Stephen Frink Blogs

10 Questions for Stephen Frink

by Stephen Frink
November 6, 2006

Stephen Frink is the world's most widely published underwater photographer. Not surprisingly, he has a deep, color-rich library of underwater photos that most divers would kill for. In addition to being an "artsy" photographer, he's also quite articulate: he's written books, housing reviews, and loads of articles for Scuba Diving Magazine. He provides personal photo instruction as well as escorted photo tours. He's also an inventor. In other words, if it has to do with cameras in or near water, he's your go-to man. Pretty amazing for someone who grew up in Illinois.

For this installment of 10 Questions for..., Stephen gets comfortable, a removes his sunglasses, and opens up about his work, including how barnacles helped shape his future, why HD video is so compelling, and what, exactly, "predictive previsualization" is.

Divester: How did you get interested in underwater photography?

Stephen Frink: It was a circuitous route for sure, but a few of significant forks in the road took me there. First, I suppose it was because I was a competitive swimmer as a kid. Did that for 13 years, all the way through college. So, I was always intrigued by water sports, but living in land-locked Illinois made scuba diving a bit more of a challenge. Second, I ended up in graduate school in California, so at least there was an ocean nearby and diving was an easier possibility. Third, I was working on my thesis in experimental psychology and had some spare time to take elective classes. I enrolled in Photo 101 and the magic alchemy of that first black-and-white print evolving in a tray of Dektol was instantly addictive. Fourth, I needed a part-time job while in graduate school and there was a marina in my neighborhood with a yacht hull cleaning service. I went in to ask if they needed any help, and they said I could have a job cleaning boats, but I had to be a certified scuba diver. So, even though I was already interested in photography, the underwater hook didn't happen until I finally got certified. All for 25 cents a linear foot to scrape the barnacles off of boat hulls.

Divester: What was your first rig? What do you shoot with now?

SF: Like many of us, my first rig was a Nikonos, and I shot it available light only. Since it was back in 1971, mine was the original Nikonos, bought used from a surfer in Seal Beach. I still had that camera when I moved to Kona after graduate school. I added a Vivitar 283 flash in an Ikelite housing and took roll after roll of spectacularly run-of-the-mill photos, but the water and reef was a lot more beautiful than the beach dives in Southern California, so I was having fun. Today I shoot a Canon EOS1DsMKII (16.7 MP digital) in a Seacam housing. I find a combination of 17-40mm zoom, 50mm macro, 15mm fisheye, and 100mm macro will cover most of the things I need to shoot just about anywhere. For strobes I use a combination of Ikelite DS125 and Inon Z220s. If I need more punch for wide angle or distant subjects, I'll use my Ikelite 200. Just this week I tested the new Seacam Seaflash 250 for Canon. It provides TTL (which isn't all that important in digital photography, truthfully, but is nice to have), and also strobe synchronization in rear curtain synch (which is an important feature previously unavailable except with housed Canon strobes). So, I'll buy one of those and add it to my travel kit.

Divester: What are the 3 best dive sites in the Florida Keys?

SF: The Duane shipwreck for sure. That may be the best shipwreck in this hemisphere for color and concentration of marine life. Once the much larger and more notorious Spiegel Grove was sunk as an artificial reef in Key Largo, visitation to the Duane dropped off. But, the Duane is a far more mature wreck, with more marine life. Plus, it is small enough (327-feet) so you can feel like you did it on a single dive, whereas the Spiegel Grove is so massive you have to decide which vignette of the ship you want to experience. For reef life, I like a site called Fire Coral Caves at the south end of Molasses Reef. Always great pelagic action, and the resident Goliath groupers and Atlantic spadefish are of interest. For sheer masses of marine life, I like Snapper Ledge, part of the Pickles Reef complex in the Upper Keys. I realize you asked in the context of the entire Florida Keys, but Key Largo is my home and I tend to do most of my local diving there. However, once my friends in Key West put the Vandenberg wreck on the bottom, no doubt that will edge right up there as one of the top dives in the Florida Keys. I am very optimistic they are going to do something very meaningful with that ship.

Divester: A lot of underwater photographers seem to be branching into video. Do you see yourself moving in this direction, too?

SF: I've always said "no way", assuming it was too hard to serve two masters. Plus, all the post-production tedium of video editing intimidated me. But now High Definition video shows such compelling promise, I can't ignore the possibility. Plus, the web and other media venues will continue to demand more and more video content. And finally, there are some subjects that are just more interesting when shown in motion, rather than that frozen moment in time we capture as still shooters. I don't see video as being an all-consuming passion, like stills have always been. But as HD cameras and housings get smaller, I can see where one might fit in the travel case. My biggest issue though is that there is a finite amount of time that one can spend in the water. Will I want to share even a moment of that with video as opposed to stills? I don't know, but until HD I never even considered it.

Divester: You're a master at photographing sharks. What are some things photographers should keep in mind when shooting sharks?

SF: Thanks for the kind words. I suppose the first and most obvious is "Don't get your butt bit". Actually, there's a lot you can do to avoid getting hurt, and the dive operators and shark wranglers out there today are a very savvy and safety conscious bunch (for the most part). If it is helpful, perhaps you could point your readers to this link http://stephenfrink.com/sf-tips/200603-shark-shot/ as it does provide some good hints specific to shark photography.
Different sharks require different techniques; but a wide angle lens that focuses very quickly, a fast strobe recycle, quick reactions, and good peripheral vision are all important complements to effective shark imaging. We just finished doing the Shark Shootout at Stuart Cove's by the way, and really had some stellar photo ops. I think we really pushed the envelope in terms of access this year, and perhaps more than anything, that's what good shark photography is all about ... Getting close safely. I call it "Predictive Previsualization". Seeing in your mind's eye how the shot should look, setting all camera and strobe controls for what they should be when the shark gets close enough, and having the presence of mind to trip the shutter once the shark enters the shoot zone.

Divester: You've started blogging at Scuba Diving's Underwater Insider. How do you like that?

SF: Actually, I do like the "stream of consciousness" format of a blog. However, I know I don't contribute often enough. To be really effective I should do it semi-daily, or at least weekly. Maybe that should be my New Year's Resolution? But, in general, blogging has been a huge asset to the global Internet community. Scubadiving.com is just getting ready to launch a pretty major redesign, and I'm sure the Underwater Insider will get bigger/better as a result of the overall upgrades to the site.

Divester: What's the toughest marine creature to shoot and why?

SF: I suppose the absurdly skittish creatures like the garden eel are the hardest. Telephoto work isn't effective in a medium 600 times more dense than air, and even a 200mm macro doesn't get you close enough for most species of garden eels. Of course some of the bigger and bolder Pacific species of garden eels allow a closer access, and are easier to fill the frame. I know how I should do it though. I'd put my Seacam on an underwater tripod pointing at the hole of a garden eel. Then, I'd get two powerful strobes so I could work at F-22 for great depth of field. Then I would prefocus manually on where the eel would come out of the hole. Finally, I would use a 20-foot remote shutter release to trigger the camera when the garden eel came back out of it's hole, and I would devote a whole dive to nothing but that so that I'd nail it during the random happenstance when the eel bobbed into focus. Why haven't I done that? A headshot of a garden eel doesn't mean that much to me, beyond the challenge. Maybe one day.

Divester: What is Frink's SOS?

SF: To understand the product you probably need to understand the motivation. I was off Peleliu (near Palau), and we had the combination of very rough seas and a strong offshore current. Once I was swept away from the protection of the rock I had the choice of coming to the surface too quickly and risking the bends, or to do a 5-minute subsurface offgass at the mercy of the current. When I finally surfaced, the dive dinghy was a distant spot on the far horizon. Just the year before a group of Japanese tourists had died at this very spot in a similar situation. Their dive boat had an engine malfunction, and they got swept farther and farther away. Then it got dark and the situation spiraled out of control. Anyway, there I was bobbing at the surface in 6-foot seas, juggling two camera systems that would be lost to the deep abyss if I let go. Now, I had to reach in the pocket of my BC and find a little safety sausage, unroll it, take my regulator out of my mouth, blow it up through a pea-shooter valve, tuck one camera under my arm, and hold the safety sausage upright so the boat could see me. Right then I decided there had to be a better, safer way.

The SOS (Surface Observation Signal) was my solution to that problem. I decided that the pneumatics of a buoyancy compensator should be able to deploy a safety sausage so a diver did not have to manually blow it up, or even hold it in their hands. I researched my options, went through an expensive and arduous process to have the concept patented, and licensed it initially to Aqua Lung. Actually, Aqua Lung/Seaquest was a wonderful collaborator on the project. BCs are their specialty, and together we came up with a way the SOS would mount in a pouch attached to the lower right dump valve. Inflating the BC and pulling a rip cord would allow the safety sausage to deploy, and a one-way valve would keep the SOS inflated even if the BC had leaks elsewhere, or was trimmed to personal comfort while waiting on the surface. This year Innovative Scuba will launch a similarly licensed product at the DEMA show called SMART (See Me And Rescue Tube). The SMART will adapt to other BCs other than just the Aqua Lung and Seaquest brands previously served. In the near future you'll also see the SOS/SMART concept directly integrated into high end BCs rather than an add-on accessory.

The things about the SOS that I find most compelling is that:

1. It is always there when needed.
2. It is so easy to deploy that a diver will be inclined to do so at the first hint of trouble, not too late when they are potentially out of sight.
3. It is hands-free, and doesn't require a regulator to be removed from the mouth to inflate.
4. It can be deployed by a buddy for a diver that might be in trouble at the surface.
5. When seen by the dive boat, it means "here I am and I need you to pick me up". It removes the ambiguity of seeing a diver on the surface, maybe waving an arm, and maybe being in distress. The message is instantly clear.

Of course I could be biased, but I think the SOS should be standard equipment for any diver on any live-aboard. We trust our lives to guys we don't know, driving dive skiffs we can only assume are in good repair. The least we can do is put the odds in our favor by helping them see us when we come up somewhere they aren't.

Divester: I'm sure everyone thinks you have the world's best job. What would most people be surprised to hear about your work?

SF: They think it is the world's best job because of the wonderful places we go for dive travel and the adventure of it all. But I think they might be surprised at all the backstage work that goes into managing a photo archive and effectively syndicating the work. To make this fit for me I've needed to multi-task, but ultimately it is all about underwater imaging. The subsets include my close relationship with Scuba Diving magazine, our dive travel business, stock photography representation, Seacam import business, and our studio/gallery in Key Largo. Collectively, it works. But, if the only part of the formula was traveling and taking underwater photos, I'd probably have had to get a real job years ago.

Divester: What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out in this business?

SF: I wish they'd told me (and more importantly, I'd listened), that a picture of a clownfish or a goby isn't worth getting bent over. When I was younger I was way too aggressive with the limits of the dive computer. Plus, the early dive computers were pretty aggressive as well. I can't blame the equipment though. I was too greedy about the photo-ops. I wanted more images, more chances to shoot, always. I spent too many hours in chambers as a result.

Gratefully, not lately. Nitrox availability most places reduces much of the risk, especially when dived on air tables. And modern computers are more conservative than the first ones we dived. There is no doubt sport divers can still spend plenty of time in the water very safely pursuing their UW photo ambitions. A dose of common sense regarding safe bottom time may be an important companion to an 8GB card in a digital camera.

Like Father Like Son

by Stephen Frink
October 26, 2006

I'm here on the southwest end of New Providence Island teaching the Shark Shootout with Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas. It has been a pretty amazing week, with stellar weather, clear water, and world-class shark encounters. Every year we do this event it gets a little more extreme, and we find new ways to capture images of Caribbean reef sharks. Today brought a new innovation ... our youngest shark wrangler ever. Today Stuart Cove taught his 10-year-old son Travis how to be a shark feeder.

I guess it should come as no surprise that the son of Stuart and Michelle Cove would be scuba diving at a young age. But, still it was pretty impressive to see how self-possessed and assured he was in the water. Of course, we were only in 20 feet of water and Dad was right nearby, but once Travis had a short lesson from Stuart about how to feed sharks from inside the safety of a shark cage, he was all about delivering the shark action. He'd spear the bait on a pole spear and then place it just outside the bars of the cage. There were always five or six sharks swirling around the cage, and they weren't at all shy about coming up to grab the bait.

I don't know what you were doing at 10, but for sure I wasn't in the Bahamas scuba diving with sharks. Actually, I do know what I was doing at 10. I was living in the Midwest, watching "Sea Hunt," and scanning the Voit ads for dive gear in the Sears catalog like my buddies were scanning their Dad's Playboy centerfolds. What's wrong with that picture?

Even behind Travis' facemask, he couldn't hide that shy smile of pride, the same one I caught gleaming behind his Dad's facemask as we wrapped the shoot. --Director of Photography Stephen Frink

In Search of the Elusive Pygmy

by Stephen Frink
October 11, 2006

I'm on my way home from Indonesia at the moment, doing one final edit of my digital images before my laptop battery craps out. Looking at the variety of macro images that evolved from a week diving the Lembeh Strait, it occurred to me that among the rare and wonderful creatures inhabiting the black sand, one of the most iconic remains the pygmy seahorse. The pygmy is also one of the most difficult to shoot, not only because it is so hard to see, but also for the time that has to be invested, particularly at the depths where they are normally found.

I guess if I were something as small as a grain of rice I'd just as soon live a little deeper, well below the surge zone. So, no surprise that most seafans hosting pygmy seahorses are at depths of 50 feet or greater. But it is their tiny size that makes them most challenging, for me anyway. The problem is, I wear reading glasses--maybe 12-point type is manageable, but these guys are two-point to me. I can see things in the distance just fine, which allows me to pick out most any subject from far away. Then when I put my Seacam S180 viewfinder to my eye, I have the internal diopter corrected for my vision, so all is brilliantly sharp. But these pygmies are so very tiny, and so well camouflaged it takes pretty good eyes to pick them out from among the knobby polyps that they so nearly resemble.

Fortunately, by my second dive in Lembeh I had a system worked out with my dive guide whereby I could use his visual acuity as my RPLD (Remote Pygmy Locating Device). He would gently use the small tip of a dental tool to give me a focus reference nearby the seahorse, never touching or harassing the seahorse in any way, but giving me something other than a field of red and bumpy texture to focus on. Once I was locked in, he would move away and I could watch the scene through my magnified viewfinder until the seahorse would randomly move back facing me. Nothing worse than spending 10 minutes on a seafan with nothing more to show for it than the back of a pygmy ever-so-disdainfully looking away from the camera.

Of course if you're really lucky, finding multiple seahorses to occupy the same image makes filling the frame a little easier. Of course, getting them BOTH to look at the camera at the same time is even more of a challenge. I've had it happen before, but not on this trip. Even then, a little judicious cropping may help the composition. With these guys, 1:1 magnification just may not be enough, and some form of diopter or teleconverter magnification may be advisable.

Resting on the seafloor at 60 feet, with the bottom-time clock ticking away I didn't dare glance at my dive computer or my camera's histogram for fear of losing sight of my subject. But, after a half-dozen or so shots (Canon EOS1DsMKII, full-frame digital, at 1:1 with Seacam Wet Two external diopter bringing the magnification to nearly twice life size) I was pretty sure I'd nailed at least one pygmy shot and was able to move up the wall to shallower depths and on to more leisurely photographic pursuits. Yeah, I know there are plenty of pygmy shots out there, and the number of images that escape deletion isn't too high with this kind of subject, but the challenge makes it fun. --Director of Photography Stephen Frink

Reflections on Stingrays

by Stephen Frink
October 10, 2006 In the few days since television personality and conservationist Steve Irwin was killed in a freakish accident, I've been thinking about it a lot. Not that I have any particular insight into that day, but having been on plenty of underwater photo shoots, I can see how proximity to a cameraman might make a ray wary, and then when a diver or snorkeler swims near, it might bolt. Either action is, by itself, innocuous, but in concert they might be enough to put the ray in flight-or-fight mode. Still, a stingray barb into the heart is massively bad luck.

I was stung by a small yellow stingray once. I was teaching a photo class and tried to coax the ray into a student's wire framer for a Nikonos close-up kit. A stupid thing to do, in retrospect, as the ray saw no way out between a big square framer (which no doubt looked a bit like a giant open mouth) and my spread out hands gently coaxing it forward. The ray arched its back, unsheathed its barb, and with great purpose and pretty damn good aim, shoved it straight into my right palm. I was thoroughly surprised when it happened, and I suppose Steve Irwin was too.

The pain was instantaneous, and kind of a rush. I could feel the venom surge through my veins as if I were a junkie on smack. It rushed up my arm, but when it got to my heart, all hell broke loose. My heart rate got irregular and my anxiety level spiked. For sure, underwater wasn't where I should be at the time. As for the ray, it docilely settled back into the sand where we'd found it, probably in righteous indignation.

Back on the boat my heart was still beating wildly. I'd been stung by lionfish and scorpionfish in the past, but this was a different level of physical distress, so I asked an ambulance to meet me at the dock. In the emergency room I discovered this kind of venom breaks down with hot water, so merely soaking the injured hand in hot water was about all the cure they could offer, and in a short time all was better. If it ever happens again, I'll go to the kitchen for hot water instead of heading to the hospital. But it was the interference with my heartbeat that had me concerned, suggesting that particular toxin affects the cardiovascular system.

This information about stingray stings is from the ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research web site:

"The venom is a fairly powerful nerve toxin which affects the heart in complex and dangerous ways. But like most fish toxins, stingray venom is a large protein that can be broken down by heat. First aid should begin with immersion of the wound in hot but non-scalding water (110 to 113° F) for 30 to 90 minutes. The wound should then be cleaned with soap and water and any broken bits of stingray spine should be removed; no attempt should be made to tape or sew the wound closed, unless necessary to stop excessive bleeding. If the wound shows signs of infection (redness, swelling, pus), administer antibiotics."

My adventure was with a much smaller ray than the smooth stingray (Dasyatis brevicaudata) that spiked Steve Irwin. His extremely bad luck was in where the barb lodged, actually in the heart. Having the venom injected directly must have been devastating. A good man's life cut too short by a tragic accident.

Working the Family Farm

by Stephen Frink
August 08, 2006

You never know what is going to arrive in the mail. However, if it is in the familiar blue-and-white envelope from American Express, I usually figure it is not good news. This time it was different. Along with my monthly bill was a travel incentive coupon featuring one of my images.

This was a meaningful image, not only because it meant that for once I might have about broken even on my bill, between stock photo revenues on the plus side of the ledger and credit card charges (mostly travel expense and camera gear to get the photos in the first place) dominating the minus side. However, the greater significance was that my daughter Alexa was the star. Well, maybe the stingrays at Grand Cayman's Sandbar were truly the stars, but our family was pretty proud of this, the first time Lexy ran in a national ad campaign.

When she was younger, Lexy never wanted to be in my photos, as it was much too boring to pose, or even hang out with Dad. Even when I explained that underwater imaging was our family farm and it was her duty to get out there and milk the cows, I think the analogy was lost on her. But, when I told her goodnight, I saw the ad taped to her wall among all the other souvenirs of an active 13-year old girl, I felt we had crossed a photographic milestone. --Director of Photography Stephen Frink

Praying for better digital images

by Stephen Frink
July 27, 2006

When praying for better digital images doesn't help, maybe its time to take a class? For two and a half decades I've been teaching underwater photography in my hometown of Key Largo. As recently as 2004 my students were still shooting film, but lately the classes have been 100 percent digital, and I've seen a significant improvement in the quickness of learning by students as a result.

The switch from film to digital significantly changes the way I teach. For one thing, workflow is a major component of education from the first day, because if students can't quickly get the images from their cameras to computer, and then converted quickly to JPG so we can do our daily critique session, the task load is far too heavy. So, we use Photo Mechanic as our preferred browser to power efficiently through the first edit, and then use the Photoshop CS2 Image Processor (file>scripts>image processor) to quickly resize to 1280-pixel JPGs for projection.

In the old days I had staff working overtime, nights and weekends, to process E-6 slide film and have it mounted in time for the class. Now, students return to the classroom after the morning dive, and by 3:30 that afternoon we are seeing the edited results of our Key Largo dives. We even have a Photoshop expert, Daniel Brown, on hand to give evening sessions of Photoshop skills specific to underwater imaging. Still, as heavy as computer skills have come to be, it is still about the art of underwater photography and the adventure of diving.

We go to the very best sites for whatever topic we happen to be shooting, aboard a private dive boat dedicated to our task. I only do these in the summer when the water is warm and clear (I'm no masochist ... I live here and can pick my good days), and because Key Largo has such a strong heritage of marine conservation, there are massive fish populations to photograph, as well as a great portfolio of historic shipwrecks, as well and those like the Spiegel Grove and Duane that were sunk as dive attractions.

By the time we wrap the Photoshop seminars at night, we are putting in 14-hour days between the diving and the classroom. But, no one's complaining, least of all me. These classes are great fun. Riding home from the City of Washington shipwreck today, where we had in-our-face nurse sharks and jewfish, I reflected about all the things in life people do to make a living. Diving and taking underwater photos beats most of the alternatives I can think of. --Stephen Frink, director of photography

Dive, Shoot, Learn

by Stephen Frink
June 5, 2006

Sunday--Today is the first day of my annual Digital Photo Course in Key Largo. There's a different twist on the event this year, because it's an Advanced Seminar, with a prerequisite of two years digital SLR experience to participate. Gratefully, all in attendance have been in my classes before, so it means we can move quickly into sophisticated subjects, and of course it's like diving with a boatload of friends as well. Tonight, Mike Mesgleski does a guest lecture on Apple's Aperture software, and Monday and Tuesday evenings are Photoshop lectures by Daniel Brown. We dive in the morning, and look at images and lecture in the afternoon. A very full week.

Every day presents new challenges that may not have come up before. Some we can fix on location--others are problems for the day. No floods, bends, or anything particularly troubling today. But we did have one shooter with a brand new Canon 5D in a Sea & Sea housing. We tried to shoot an exposure test on the first dive, and it just hunted for autofocus and would not lock in. I wrote on the slate "what lens?" "28-70" she wrote back. OK, easy to diagnose. Minimum focus about 18 inches behind an eight-inch dome with a virtual image at about 16 inches. A lens that won't focus on the virtual image created by a dome won't focus at all. It worked topside of course, but water interface made it impossible to focus out on the reef. First lesson of the week learned. To use that lens, it must be behind a flat port (no virtual image) or with a diopter to enhance the close-focus capability of lens.

Slick calm this morning and gorgeous. Time to go jump on the boat.

The picture above is from last week at Fire Coral Caves on Molasses Reef. Just goes to show why I love diving here in Key Largo in the summer. More fish than anywhere in this hemisphere probably, thanks to Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary programs, and the SPAs (sanctuary preservation areas). Factor in a couple of great shipwrecks like Duane and Spiegel Grove, and we ought to be looking at a terrific week. --Stephen Frink, director of photography

A New Favorite "Shooter" Mask

by Stephen Frink
May 19, 2006

Underwater photographers often obsess about the latest/greatest camera gear ... I know I do. But last week I had a chance to dive with a bit of personal dive gear that was a surprising enhancement to my imaging. Actually, it was something as seemingly simple as a facemask, but I was pleasantly surprised at what a difference it could make.I was at Anthony's Key Resort with the Scuba Diving staff, and territory manager Andrew Wiens had some new gear from Atomic Aquatics with him to try out. He asked me if I wanted to use Atomic's new mask, and I thought, why not?

Let's think about what most any shooter needs our of a mask:

• A black skirt - So light doesn't come in through the sides and bounce onto the viewfinder, much like view camera shooters wore black focusing hoods over their heads
• Silicone - Almost all masks are silicone these days anyway, and I really don't miss the days of black rubber masks as they eventually decomposed and left a circle of rotting detritus on my face after a dive.
• Low profile - The better to see my viewfinder LCD, my dear.
• Comfortable - I hate when a nosepiece jams into the bottom of my nose, or a mask is too low-profile and the ridge at the top compresses into my forehead at depth.
• Dry - Duh.

So, Andrew offered me the AtomicVision Frameless to try. Sure enough, it was comfortable, dry, and black-skirted silicone. But, I already had all that.

Something else really surprised me. Maybe it isn't an issue for everyone, but I wear reading glasses. Typically, I have a gauge reader in my mask so I can read the menus on my digital camera easily. However, being a borrowed mask, this one didn't have it, yet I got into a shooting situation (dolphins underwater when the sun went behind a cloud) where I had to change ISO underwater, normally a very visually challenging task for me without corrective lenses. Yet, I could quite easily see to do it! Very strange … it was like my visual acuity had improved with this mask. Like there was more contrast and less distortion too.

I asked Andrew about it back on deck and he said, "Oh yeah, they use really special glass in these masks". Wanting to find out what could be so different about the glass, I went to the Atomic web site, and here's what they say: ";UltraClear is a new and exciting optical quality glass with exceptional clarity and high light transmission, with no color distortion. The exceptionally high light transmission and lack of distortion in the UltraClear lens maximizes the light for improved visual acuity, especially underwater in low light conditions."

It was strange. "Visual acuity" were the exact words I used when I got back in the boat, and now later I see that's what they were striving for in the mask. Truthfully, it never occurred to me that there could be a difference in the glass in a mask, but I spend big bucks on the best coated glass for my lenses and the finest mineral glass in my housing ports. I don't know why I never realized the kind of glass used in my mask could make a difference too.

I don't know if it will make me pick out a pygmy seahorse on a seafan from 10 yards away, but I'm pretty darn sure the glass in this mask is better than what I've used before. I don't mean this to be a scientific comparison between all masks. This was a couple of dives last week, and my very subjective impressions. I mention it only because other shooters might appreciate the subtle enhancement as well, and sometimes the little things make the difference between getting the shot and not. --Photography Director Stephen Frink

Desperately Seeking Models

by Stephen Frink
April 12, 2006

I was shooting topside images for my recent Turks and Caicos coverage for Scuba Diving, and found myself around the pool at the Ocean Club at sunset. Taking pictures of people always adds a lovely bit of color to the coverage, so when I found three young men at poolside checking their e-mail on the resort wi-fi with their iPods plugged in, I thought it was a great metaphor for our connected lifestyle. Here they were, with a gorgeous sunset happening 100-yards away, and they were plugged in reading e-mails and news of the day from home, listening to the beat of a totally different culture.

At least that's how I saw it in my mind's eye. When I asked for permission, one of the guys at first said yes, and then he saw my camera and asked how much it cost. Apparently, $10,000 for camera and lens was beyond the threshold of "snapshot" to him, and he said "Sorry, dude. I'm under contract with Estee Lauder and I don't think my agent would like you to take my picture, not for free anyway".

Fair enough, as I really didn't want to intrude without being invited. His image, as it turned out, was a commodity he was used to getting paid for. But, then the next day I saw a young boy making a sand castle on the beach at Grace Bay. That too was an iconic image in my mind's eye, but when I asked his mother for permission to snap the shot, she politely declined.

I explained I was on assignment for a dive magazine and we were telling the story of "fun in the sun", but then I put myself in her place and thought about whether I would let a stranger take a picture of my daughter. Actually, no I wouldn't. There are too many strange people out there these days. I hope I don't give the impression that I'm one, but how is a parent to know? There was very little upside to giving permission, and significant downside to making a mistake.

The point of all this is that obtaining photographs of people on location is becoming more of a challenge. Between the legalities of the obligatory model releases and the almost automatic distrust of strangers, I am ever more appreciative of the kindness of my friends who do collaborate with me and allow their photos to become a part of my destination coverage. --Photography Director Stephen Frink

Right Place, Right Time

by Stephen Frink
March 7, 2006

When I'm not on assignment for Scuba Diving, I sometimes do freelance work for other magazines. One recent job took me to the Bahamas to shoot an over/under of a young boy for a new Disney magazine called Wondertime. The magazine is targeted to parents of small children, ages 3 to 5, and the assignment was to illustrate a segment called "Why is the ocean salty?". The magazine's editors would interview a child by phone and get his own words as to why the ocean tastes salty. My job was to shoot an over/under (housing half below the water and half above water). Sounded simple enough when we discussed it over the phone last month, but when you think of it, where can one go in February to get clear water close to the shore, sandy beach, and seas calm enough to shoot a split shot? My answer was only 45 minutes away from Miami International on New Providence Island.

I've been to New Providence many times on assignment. Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas has delivered plenty of shark shots for me over the years, and I've shot fashion campaigns there for clients like Rolex. This is also where I do the Shark Shootout each year so I know the diving end of things very well. But I had seen the gorgeous sandy beach on the other side of the island at the southwest tip (Lyford Cay area) and mentally stored the photo-op away until needed. The Florida Keys, where I live, doesn't offer the kind of water clarity I needed close to shore, nor do the Keys have a lot of sandy shoreline, so I knew I had to travel for this assignment, and New Providence was close and very inexpensive for travel.

Michelle Cove found the perfect Bahamian boy to model for us. Once Wondertime approved her selection, we had to pick a day to get the shot done. Choosing any single day in the winter and saying you're going to deliver an over/under starring a four-year old child is pretty ambitious, maybe even foolhardy. The sun has to be shining, the seas have to be calm and clear, and the child has to be willing to perform in the water. And I'd have maybe two hours to make it happen before I lost the boy's attention span.

By now you've probably figured out that I got the shot. If I'd gotten skunked, I wouldn't be writing about it. I'd even show the series here, but Wondertime gets first publication rights. Still, flying home I sort of marveled that we'd pulled it off. I was on the island for just over 24 hours, but it all came together. It could have been raining or blowing or the kid could have been crabby or my cameras could have malfunctioned, but none of that happened. Stuart Cove's favorite description for getting lucky on a location shoot is "blowing sunshine out your butt". I don't know if we did that exactly, but picking the right destination to begin with is the best first step. --Photography Director Stephen Frink

How To Get Closer Without Moving

by Stephen Frink
February 23, 2006

I typically use a Seacam housing when I'm shooting under water, and I am in fact the North American distributor for Seacam. Now, with that disclaimer firmly in place, I'll point out something that surprised me while testing out a new bit of gear last week in Papua New Guinea:

I had previously tested Seacam's Wet One diopter in St. Vincent. However, for this trip to Papua New Guinea I had the opportunity to test the new, more powerful Wet Two diopter.

As expected, it does render greater magnification. That's what it is supposed to do. Here are two examples of the Wet Two on a sedentary subject, first at 1:1 rack on a Canon EOS1DsMKII camera, and then with Wet Two added, and focus achieved by simply moving the camera until it popped into focus.

(Note that this is with a full-frame camera. Tighter compositions from an equivalent distance occur with a cropped sensor camera like the D2X.)

1:1

1:1 with Wet Two

1:1

1:1 with Wet Two

But, here is what truly surprised me. You can get "closer"! Well, not really, but it will look like you did. With skittish animals you can more easily fill the frame from a greater distance. Here's a fire dartfish I tried to get as close to as I could with my 100mm macro. This is not 1:1 because it would pop into its hole in the sand before I could ever get that close.

Here's the same fire dartfish from more or less the same working distance, but this time with a Wet Two diopter added:

I don't mean this to be a scientific analysis, because the fish may have gotten used to me, or I may have held my breath longer and been sneakier in my approach. Who's knows exactly why, but I know for a fact I could get head shots of the small fish on the reef with a Wet Two, while I was lucky to get full body shots with the 100mm macro lens alone.

While this observation relates specifically to the Seacam product, two other fine wet diopters include Woody's diopter and Backscatter's MacroMate . Each will have its own optical properties, but each is a very useful addition to the underwater photo arsenal. --Photography Director Stephen Frink

After The Flood

by Stephen Frink
February 8, 2006

It is 4:30 a.m. as Star Dancer gets underway to Papua New Guinea's Duke of York Islands and then on to the southern coast tonight. We had to restructure our first day at sea to accommodate bags that did not make it to Rabaul in time. No worries for some as we had good diving close to port for those who were lucky enough to have the clothes, cameras, and dive gear that inevitably had to be checked. Still, baggage arrival seems a more capricious event these days. We should plan more of our live-aboard trips with arrival a day early just to let bags (and sleep patterns) catch up. That, and traveling lighter should be our new mantra.

Speaking of traveling lighter, now just the second day into the trip one of my friends suffered a massive flood. A lanyard was inadvertently laid across the main O-ring, and when he snapped the back of the housing closed, there was just no chance the O-ring could do its job. The flood was catastrophic and immediate. Not to make light of his loss, but it was "only" a Nikon D100 and he had already decided to migrate to the D200. But, he lost his 12-24mm lens as well, and far more significantly, he has eight days of lost-forever photo opportunities.

I've been feeling his pain, and also newly aware of the travel conundrum we all face. We are forced to travel lighter by new airline regulations, and so the redundant back-ups we used to carry are left at home. In his case, the housing was dry and ready to go back to work 10 minutes after the flood, but the camera and lens were toast. He didn't have a spare D100 on board, and neither did any of the rest of us. We were all traveling with only one housing each, so there was no relief there either.

Unlike the old Nikonos V days, there is no universal spare that one can loan another. He could have borrowed a D2X or a Canon EOS1DsMKII from one of our friends aboard and gone back to shooting, but he got skunked on the specific camera he needed for his specific housing. With so many digital choices out there today, you have to be responsible for your own back-up camera. In the more than two decades I’ve been leading photo tours, this was the first time someone in the group wasn't able to come up with a solution to help a friend in need. I'm afraid it’s the start of a trend.

Of course, that's just another good reason to recommend a relatively inexpensive (see how desensitized the digital age has made us when $3,000, or even $1,600, is cheap) camera body like a 5D or D200 for underwater use. After all, for whatever camera you buy, you'll really need to buy two ... one for topside and to serve in case of flood or failure. Modern housings are very reliable and robust, but cameras are extremely unlikely to come back to life after a flood. --Photography Director Stephen Frink

A Little Light Airplane Reading

by Stephen Frink
February 7, 2006

As I write this, I've just finished the journey to Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, to join a photo tour aboard the Star Dancer. I've been to New Britain a couple of times before, once to Walindi and once to Rabaul, but then we dived the Bismarck Sea on the north end of the island. Almost two years ago at DEMA I ran into Captain Allan Raabe of the Dancer Fleet, and he and Peter Hughes told me about a new itinerary they had along the South Coast in the Solomon Sea. A voyage of discovery always appeals, so my travel company, Waterhouse Tours, booked the boat.

As much as I dread these long hauls, they do give me a chance to catch up on reading all the photo magazines I never get around to at home. I subscribe to maybe a dozen photo magazines, some I read faithfully, and most I skim. Probably the only two I really try to power through are Outdoor Photographer, and Digital PhotoPro. There isn't usually too much I haven't figured out by myself or read on the web by the time they come out, but they do tend to highlight issues that might have relevance for our little niche in marine photography. Here are a few things that caught my eye this time:

Outdoor Photographer: Bob Krist's article about the Inside Passage of Alaska. I made that trip once on Nautilus Explorer, running from Vancouver to Juneau, and for the combination of topside and underwater photography, it was one of the best. I haven't used my dry suit since, but just last week I was processing some of the whale shots to send to my stock agencies. That was a terrific trip, and really productive photographically.

Outdoor Photographer: There's an article about making better prints, and the top four points it makes about digital prints are:

• Calibrating your monitor
• Choosing the right color space (both are huge issues)
• Sharpening (I loathe the oversharpened pictures with obvious halos that so often get printed these days)
• Paper selection

Digital printmaking is quite an art these days, with massive variables between the digital capture and the ultimate print.

Outdoor Photographer: A first look at the Canon 5D. I think this is going to be a great underwater camera. Full-frame and 12.8-megapixel, so it offers similar performance to my $7,500 EOS1DsMKII body at half the price, and as significantly, a smaller package for travel. Ikelite already has a housing, with Seacam, Subal, and Aquatica almost ready with theirs as well. This, and the new Nikon D200, will be the hot new digital cameras for 2006 and the ones most likely to be housed.

This is a big year for camera introductions with PMA in Orlando first quarter, and Photokina this fall. Photokina is every other year in Germany, and I think the big announcements will happen then. I'm looking for a new flagship camera from Canon, maybe, and probably a D2X upgrade from Nikon. I have no specific insider info, but that's a fair assumption in the normal chronological order of things digital. I think there will be incremental improvements to dynamic range and image enhancement rather than huge megapixel jumps, but logically it will take some megapixel increase to motivate sales.

Outdoor Photographer: An article on monitor calibration. I think this is a consideration for anyone serious about their imaging output. It's surprising how few shooters truly embrace it though. In the "old" days of analog photography (4 years ago), calibration was a Schneider loupe and a good light table. Now we have to worry that those to whom we send digital images are seeing an accurate rendition of our vision. That means their monitor and viewing environment must somehow be standardized with mine. I think that all too rarely happens.

Digital PhotoPro: A nice article on what it takes to build a "pro" workstation in either PC or Mac format. The dual-core Mac sounds pretty amazing, and of course we're all eager to find out what performance enhancements come from the new Intel chips that are now propagating throughout the Apple line. The article makes a good point about the need for speed, as in more RAM memory. "The 512 MB of RAM that comes standard is woefully inadequate for digital imaging", it says. Amen to that! Multitasking with a variety of programs while Photoshop CS2 is open requires a couple gigabytes of RAM anyway, and it says 4 to 8 GB is optimal. Of course, it also says you should have data-redundancy backup via multi-terabyte RAID and use a pair of 30-inch cinema monitors too, so I take all that with a grain of salt. Remember back when it used to be all about which glass and what film emulsion?

I've been on a plane for 36 hours ... Miami to LAX to Brisbane to Port Moresby to Rabaul. I need a shower and a nap. But, at least I'm caught up on my reading.

I'm transmitting this by satellite phone from the boat. The dial-up service in Rabaul is sooooo slow I gave up. Makes you appreciate all those nice resorts back in the Caribbean that now offer wi-fi. Of course, thankfully, the remote and primitive still exists, which is why we are here. Also, thankfully, boats like Star Dancer are willing to spend $10,000 on a satellite system so we can send e-mails home and travel these islands in style. --Photography Director Stephen Frink