Monterey Rockfish - 2/25 (dive)

Hey Mooch,
Join us with John Chen and Ron Delmundo for our next dive, we'll show you the strings. I know exactly what you are you talking about when describing your diving in the Philippines, I spent 2 years in New Caledonia, diving, spearfishing all the time. I spent hours on the coral reefs and always was fascinated by the exuberant life on the reef. I have seen many sharks in the tropics, got fish eaten off my spear by grey reef sharks ...I have neve seen the big one here and do not wish to see one. I just try not to think about it too much. Spearfishing is a wonderful sport and best of all for me, I spear fish for food. I am choosy with the fish I catch, so are my buddies.
Alain

Hey Alain - thanks for the offer - I'll definitely take you up on it! I'll be getting my mask and snorkle today at Wallins. The wetsuite and fins will soon come after - then I take the class! Looking forward to hooking up with you fellas 

I'm not sure if you know Joel but it takes a lot of light to take a good pic under water

better look into one of those strobes too, and or get some info. on that stuff.

You guys are getting me excited.  I can't wait to get out there and try out all my new freediving gear

Nice fish pics!!
Mooch, get the gun before the camera. You will have a chance to use it a lot more than an underwater digital camera.
I have an underwater digital and the majority of the time I get to dive the north coast the viz doesn't allow me to get a decent pic. The viz is good enough to shoot a fish with a gun, but forget it with a camera. Turbidity, plankton bloom, and mud make it difficult enough. Factor in the surge and taking a good photo is hard.
If you are going to point and shoot ya might as well have something on the dinner table to show for it.
If you do get an underwater camera, keep it simple. You will be wearing gloves and holding your breath. Big buttons and a point and shoot is the way to go.
I have a Reefmaster 2.1 megapixel and it works plenty good for me. Leave all the lens and f-stop adjustments to the guys with tanks that have the time to mess with that stuff.

Yup, a regular camera flash will only light up stuff that's within about 4' of you, and without a flash you get photos that are dark and totally washed out in blue (the water filters out red, green, ect.)  That means a red rockfish will look brown in the photo, even though it looked red to your eyes.

This photo was with no flash at about 6'


And this one was with flash at about 10' or 15' (to the closest rocks), so far out of range you can't see a difference:


I'll check my other photos to see if I've got one that clearly shows the effect of the flash diminish over distance.  Because our eyes are much more sensitive than the camera, the effective 'photographic' visibility is only about half of what you can see.  The shark in the above photo was quite clear to my eyes, and I took a couple other photos of it swimming around a little further away but though I could see it fine, the photos didn't show much. 

Fuzz,
Those are nice reds.  How deep where you guys diving?  I haven't been down there in years.  I used to love diving that area.
I am thinking of doing a lot more driving these days.  Our conditions up North have been shit for a long time and I would love to get out to some decent vis and calmer water.
Dave