Did a couple of boat dives up to South Whidbey island in Puget Sound yesterday. Had perfect conditions and quite good viz. Site is called "Big Fish", I'd tell you where it is, but I'd have to kill you. We're keeping it under wraps so the hunters can't find it. OK, it's our favorite scalloping site as well.

Lots of large rockfish, schools of rare blacks; "Old School" Puget Sound. Of course we had perfect wide angle conditions with 35' viz, and I'm loaded for macro with my 60mm and Woody's...

I tried to work on getting black backgrounds with varying success. What's easy on a digicam with 1/2000th shutter sync is much harder on a DSLR with 1/200th. Lighting placement is critical, and I'm beginning to think about a shade or something to keep light off the background...anyone have ideas? I also tried shooting at my normal f/14-f/16 and then at f/20. I've noticed there is a noticeable lack of sharpness above about f/18 with the Nikkor 60mm macro.

We had a great day, my friend Steve tried an exploration dive off of Foul Weather Bluff to no avail. Then we went over to dive the ferry wreck, except i missed the wreck and swam around on the sand and concrete rip-rap that's there. WSDFG has put up a new "Artificial Reef" buoy, but it looks to be under construction; you can't tie up to it.



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