DIVE LOG DECEMBER 25 ISSUE 415

Underwater photography part 3 Photographing fish Text and photos by Mike Scotland L ike many divers, I love photographing colourful psychedelic fish. Many fish come in a bewildering and stunning variety of colours with millions of colour wavelengths and patterns to delight the wildest flower child from the 1960’s. Some seem to be beaming like glowing neon sculptures, especially when in the mating season. At times, it’s electrifying! Having been both hooked on photographing fish for years and surviving the glory days of the 60’s, I have a few pointers to share.

This soft coral garden is home to a school of Fairy Basslets.

Choose the best lens

encounter of my life with a very friendly female Eagle Ray in the Russell Islands in the Solomon Islands. My dive plan was to capture brightly coloured little fish and nudibranchs. So, I had set up the housing with my 105 mm Micro lens as well as my close-up dioptre for the nudies. Then, the world’s friendliest Eagle Ray turned up ready to play. This mind-blowing experience went on for a full twenty minutes. At other times, you encounter ghoulish monsters hell bent on turning the sea floor into a place of torment and death for innocent little fishies. Then, there are massive pelagic predators that move so swiftly and attack from the sky. Trevally constantly dive bomb reef fish with lightning speed.

I try to pre plan the dive by selecting the optimum lens that suits the dive plan. This is most often the sharp and fast 60mm Micro Lens. It is so versatile and great for a broad range of subjects from small up to fairly large creatures up to 40 cms. It is the perfect lens for Pygmy Pipe Horses and super macro with the addition of close-up dioptres. Murphy’s law states that the fish you want to photograph during a dive would have been better with some ‘other lens’. The 60mm Micro lens is by far the best choice because you can get a satisfactory shot of the widest spectrum of subjects.

In fact, the whole game of speed is a techno war that has been raging for over four hundred million years. Hunting

The best example of this was when I had the absolute best

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Dive Log Australasia #415 DECEMBER ’25

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