Golden Damselfish

Blogged by Simon on January 17, 2009 4:44am | Last updated by Simon on April 19, 2010 11:11am | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

Golden Damselfish (Amblyglyphidodon aureus)On the last day of our recent trip to the Barrier Reef on board Spirit of Freedom, we dived a site called Snake Pit which is located west of Lizard Island. Despite the name, we had very little sea snake turn out and decided to venture off looking for macro life instead.

Snake pit has several smaller bommies in about 10-15m depth and we were rewarded with plenty of Anthias (Pseudanthias sp.), Unicornfish (Naso unicornis), a Titan Triggerfish (Balistoides viridescens) and this Golden Damselfish (Amblyglyphidodon aureus) that was seeking shelter underneath a Gorgonian fan. I pulled up the camera away from the animal and approached carefully not to scare it, taking a series of shots as it left the fan (for better negative space), which it never did for very long.

The picture was taken at ISO 800, f/16 for 1/160s in manual mode. I adjusted the white balance in Aperture to get a cooler color temperature, which I like with the blueish background contrasting the bright yellow subject. I adjusted yellow levels and saturation to improve the details of the lateral pattern and recover some blown out highlights. Finally, I burned the background around the edges and blurred the texture of the rocks to make the subject stand out better.

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