I wanted to try out something different so I decided to play with back lighting a bit and I hadn’t tried shooting the Canon MP-E 65mm at 4.x magnification so a day of diving in Palos Verdes sounded like a perfect opportunity for it.

I was going to focus on shooting Skeleton shrimps mainly but the conditions were too surgy and this Chromodoris macfarlandi was in perfect position. I could have easily gotten a black background since it was way up on top but as mentioned I wanted to play with back lighting.

Taken with Canon 5D MKIII with MP-E 65mm lens at 4.x magnification. f/16, 1/100th , ISO 320.

I would have been happier with a better composition with the entire nudibranch in frame but with the surge it was really hard and I didn’t even think about it. In the end, I am really happy with this shot and the detail I was able to get on the rhinophore.