good control of your buoyancy underwater so you can get in close without damaging the coral. You need to understand where the subject will be, in this case these crabs live on specific acropora corals. Finally you need patience to wait until you find a subject in a suitable position that you get in close safely and be able to light it, this often means going from coral head to coral head throughout a night dive, and constantly changing strobe position and settings to get a useable image.

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PhilMedcalf

PhilMedcalf

Coral Guard Crab

Behind The Lens

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