davidkramer

Excellent photo, Luca. Wish we could know what he's saying! You've got a great portfolio, you're obviously a bit of a macro manic! Do you focus manually or AF?

By the way, is this definitely a cuttlefish and not a squid? Hope I'm not being an idiot ; )

regards, David

Thanks for comments. Visibility was fortunately excellent on this dive,

at least 20m!

For once, one of these usually timid guys was curious and posed for a

moment while I tried to hold still in the swell. thanks

Wonderful cloud formation- the scale on first glance could be anything from some popcorn to a nuclear blast! regards

Nice natural colours and light. I might suggest cropping slightly from the top into a panorama. Regards, David

comments welcome

A nice picture and moment, but I think the sunburst is overexposed. Digital sensors struggle with these compared to film, but can still do a fair job. Usually settings required are at least f11-16, 1/350-500s and ISO 100. A wider angle lens will also reduce the size of the sunburst and allow you to get closer to the subjects while retaining the elements of the composition. Balancing sunbursts with flash is harder still, requires high power output and will limit the shutter speed to whatever the max synch speed is. Regards, David

Taken at Julian Rocks near Byron Bay, New South Wales. Their

numbers are deteriorating quickly, possibly related to fishing/boat traffic

and shark nets set out to 'protect' beach goers along the eastern coast

We were fortunate to see the birth and first moments of life of this Topi.

It needed a few more 'first steps' to get it right.

Collumn of Wildebeast taken in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

This was taken just before sunset from Ubirr rock in Kakadu national

park, Australia. It is a single exposure using polarising and GND filters

with some minimal post processing. Thanks for comments

Photographing this 1cm tall chap presented significant technical

challenges: he lives (perfectly camouflaged) on a huge seafan standing

free of a vertical reef wall in a constant current on an archipelago near

Sulawesi in Indonesia. Finding him is the first problem! Then is the

difficulty in maneuvring myself and my big camera system close enough

(approx 10cm working distance) without touching anything. He was less

shy than others, who usually turn away abashed at the attention and

the small light which assists my patience-trying attempts to autofocus

in the dark blue gloom. Due to his vulnerability, I limited myself to taking

a maximum of 3 photos as advised by the consciencious guides.

Exposure is achieved in manual mode with both strobes set manually in

1/2 stops, the lower dialled down for fill. Several species of pygmy are

known, each is coloured and textured to match its chosen coral home.

alternative to previous post in sequence with sky as background rather

than ocean

thanks for comments

I had been to this headland before, seeeing a pair of these Sea Eagles

patrolling their area of coast, gliding on the updraught high up in the

sky. On bushwalks I always take my backup camera with my longest

lens, preset servo AF and exposure metering for this type of shot, and

always left 'on', ready to grab from its holster bag. Finally, after

despairing of getting close enough to a bird of prey in flight, this one flew

by in the late afternoon sun.

Diffused flash used to freeze movement. L lower corner burned in PS3

Hi Don, very impressed by this image, worthy of a fine print and framing. Excellent composition/format/tonal properties. Am tempted to start thinking about having a camera body modified as my current exposures take 10-20secs and really require a completely windless day. Regards, David

Comments welcome, thanks

Single exposure with 3 stop reverse neutral density and circular

polarising filters. An umbrella was bought immediately after being at this

location!

These spiders create their own lair by weaving shut a fallen leaf in the

middle of their webs. This may be for protection from predators, or to

avoid being seen by their prey. It took a lot of waiting from this one to

come out to investigate...

Helpful comments welcome... especially regarding colour: I usually work

in adobe RGB but this is edited in sRGB for the web. Find it hard to

judge on my computer-I really need to get a better monitor! *sigh* $$$...

This was my first outing with new reverse grad neutral density from

Singh-Ray.

great shot, which is giving me a strange impulse to make a Kiwi fruit desert all of a sudden ! : ) Aren't these quite unusual colours for these anemones? Regards, David

Image taken at Julian Rocks, Byron Bay. These waters are a

crossroads of temperate and subtropical species and this location is a

riot of colour and life, thanks.

The waterfall here drops beautifully through a hole in the ceiling of the

cave created over time by the force of flowing water. Above my head as I

took this picture are colonies of glow-worms and bats!

I was glad the person bearing down on me at speed had a high world

ranking at formula windsurfing. We were experimenting with a

different look to the usual telephoto shots from shore, using a

superwide lens in an underwater housing