Houston's Premier Scuba and Dive Shop Oceanic Ventures Inc.

(713) 523-3483 (dive)
5808 Newcastle Drive
Houston, TX 77401

Sealife

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Photo Tip – Using Your Smartphone’s Camera Abilities

By Tobias Friedrich

Using all of the available features of your camera or phone will result in better images of your dive as well. For instance, it’s always a good idea to use the different lenses of your phone correctly for the particular subject. For large animals it’s of course better to use the wide-angle lens, for medium subjects and best quality of the image, use the standard lens. And for smaller subjects, like this Lionfish, it’s ideal to use the tele lens.

Equipment: SportDiver housing with iPhone 12 Pro Max using iPhone Tele Lens

If you’d like a copy of the above underwater image, please email: lindsay@pioneer-research.com

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Using Lights to Capture Best Color

It’s very important when underwater to compensate for the missing illumination from the sun. Using high-performance underwater lighting like the Sea Dragon lights, the powerful and color-friendly lights will illuminate the missing red and orange colors from the beautiful reefs for your eyes and your camera. The closer you are to the corals, the better the colors will come out. [Tobias Friedrich]

Equipment: SeaLife Micro 3.0, Sea Dragon 3000F

Settings: Deep Water White Balance

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Scuba Diving from the Dumaguete Pier in the Philippines

Topside, this was the most unimpressive dive site I’d ever seen, with docked cargo ships and unpleasant noises and smells of industrial activity. Descending to the sand at about 20 feet did not prneude much inspiration as we were greeted by some rusted cans and a baby’s diaper (used, apparently).  I was left wondering why the boatload of experienced divers and divemasters was so keen on this site.
Dumaguete is on the Bohol Sea in Negros Oriental, Philippines, approximately 30 hours from Houston via Honolulu, Guam and an overnight in Manila. It is an absolutely fabulous dive location, at the northern portion of the “Coral Triangle”, the region of the greatest coral reef biodiversity in the world, and therefore well worth the arduous trip from Texas.
False Cleaner FishThe pier at Dumagute was no exception; it turned out to be the richest site of photo opportunities and encounters with weird and wonderful creatures in Negros Oriental. In this photo I was lucky to capture some very interesting behavior between 2 similar looking fish species, and equally fortunate to have Marco Inocencio from Atlantis Dive Resort interpret the activities. According to Marco, the larger fish in the hole is a false cleanerfish (Aspidontus taeniatus), while the two smaller fishes that are shown in full view are cleaner wrasses (Labroides dimidiatus). The larger fish is a mimic; it’s actually a member the blenny family who is posing as a cleanerfish in order to take bites of skin and flesh from other fishes looking for a cleaning. The false cleanerfish is distinguished from the cleaner wrasses by its head, which ends in a “nose” with its mouth slightly under and behind it while the heads of the cleaner wrasses terminate with their mouths. If you look closely enough you’ll see the characteristic pouty lips of the false cleanerfish, presumably because she isn’t much appreciated for her clever disguise and food-gathering methods!