Lumpies on New Year's Eve a,t Redondo

[KeithBoll]

Went diving with Jessie Miller and Mike Penders tonight at Redondo. Jesse had been kind enough to help guide me to where the Winter Lumpies reside at Redondo. The viz had cleared up quite a bit from last week - no rain for a couple days has made a nice difference. We found a lot of the usual night critters - stubbies, red octos and baby GPOs, snail fish and more. We started deep in the bottle fields - and then worked our way up to the shallows and lumpie land. Jesse pointed out two lumpies - and the second one swam after my focus light for quite a while. It was great to spend time with these incredible creatures. Unfortunately - I gained some water in my dry suit and did not join Jesse and Mike for dive number 2. Jesse and Mike - please post a picture or two! And - thanks so much for joining me on tonight's New Year's Eve dive.

[Scubie Doo]

Keith,

Awesome diving with you (and Penders and ScubaJess). Viz was good and critters were out in full force :-) Here are a few of my favorite shots. I shot in f5.6 and f8.0 with a 5+ diopter, not sure I like the results. Sharper, but the DOF is tiny. Very difficult to get good shots.











This guy gave me fits. He thought I was going to steal his dinner :-) The best shot I could manage.


Have a great New Year everyone!

[deep diver]

Your pictures look great, Keith ... I really like #4
Jesse.... the fish eating squid is really cool!

Wish I could have made it over

[LowDrag]

Cool pic's as always guys.

Jesse, I see what you mean. The settings seem to pin point a certain spot on your subject and fade back into a blur. It is actualy kind of a cool effect though. I am with deep diver, I really liked the squid pic.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

[Gdog]

Hey i agree with you on the f stop. But, the squid pic is killer! Were you at f8 on the squid?

[KeithBoll]

Jesse - very interesting to see the depth of field aspect from the f stops you used. Love picture number 3 and the squid. Thanks again for joining me for such a great evening of diving.

[LCF]

Jesse, if you aren't happy with those, I don't know what it would take to make you happy. I LOVE the lumpie pictures with the intense focus on the faces, and the squid is awesome.

[mpenders]

Nice shots, guys!

I had a great time logging my last dives of 2014 with all of you. Honestly, I thought Scubie cursed us when he guaranteed Keith that we would find him some lumpies. It took awhile to find the first one, and I was getting concerned that we were going to get skunked.

Anyway, here's a couple shots that I managed.

Grunt Sculpin

Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker

Tubesnout

Snailfish

Spiny Pacific Lumpsucker

White Lined Dirona

Tubesnout

[Scubie Doo]

Jesse, if you aren't happy with those, I don't know what it would take to make you happy. I LOVE the lumpie pictures with the intense focus on the faces, and the squid is awesome.

I am happy with them, just not sure I like such a narrow dof. I threw away a ton of shots that dive, but I am always happy with a couple keepers The squid was fun, it was just out of reach.

George, I was at f8. I would have changed my settings, but it kept swimming away. We missed you out there

Mike and Keith, nice shots. Really glad I didn't curse us

[Grateful Diver]

Diopters tend to flatten your DoF ... that's why I so rarely use them. On the other hand, a flatter DoF can be used to your advantage when wanting to "blur" the background ... which can make for a more interesting shot when contrast between subject and background would be otherwise difficult ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Scubie Doo]

Diopters tend to flatten your DoF ... that's why I so rarely use them. On the other hand, a flatter DoF can be used to your advantage when wanting to "blur" the background ... which can make for a more interesting shot when contrast between subject and background would be otherwise difficult ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Agreed Bob. It can work in certain shots. I'm usually using f11 and f16 with +5 and f22 with +10.

[ScubaJess]

It was great diving with you guys!
The pics turned out great!!!

[Tangfish]

Fantastic shots guys, and boy what a great number of critters. Happy new year y'all!