Hinge-beaked Shrimp

[Bruce Enns]

Here is another shrimp, this one much bigger than the bubble coral shrimps that I posted earlier. This one was living with about a hundred of it's relatives on a sponge at a dive site near Tulamben, on the east coast of Bali, Indonesia.

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

Comments and critiques are greatly appreciated and thanks for looking!

Cheers!
Bruce

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Incredible detail mate, just awesome. Do you know what species of Rhyncocinetes? We have R. australis locally, but I could never get an image with a Nikonos this good mate. Congratulations. :)

[Bruce Enns]

Hey, thanks Akos! These guys were really great...they were all over this sponge and out in the daytime! Rhyncocinetes uritai, one common name for it is Peppermint Shrimp.

Cheers!
Bruce

[Julie Kenward]

Beautiful colors in this Bruce! I'm just amazed by the clarity you get with the underwater housing...it's fantastic.

Love your comp - think it was good to go horizontal and let that one long antenna go out of the frame. It really draws my eye over to that corner. I'm also interested to know if you created this in camera raw because those whites are so white - wanted to know if they showed as blown...not that it would matter because they work here...just wondering for curiosity sake.

[Bruce Enns]

Hi Jules, Thanks! Yes, I would say for underwater photography, in most cases, the housing or the ports won't be the limiting factors in the quality of the resulting image...it will be the techniques that the photographer uses, and the amount of particulate (which can create backscatter). For macro shots, the amount of water between the lens and the subject is not very large, so the amount of 'damage' that can be done is limited. If you put good equipment in the housing, and know how to use it, you will get good images.

As regards this particular image, it was shot as a RAW file and some of the white stripes were blown, I recovered them a bit in ACR, but there are still some small blown parts down the centre of some of the stripes. As you've said, I think it works here because those areas would have no detail anyway...they are very tiny.

Cheers!
Bruce

[Mike Moats]

Hey Bruce, congrats on a great shot, love the great details and colors. Good looking textured BG.

[Katherine Enns]

Love those plaid eyeballs. Could this be a Scots hinge-beaked shrimp?

Kat

[Bruce Enns]

Could be...not sure of the clan though...

McBruce

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Bruce, this is a fantastic image. Love the details and colours. The patterns on the shrimp look marvelous.
Congrats on this beautiful image.
:)

[Bruce Enns]

Thanks very much Mike and Kaushik!

Cheers!
Bruce

[Jay Gould]

Bruce, this is the best of the best!

Nothing like having enough light - I will definitely have ONE external strobe the next dive trip!

Cheers, Jay

[Bruce Enns]

Thank-you kindly Jay. You are wise to add an external strobe to your kit, it does make a huge difference, and not only in the weight of your luggage. With one you just have to be quite particular about where it is pointing to avoid backscatter and heavy shadows and to get complete coverage at the wide angle end of things.

Cheers!
Bruce

[Daniel Cadieux]

Whoa this is awesome! I like the "tunnel" in the URC, very cool inclusion to the comp. I absolutely love the eyes.

[Nancy A Elwood]

I could look at this image for hours! I love these creatures and you captured this one perfect. The angle, BG and the sharpness really nice. Those eyes though!!

[Bruce Enns]

Thanks Nancy and Daniel! There are lots of really crazy looking eyes underwater!

Cheers!
Bruce