Regal Angelfish

The Regal Angelfish, this one found at the Uepi dive site called BOTCH (Bottom Of The CHannel) is a fish I’ve been wanting to get a decent photo of for a long time.

It has beautiful colouring, and is not uncommon on coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific, but is quite shy and skittish. Its often found in crevices, and turns and runs at pretty much the first sign of a camera.

When you see one you get pretty much one chance.

For this image I saw the fish from a distance, so set up the camera and flash with normal settings. I captured a pretty good image, IMHO, but in the original there was a bit of backscatter. That was the price I paid to get the fish lit, so in Aperture I’ve used the blur brush to blur out the background to get rid of the backscatter.

The result is, I think, quite a pleasing image.