Sharing photos from my trip to French Polynesia

[Leejnd]

I just returned from a wonderful vacation to French Polynesia, and I thought I’d share with my SoCal dive pals some of the shots I took while on that trip. Hope y’all don’t mind my indulgence!

I worked with Scott Geitler of Bluewater Photo to pull together my camera rig (to replace the one I lost in Cozumel last year – some of you may remember that horrible story!). I also took an underwater photography class with Scott which involved some classroom time, and some time in the water to practice what I’d learned. Here's the results. I’m THRILLED with the photos I got, and of course thrilled with the diving!

These shots were all taken with an Olympus E-PM1 mirrorless camera in the Olympus housing, two Sea & Sea YS-01 strobes, and various lenses including a Dacron +7 67mm macro lens, and a Panasonix Lumix G Fisheye 8mm/3.5 lens (with the Precision dome designed specifically for this lens with this housing).

Disclaimer: I’m still very much a novice at underwater photography, so you will not be seeing anything in the quality range of some of our fabulous photographers who bless this forum with their photos. But I think they’re not too shabby for an amateur like me.

Our trip involved a few days on Tahiti and Moorea, with an 11-day cruise on the Paul Gauguin cruise ship in between. Our trip started in Papeete, Tahiti, and our first dive was with Top Dive at the Intercontinental. It was a shark-feeding dive—which we didn’t know was going to happen until we got out there! I realize that feeding sharks for the enjoyment of divers is a controversial topic, with some feeling that it’s unnatural and wrong to teach sharks to expect food from humans. But after speaking with a marine biologist on our ship, she made the point that many feel that the benefits of educating people about the plight of sharks outweigh the negatives of feeding a very tiny fraction of all the sharks in the sea. I see both sides.

The boat dropped a cage filled with large tuna heads into the water outside the reef, then dropped us upcurrent from it. The coral is all pretty much dead here, but this dive was all about the sharks! Here’s Charlie crouching behind some dead coral, with the first wave of swarming sharks behind him:

Here’s the DM opening the cage:

Once the cage was opened, a shark would pull out a fish head and then the others would attack him, and they would all go spiraling up to the surface in a wild chaotic confusion of bubbles!

Next dive was in Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands, diving with Raro Dive. Here’s a lovely Christmas tree worm, which are so hard to get because the moment you get your camera anywhere near them they quickly suck themselves into a hole in the coral! I snuck up on these guys.

And a few more Rarotonga critters:

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Next was Bora Bora, where we did three dives with the Paul Gauguin dive crew – two in the morning, and one at night. Here we got our first glimpse of lemon sharks, which look WAY more fearsome than those plain ol’ reef sharks in Tahiti!

This remora (suckerfish) took a shining to my husband – I think he thought Charlie was a shark, and he wanted to attach himself to his belly!

I saw so many eels on this trip, they took to calling me the Eel Whisperer. Here’s a white-mouth eel posing for me:

One of my favorite sights were the giant anemones with the families of clown fish living within their protective fronds:

Saw some VERY interesting creatures on our night dive:

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Next dives were in Moorea, diving with Top Dive again. I was astonished by the luminous red color of the anemones:

Here I saw my first octopus of the trip:

And a crotchety-looking scorpion fish:

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Well I have a few more (and some of the best ones!) but it won't let me add them because it's too many images for one post...and Scubaboard now combines multiple posts from the same person. I'll post the final ones later (if somebody responds to the thread, so that I can!)

 

[NAUIWOWI]

Here you go- I would love to see more photos. Very nice pics, vibrant colors, nice composition. Did you do any post-processing?

 

[Rainer]

So far, like what I'm seeing!

 

[Leejnd]

Well alrighty then! Ask and you shall receive!

I did minimal post-processing. I do shoot in raw, and then process in Lightroom. Mainly I just did some cropping, and in a few of the photos I adjusted the white balance and enhanced the clarity. I really should go back and do some spot-removal - on some of the shots you can even see spots that must have been on the inside of the housing. But I still have to finish the post-vacation laundry, so I haven't bothered.

So, continuing in Moorea...This eel was very tiny and hiding in a hole, and I can’t seem to find any info on what he is. The DM said he’d never seen one like this:

These fire dartfish were almost impossible to shoot! The moment I would get anywhere near, they’d disappear into holes. But they were gorgeous, and there were always two of them, so I was determined to capture a shot. It’s not a great shot because I was pretty far away, but it’s the best I could do.

And then I saw this spectacular octo, who I swear was posing for me! And color-shifting before my eyes:

There were lots of lionfish:

I really wanted to find a stone fish, but they are SO hard to see! Fortunately Charlie spotted one:

And a lovely sea turtle resting her head:

Finally, this was the biggest freakin’ eel I’ve ever seen! Its head was far bigger than Charlie’s. The bicolor cleaner wrasse on the side of him was busily plucking at parasites, which was fun to watch:

Thanks for looking at my photos!

 

[TSandM]

I don't think you should apologize for any of those pictures! There are some really nice captures there -- for example, the peacock grouper, because those guys are SO skittish and hard to shoot. And that's a beautiful slipper lobster!

I did the same trip and the same dives, and your photos make them look much better than I thought they were

 

[deeper thoughts]

very nice

 

[Leejnd]

Thanks Lynne! Yeah, I was a little concerned after you told me that the coral was really diminished since the last time I did this trip (in 2006 I think). And it was...especially at Bora Bora and Moorea. (Tahiti already had mostly dead coral, but their claim to fame these days apparently is these shark-feeding dives.)

But the difference on this trip was visiting the Cook Islands - FULL of live, healthy coral! In fact here's some thriving coral in Rarotonga:

It's important to note that the coral in FP is simply not that brilliant, colorful stuff you see in the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean - it certainly doesn't measure up to, say, Cozumel or Bali. But it's still beautiful, and you just gotta look a little harder for the interesting critters. In Bora Bora it was all about the lemon sharks during the day, and of course the night dive, where all those fabulous critters came out (and I have dozens of more shots of night-time critters!). Moorea was probably the least interesting, but that's all relative: even our WORST dive in Moorea still had fantastic things to see, including all sorts of colorful reef fish, eels, and lemon sharks.

 

[blue steal]

Thanks for posting LeeAnne, you have some very nice photos.
Oh and welcome back to the cold water diving.

 

[Leejnd]

Thanks for posting LeeAnne, you have some very nice photos.
Oh and welcome back to the cold water diving.

Ugh, don't remind me! LOL it was SOOOO nice to dive in 81 degree water, lemme tell ya. And to be in 3mil shorties! What a joy. But let's not forget how awesome the diving is around here.
:cold:

 

[bperc]

Very nice photos. The photo of the peacock grouper is great. I never could get one in Maui. They would dart in and out of the coral before I could get a good shot. Thanks