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Banded coral shrimp - A cleaner shrimp

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The banded coral shrimp, sometimes called the banded cleaner shrimp, is a small, colourful crustacean that lives in warm waters around the world and can be found in popular diving places such as Hawaii and the Caribbean.  They form mutualistic relationships with numerous fish species that allow them to clean them of ectoparasites.  The shrimp are rarely found alone and work in groups, setting up cleaning stations where vertebrates may come and be relieved of burdensome invertebrates. What I found even more interesting was that these cleaner shrimp will also remove dead tissue from injuries that facilitates healing in the wounded fish.  The shrimp will willingly inspect all outward parts of the host fish and will also examine the gills, mouth, and oral cavities.  They will remove food stuck in the mouth as well, functioning somewhat like a living toothpick. The cleaner shrimp tend to be nocturnal, hiding in darkened areas (often coral) until evening when they emerge to feed.  They are p
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My new favourite photo of Kathryn and how I got it.

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A windy day at the bow of the Ruby Princess It was a formal evening aboard the Ruby Princess and I wanted to take some photos of my wife, Kathryn.  I have many of her, so I thought that today would be good to do something different.   It was windy out, and the charging ship increased the relative wind speed to near gale proportions.  As we approached the front of the craft, her hair started to fly wildly all about.  This was the place. On manual exposure mode with a low ISO, I set my 24-70 mm lens to its highest focal length and its lowest aperture (f/4).  The day's brightness required that I shoot at 1/600th of a second, too fast for the external flash I was using.  So I turned on the high-speed-synch (HSS) feature on my camera so the flash would fire continuously through the exposure. Given the blustery nature of the day, I knew that a single photo wouldn't be enough.  I took quite a few shots; you can see some of them on either side of the central image.  Of them all, one tu
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The hard workers aboard the Ruby Princess

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A worker cleaning the Grand Hall at 3:00 in the morning I salute the hard working men and women of the cruise line industry.  They come from all over the world, each one looking to find work, possibly a career, and to help both themselves and their families have better lives.  It isn't easy, and many have to work long hours and are isolated from the passengers and passenger-areas aboard the ships.  They don't partake of the luxuries experienced by the guests and have a limited amount of free time.  But most of them wouldn't trade it for any other job they have ever had. I was photographing the Grand Hall aboard the Ruby Princess early in the morning before the place was crowded with guests.  While there, I met a gentleman cleaning floors and took some shots of him, asking permission first.  I also got quite a few photos of the hall itself without people; I used my 14-30 mm ultra-wide angle lens on a full-frame camera to get the three-story plaza in my viewfinder. As a teach
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Baseball invented in Polynesia - who knew?

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Lori with the first known baseball (left) and a Polynesian warrior (right) When the Polynesians arrived in Hawaii around 1200 AD, little did they know that they would soon be credited with the invention of baseball.   Besides chickens, the natives brought breadfruit plants with them.  The fruit grows to be quite large, up to 6 kg, but harvested early, the small fruit is hard and fits conveniently in your hand.  This was only one component of what was needed to complete the tools needed for the sport. The second component was, of course, the bat.  The Polynesian boy is shown holding a traditional  Niho Lei-o-Mano war club carved from Kao trees.  Popular for its ability to dissuade uninvited suitors from visiting daughters, it also had the ability to launch a hand-sized breadfruit a considerable distance.  It didn't take long before the breadfruit (bf) ball and club bat became well acquainted. Catching the bf ball was somewhat difficult; the course rind could cut up your hand should
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Using high synch fill flash to improve photos of people in Hawaii

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Lori and Kathryn at the Polynesian Village on Oahu The left and right photos above were taken with the exact same camera settings, only the left included light from a flash.  You can tell that the girls are in a shaded area as the tree above them reduced the available light.  I exposed for the background and took two photos, one with (left) and the other without (right) flash. In order to keep the aperture as low as possible (to maximize flash distance), I needed to use a shutter speed faster than the synch speed (1/200th of a second).  My camera has a high synch speed (HSS) function that allows the flash to fire at shutter speeds higher than the normal maximum synch speed.  By turning it on I could then shoot flash at shutter speeds higher than this.  Nikons use a menu feature called Auto FP.  You can see it in the image below. I shot the photo with a shutter speed of 1/640th of a second.  By turning on the auto FP mode the camera allowed me to use flash at the higher setting.  Withou
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High ISOs in low light situations

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Black tip reef shark photographed at Maui Marine Center, Hawaii. The above photo was shot with an ISO of 12,800, a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second, and an aperture of f/4.  Although high ISOs allow you to use decent shutter speeds in low light, the cost is digital noise.  This can be somewhat mitigated using in-camera high-ISO noise reduction filters and applying noise-reducing filters in post.  Even then, there is a price to be paid. Fine details tend to be erraticated when high ISOs are used, and noise-reduction software does little to bring it back.  What the filters do help with is the pixelated appearance and random colour noise that is associated with its application.  The end product is certainly better, but still not as good if shot under better conditions. Is it possible to take the same photo with a lower ISO?  The answer is yes, but again at a cost.  Like Newton's third law of motion that states every action has an equal and opposite reaction, there are consequences
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Black-crowned night herons in Hawaii

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I have photographed black-crowned night herons in Alberta and British Columbia, and for the second time now, in Hawaii.  While they are not terribly shy on the mainland, they are practically gregarious on the islands.  The term night heron comes from their tendency to eat after dusk, but on Hawaii, I have always found them foraging during the day.  It seems that they have forgotten who they are when off continent. When I researched the Hawaiian population, it seems my observations were right on.  The Hawaiian Department of Land and Natural Resources states that these birds are "gregarious" and "diurnal" unlike continental relatives.  It turns out that the night herons are indigenous to the islands and, as such, may have developed their own set of behaviours given isolation from North America.  Regardless of where they live, they are predatory birds that consume a wide variety of prey, both aquatic and terrestrial. This year has been a banner year for me in photograp
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