Just about the easiest fish around the UK to photograph....that is if you can find one these days thanks to our crazy fishing policies! Very docile and just lies there unless you accidentally touch it. Can grow to about 50kg and has been observed to take seabirds off the surface - which it does in one gulp. You have probably all eaten it - it is incorrectly marketed as "monkfish". I refuse to buy it as it is on the Marine Conservation Society's Red List and is seriously endangered.
The annoying things in the foreground are brittle stars and the purple patches on the rock is an encrusting algae called lithothamnion (although an algae it rather remarkably has the consistancy of concrete)
North Sea, July 2006, Canon 5D, Sigma 50mm macro, 2 strobes, ISO 50, f16 @ 1/60
Oh bugger I've eaten one, well we live and learn. Amazing camo looks to be covered in lichen, fantastic clarity again is this a function of strobe power? Must be strong ISO 50 at F/16.
Great work.
Tim
Posted by David Taylor on April 13, 2007 at 6:51 PM
Well caught (photographically speaking). Perhaps seeing this fish might put people off from eating it - I hope so. Keep on posting these excellent underwater images.
Answers to various questions
Brian: Yes angler fish are commercially called monkfish in the UK. Just the tail is eaten and 75% of the fish is waste
Jack: There are lots of fairly similar fish, particularly very deep water species, commonly called angler fish. Yes light fall off is the water mopping up the flash - the most powerful flash will not penetrate much beyond 2m in water
Tim: this is a small specimen and I am pretty close. The strobes are on 50% and 25% power respectively. One of the benefits of digital. When I was on film I would have done this at 50 ISO, f11, 1/60th, full and half power on the flashes. Amazing how much less light I need now.
Very nice... keep them coming, always a pleasure to view these images from our coastal waters...
Posted by Alan Bryant on April 16, 2007 at 7:43 AM
Great shot
Jim have you any tips on taking under water shots ?.As a lady i work with is undertaking a course on how to take shots like what you are posting(she's a qualified diver).She asked me, but seeing that i've never done that sort of photography i could'nt help.
great subject, not unsimilar to the scorpionfish, i wonder if they were related in times past? do they walk on those fins? 50kgs that must be scary on a night dive...
im looking forward to getting in the water in the uk this year, i hope i can find some similar beasties down here in the south.
Discussion
9 repliesThe annoying things in the foreground are brittle stars and the purple patches on the rock is an encrusting algae called lithothamnion (although an algae it rather remarkably has the consistancy of concrete)
North Sea, July 2006, Canon 5D, Sigma 50mm macro, 2 strobes, ISO 50, f16 @ 1/60
Great photo by the way, nice to see some of our other types of U.K species.
Brian
nice shot too, the flash does seem to drop off a bit but im guessing this is because it is underwater and there is not much you can do
Great work.
Tim
Brian: Yes angler fish are commercially called monkfish in the UK. Just the tail is eaten and 75% of the fish is waste
Jack: There are lots of fairly similar fish, particularly very deep water species, commonly called angler fish. Yes light fall off is the water mopping up the flash - the most powerful flash will not penetrate much beyond 2m in water
Tim: this is a small specimen and I am pretty close. The strobes are on 50% and 25% power respectively. One of the benefits of digital. When I was on film I would have done this at 50 ISO, f11, 1/60th, full and half power on the flashes. Amazing how much less light I need now.
Jim have you any tips on taking under water shots ?.As a lady i work with is undertaking a course on how to take shots like what you are posting(she's a qualified diver).She asked me, but seeing that i've never done that sort of photography i could'nt help.
hi jim,
great subject, not unsimilar to the scorpionfish, i wonder if they were related in times past? do they walk on those fins? 50kgs that must be scary on a night dive...
im looking forward to getting in the water in the uk this year, i hope i can find some similar beasties down here in the south.
mark