Last Wednesday, September 1, 2010, my dive buddy Rob and I went for a dive at the Superior Producer wreck. The sea was very quiet because of the presence of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. That made it very easy to enter and exit the water. I went with my camera with wide angle lens to make pictures of the wreck using the external strobe. Normally I use ambient light on this wreck; in that way I am able to get panoramic pictures of the wreck. Today I wanted to do it differently. And with a completely different and in my opinion very pleasing result.

Using the strobe in combination with the wide angle lens I was still able to get large views of the wreck although not as wide as without the strobe but because of the right amount of white light to compensate for the lack of certain colors due to the filtering through the water the wreck shows its true colors. And that is when this wreck shines. It is covered with a wide variety of sponges with a wide variety of form and color.

With the camera on full manual settings and also the flash on manual I was able to get the correct lighting for a blue background from the ambient light through the exposure time and the correct lighting for the sponges and wreck from the strobe through the aperture of the lens. A delicate balance but with an eye-catching result.

On the way back to the shore I found a nice Giant Barrel Sponge in a nice setting with a gorgonian and a bit farther an Anemone with a cleaning shrimp.