Dive Details

Location

Date

Monday 23 March 2015

Time

11:35am - 1:17pm

Details

The purpose of this dive was to take some fluorescent photographs of pygmy pipehorses. I knew from my last dive that there was some fluorescence but I didn't use the right settings on my camera.

It was high tide when so we got in at the ramp and surface swam to the outboard motor. We descended and headed across the sand and down the slope to the rocks with the pink sea tulips. I found the pinkish pygmy pipehorse immediately. I am confident now that it is a male. I took a couple of normal photographs and while I was doing that I noticed a second pygmy pipehorse that was right next to it. I believe this was a female and that they may have been about to mate before I disturbed them.

I set my camera up for fluorescent photography: set ISO to 400, set aperture to f/8, removed the diffuser from my right strobe and put the exciter filter over the front, turned the left strobe off and put the barrier filter on the lens port. I took some photographs and could see the fluorescence on the LCD on the camera. One limitation is that f/8 results in a very narrow depth of field.

We then very slowly moved down the slope, around the corner and slowly back again. When we got back to the rocks with the sea tulips we could not find either pygmy pipehorse. If they mated, as I suspect, they are most likely to move on because they tend to mate up off the substrate and are likely to settle somewhere different. They may still be on one of the rocks but I didn't look for long enough.

We made our way back up the slope and along the sand in front of the boulders and then exited at the ramp.

Buddy

Kim Dinh

Seas

Slight

Visibility

2-5 metres

Duration

100 minutes

Maximum depth

15.3 m

Average depth

10.6 m

Water temperature

21.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

Note that tides at dive site may vary from above location.

Low

5:25am

0.24m

High

11:34am

1.65m

Low

5:37pm

0.33m

High

11:55pm

1.80m

Camera gear

Camera

Nikon D7000

Lens

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D

Housing

Ikelite 6801.70

Lens port

Ikelite Flat Port 5502.41

Strobe

2 x Ikelite SubStrobe DS161

Photographs

Depth information, where present, indicates the depth of the camera when the photograph was taken and can be used to approximate the depth of the subject.

Male Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, showing fluorescence. 10.1 m.
 

Male Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, showing fluorescence. 10 m.
 

Male Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, showing fluorescence. 10.1 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, showing fluorescence. I think this may be a female. 10 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. I think this may be a female. 9.9 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. I think this may be a female. 9.9 m.
 

Male Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 10.1 m.
 

Male Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 10 m.
 

Umbrella snail, Umbraculum umbraculum. 9.7 m.