This is the dive when I finally I gathered courage to put together the monster camera set up and bring it along with me for a night dive.
Last winter, before the Covid times, I bought the full set up Andy (A. Martinez) was selling for his friend. The setup included Nikon D700 camera and Subal housing, with lenses and all accessories for macro and wide angle photography.
I was very excited about the set up but scared to put it underwater, as all of New England divers know, I am pretty good at flooding the cameras, I really cannot give the right care my stuff needs. However, I did get a lot of help from Andy, when I picked up the set up, and Tom, as he was quite familiar with the Subal systems. And finally, just to be sure, I got a vacuum seal system and put it together for a dive.
Since my passion is macro photography underwater, I installed my 55mm macro lens on the camera for its first dive. Throughout the dive I was playing with the camera for different subjects that I was familiar to see through my old Canon G16 set up.
There were more stagnant subjects, flounders and puffers, there were squid vibrating through the water sucking the life out of the fish they just caught, and there were floating larval stuff in the water column, like the eve cartwheeling mantis shrimp. I clicked them all. I really was not expecting much from these photos, as I was warned repeatedly not to be discouraged by the first few sets because there was a learning curve.
The dive was finally over, I flew home, transferred the photos to my computer, and oh boy, I was happy. I was in love with the camera at the first dive. I loved the sharpness but I loved how easily I could get a sharp photo of a floating larval mantis shrimp the most! Getting a decent photo on a larval creature in the water column has been a huge challenge and it has been frustrating me a lot because I really want to do a blackwater dive, eventually. And this night, only a few clicks and I could get a photo of a larval mantis in mid-cartwheel.
That night I went to sleep, feeling quite cocky about my photos, thinking if I really want to take that camera to all the dives I love to do in New England, I should start working out. Because she is a monster!
#437: 17ft, 123min, 63F
