Hello! This is my “action blog” and from now on I’ll be posting about the day by day of my photography world! Today would like to post some images of a my first attempt with my new D800 housing. As I was short in money, I went to a river, close to home, with some interesting creatures to challenge the autofocus of my old (vintage?!) Sigma 105mm macro. This was also my first try with the D800. High expectations.

Mangrove river in the low tide and not a very convidative wheater.

Shooting in rivers is not very easy, since you have to be aware with lots of things:

First check the rapids. Sometimes you can get shelters to protect from the rapids…sometimes, no! Do not attempt to shoot those tiny catfishes in the middle of the white water. You housing thanks you.

Shooting somewhere in the amazon forest.

Than, check for any problems “out” of water: boats, people or animals (there are two jaguars, with collars, in the area I was shooting). Last but not least, be carefull where you are putting your self in. No tech diving setups; if you don’t want to be hooked but the trees and branches. This is very important. You can get really stucked with a two arms housing, plus the pipes from your BC..in less than 2 mts of water. Please: no sunscream, no spray and no oil ( in the boat, skin or equipment). Thatecosystems are very very sensitive to this things (consider that it already copes with tons of other thins that you can’t see.)

Green water and lots of structures for animals to hide: macro photography!

We also tryied some night climbing, but the water was not clean enough and the tide was very strong at the time.

Night diving in freshwater is always interesting.

Underwater bromélia in high tide, at a night diving.

After half an hour on a hippie canoe and excited by the clean water, I went to try some mangrove wide angle. Frustrated. Without the sun, that would be a macro day. Put the wide dome to rest and went on my 105mm with a +4 closeup.

I’m just a wanna be blue lobster having my lunch! just get lost.

Went to try some shrimps, as a warmup for the small fishes.

Freshwater shrim in a 105mm macro and f2.8 : very collorfull animals.

The whole thing of this trip was to take a picture of a tiny Poecilia that i’ve seen years ago.

Phalloceros harpagos. Took me 8 years to ger a decent housing and take a picture of this.

The females. In this Poecilia specie, they swin together and the young females kind of protect the pragnet ones.

The fish is very small and the males are very shy. While the females wades around in small schools, the males swims alone and are difficult to find.
To finish, I went on the mission of taking a nice gobby portrait. This fished never stop and wouldn’t let me take a decent picture. They feed from particles in the substrate, so there’s always lots of suspended sand over their eyes. Missing, were the white mullets and the snooks, that due to the low tide, were into more salty waters.

A shy gobby camuflates over the sand.

Good bye mr. Shrimp: not easy to shoot auto focus with and old lens.

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Underwater adventures in the Atlantic forest: A day shooting at a very clean mangrove river in Brazil.