Sea of Cortez. Here, I'm pictured setting up for a shot of a Sea Lion. This photo was taken by Craig Dietrich. Craig is a professional underwater photographer that makes a living from his craft. He is a fantastic teacher and I was fortunate to learn a lot from Craig on this trip. In Craig's earlier career, he was an underwater photographer for the Navy, where he honed his skills. Karen and I met Craig and his wife Julie at a art show where he was exhibiting and selling some of his work. During that encounter, Craig told us all about the Liveaboard trip to the Sea of Cortez that he was leading. Both Karen and I really like Craig and Julie and immediately went home and signed up for the trip he was leading in the Sea of Cortez. We were not disappointed in our liveaboard experience and had the opportunity to make friends with Craig and Julie, as well as several of their friends who also live in various parts of Florida.
This is a shot of a baby Whale Shark feeding on the surface. It's hard to say for sure, but this one is probably around 15 to 18 feet long. As explained earlier, Whale Sharks feed on plankton and surface with their mouths open, as pictured here, to scoop up these nutrient rich plankton to feed.
Since I often get questions about the camera I use underwater, I've added a couple of images to this gallery to give a sense of what it looks like. This is actually the housing assembly -- the camera and lens go inside of the water-tight housing. I use a Sony A7R II camera. This setup is for wide-angle where I use a Sony / Zeiss 16-35mm lens inside of this 8" glass dome port. At the end of each of the arm assemblies, I have Sea & Sea strobes that are triggered by fiber-optic cables coming from the housing assembly. The White light attached to the top of the right handle is a Sola 2500 lumen video light -- the light atop the left handle is a Sea Dragon 1200 lumen video light that I use at times on low power as a focus light. While all of this is a bit heavy on land, it becomes almost neutrally buoyant underwater. The closed foam attachments on each of the strobe arms aids in this buoyancy. Once in the water, I can operate the camera one-handed if I need to check my dive computer or trim out my own buoyancy with my BC inflator.
