I am still committed to photograph the underwater world on film, and although it is getting increasingly difficult to maintain a working Nikonos, everything was great with the camera when we were on Bonaire. So I am quite proud to share the photos below, I feel that I am improving with my underwater photography, and I hope to continue to improving getting the best out of film. I used a lot of Portra 800, giving me a bit more room with exposure values, but Portra 400 doesn’t disappoint either. By the way, you can click on the images to sees them full-screen, and click again to zoom in.

There was one time where I should have used an iso 800 film, but brought the 400. We decided to book a kayaking/snorkeling excursion in a mangrove, which was new to us. I thought Portra 400 was the best choice, since I wanted to photograph above water as well as below. But, and I could have known this, a mangrove is actually quite dark. It was so dark that I had to resort to exposure values of 1/15-1/35 sec with the aperture wide open. Given me a double challenge: very small depth of focus, and motion blur almost inevitable. But it was a great new experience, with the underwater world quite different with the roots under the water. Although the photos lack sharpness, you can see the colours of the algae growing on the roots. And the room between the roots function as nurseries, which makes fish easy to find.

When I say that I see improvement in my underwater photography, I don’t mean that I now shoot technically perfect images (as you can see from the Mangrove photos), or that I understand everything that happens. We visited a diving spot near a waste outlet from the salt fields. The extra large amount of salt in the water attracts turtles, making this spot a popular place. But I believe it is the salt in the water, diffracting the light, that causes the effect in the next couple of images. They are extra grainy, with a lot of colour-noise as well. The second image is much better, but still more grainy than what I am used to. If anyone has experience with this, or has a different explanation: I would love to hear your thoughts!

Next just a few more of my favourite images, showing how well Portra 800 performs in the Nikonos.

Finishing with a few black and white frames, shot on Adox Silvermax (and pushed one stop). Colour is the first and most obvious choice with all the tropical colours, but I do like these as well:

I realise that’s a lot of images, but it is so gorgeous under water that I just can’t choose 🙂 . As usual, all film was developed by me, and scanned on my Reflecta RPS 10M.

Thanks for reading!