This was inspired by a friend who loves the critters and wanted a range of my shots to frame and put up on various walls in the house.
Here are a couple for show but the the full set is up on my flickr site.
Nudibranchs (pronounced new-dee-branks) are underwater slugs. They contain an immense range of patterns and colours.
You do not need a large expensive digital SLR to get shots of nudibranchs. The macro function on a standard point and shoot will allow you to get close enough. Simple post process cropping will often allow you to overcome some compositional challenges that you may have had underwater.
To compose nudibranch photos the aim is not to try and get the camera in front of the animal and try and get the body at a bit of an angle. Get the camera down to the animal's level - try to avoid the overhead shot.
The main post-processing function I use on nudibrach shots is the High Pass filter in Photoshop. By applying a High Pass filter at a radius of 3-4 pixels, you achieve a nice selective sharpening that removes the natural blur produced by the column of water. This sharpening brings out the features in the antenna, gills and patterns on the animal.
The next step then requires you to ensure the High Pass filter only applies to the nudibranch. To do this you just need to mask the animal from the rest of the background.
If you dont do this then you will bring all the detail out in the sand or coral. By allowing the natural water blur to apply to the background and the animal to be super sharp the image pops out nicely.