Schooling Pyramid Butterflyfish

Blogged by Simon on November 21, 2009 3:32pm | Last updated by Simon on August 14, 2010 5:51am | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

Schooling Pyramid Butterflyfish (Hemitaurichthys PolylepisA common find in Wakatobi and the most abundant species of the Butterflyfishes, the Pyramid Butterflyfish (Hemitaurichthys polylepis) can be found in large schools at walls.

These were going on about their business at Fan 38 East on our afternoon dive. While they are exceptionally pretty in their colorful display and schooling behaviour they don’t like divers very much and I had to give up on my attempt of taking a photo of them against the blue water column, so I settled for a photo against the reef where they sought protection. I am typically not a huge fan of fish against reef shots, where it is difficult to tell any subject from it’s background, but this one worked out nicely to my complete surprise.

I color corrected the cyan tones in the original for a more pleasing blue and bumped up red and yellow saturation. I was also tempted to remove the fins at the top left in Photoshop, but ended up leaving them in there as they don’t disturb me that much. Finally, I used the foliage filter in Color Efex Pro for Aperture to enhance the yellows in the foreground.

Camera settings: f/13, 1/60s, ISO 200 +1EV manual flash.

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