Hi everyone. Welcome back to my weekly underwater photography blog with Sairee Cottage Diving, Koh Tao, Thailand.
This has been a stunning month here in Koh Tao, Thailand with Sairee Cottage Diving. The conditions have been great, with amazing visibility and a wide range of marine life hanging around our favourite dive sites. We’ve been lucky enough to see whale sharks, sea snakes and turtles, all adding up to provide some of the most beautiful diving I have experienced in a while.
This week’s underwater photography blog is of a Koh Tao regular we often see, the Polka Dot Nudibranch (Jorunna Funebris). At Sairee Cottage Diving we see these little guys all the time and they are a great practice subject for macro photography. They look cool, stand out, and are very slow moving, which helps immensely when trying to get that perfect macro picture. With the visibility the way it is right now I wanted to experiment with ambient light and the use of a colour filter, on top of doing my usual white balance. The added filter makes a huge difference to the colours, as you lose the red end of the spectrum as you go deeper. By white balancing and adding a red gel between the lens and the housing you get the colour back.
I love playing about with macro shots and I am very pleased with this one. I love the soft focus of the surrounding area. Hopefully I will have a macro wet lens before too long so I can have just one key feature of the nudibranch in focus with the rest of it in soft focus.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s photo. Happy diving with Sairee Cottage Diving!
By Paddy Steele
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