Weedy Sea Dragon

Blogged by Simon on August 01, 2009 1:19pm | Last updated by Simon on March 22, 2010 10:35pm | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

Weedy Sea Dragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus)Another gorgeous winter Saturday in Sydney today, 20 degrees celcius and sunny – off to the water! Instead of the planned 5 divers, turns out we were only two. What more can you ask for as a photographer? Yves threw us into Sponge Gardens again today, giving me an opportunity to hunt for Weedy Seadragons, and about halfway through the dive we got lucky in 13m of depth, where my buddy Fuji spotted one.

The Weedy Seadragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus), with it’s bright red body, has to be one of the prettiest, most colorful marine species in temperate Australian waters. A relative of the seahorse family, this species is endemic to the southern half of Australia, ranging from Port Stephens all around to Western Australia and can be found between 3 and 50m depth. They are actually rather hard to spot because of their fantastic camouflage which makes them look alike floating algae and have more of a muddier yellow tone when not flashed with a large strobe.

I took this photo with the 10.5mm fisheye lens that has a 180 degree field of view, so had to get within 10cm of the subject to get it this big. Aperture was set to f/8 to get the necessary depth of field, with 1/60s shutter time which is the floor of the TTL flash unit. After taking several shots, I found out by checking the histogram, that it’s very easy to overflash at this short distance and I turned the flash units further outwards, while keeping them within 30cm range, slightly behind the dome port. I have yet to find a silver bullet for flash adjustment, it is different for every lens I use – with the extremely large field of view of the fisheye lens, you end up with hotspots on the edges no other wide angle lens would be bothered with.

Post processing includes white balance and tonal adjustment for blue water, some backscatter removal with blur filter and clone stamp, and basic level adjustments. I also used dodge and burn in Aperture to model the tiniest amount of shadow around the edges of the subject to make it stand out better.

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  1. Grace
    on May 14th, 2011
    1

    Hey im only 12 year old but dont just ignore this emali please,
    im really interested in these amzing creatures and am just wondering if you could answer these few questions for me:
    1.I live in NSW Australia, and go to the beach alot and one time after a big swell i was going for a walk and was looking along the sure of the beach cause there was lots of things washed up and i found a orange seadragon is this unusual?
    2.Are seadragons a popular species? do you know when these creatures willbe extinct?
    3.I want to be a marine Bioligist when im older so i can see the amazing thing down below our worl and was wondering if you think its possible for me to become one cause apparently its just another litle kids dream like “i want to be a Princess when im older” is this true? or do you belive i can do this ?
    thanks for all your help :)
    byee

  2. Simon
    on October 5th, 2011
    2

    Hi Grace,

    sorry about the late reply I haven’t been spending much time on this site lately. I’m glad you enjoy the photos and are even planning to become a marine biologist! I’m not a biologist myself, but I have worked with some in the past to help me identify creatures.

    As for your first question, I wouldn’t be too surprised if you found one washed up at the beach. I usually find them in shallow waters, so they’d probably end up on the beach sooner or later. I am not an expert but I don’t think you should be alarmed about this if you see it happening only once.

    Seadragons to my knowledge are fairly common around Sydney and down the south coast, but they are an endemic species that lives only on Australia’s east coast and nowhere else in the world. I guess it’s up to us to protect them properly so they will be around in the future.

    Lastly, there is nothing that will stop you from becoming a marine biologist if you really want. Science is very cool, it helps us understand the world around us and it’s a great job to be a researcher!

    I wish you all the best,

    Simon

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