Crocodilefish Eye

[Bruce Enns]

This is the eye of a Crocodilefish from one of the reefs frequented by divers at the Wakatobi Dive Resort in Sulawesi Indonesia. It shows one of the distinguishing features of the crocodilefish, which is the "iris lappet that forms a branching curtain over much of the upper eye". You can see the groups of chromatophores (pigment cells) in some parts of this photo...these cells are used to change the colour of the fish. The whole face of this fish can be seen in my "Crocodilefish Face", and the whole body in Jay Gould's "Pair of Crocs!!", both posted in wildlife.

Canon Rebel XT in an Ikelite housing with Ikelite DS125 and DS50 strobes in E-TTL mode, Canon 60mm EF-S lens, AV mode, ISO 200, 1/200s, f/16.

Comments and critiques are welcome and much appreciated. Thanks for looking!

Cheers!
Bruce

[Jay Gould]

Cool Bruce, you and I are the Wakatobi tag team. I was going to post the same image :-) Cheers, Jay

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Exceptional image Bruce. During next week, I'll pull out my Rock Flathead eye. That should send you wild!

Thanks for sharing. This u/w stuff is fabulous.

[Julie Kenward]

Bruce, in the year and a half that I've been moderating here that is one of the most original images I've ever seen! Wow!

From an exposure standpoint, I wonder if you have tried to lighten the two darker areas any - specifically, the part at the bottom of the inner circle and the lower part of the frame? I can't help but think a shadow/highlight adjustment would bring a little bit of that detail back and balance the image a bit more.

Your details and DOF are very nice in this. I can't get over how stunning this is with all the patterns and textures throughout the image. Very cool stuff!

[Bruce Enns]

Thanks Jay, Akos and Jules. Tag, your on Jay! Jules, thanks very much for your vote on most original images, but in the U/W photography world, eyeball shots are fairly common because you can get close to certain species and there are some really wild eyeballs out there!

Heres a repost with the lower areas mentioned lightened up a bit.

Cheers!
Bruce

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Bruce,
You are right in a way, but this is still a ripper of an image AFAIAC. I will e-0mail you shortly the dumpling squid write up.