Underwater Videography - Above and Below the Banda Sea

Above & Below - Banda Sea from Behind the Mask on Vimeo.

Underwater Impressions Filmed Around the World

Underwater Footage Showreel ( demo reel ) from Undersea Productions on Vimeo.

Marine Wildlife of Socorro

Socorro Solmar V from Darek Sepiolo on Vimeo.

Galapagos - Underwater video

Galapagos 2010 from Darek Sepiolo on Vimeo.

Underwater Macro Photography in Cabilao, Philippines

Recently I spent a couple of days on Cabilao island in the Philippines.
I was diving with Sea Explorers who has a very good infrastructure to serve the needs of underwater photographers.

Cabilao is located at the west side of Bohol island facing Cebu island. The reefs around Cabilao are rich in coral growth and macro life. But, accidentally you can also spot bigger marine wildlife such as mobula rays, eagle rays, turtles, or sharks.

The dive sites around the island offer lots of opportunities.

And there are several places to see for example several species of pigmy sea horses (hippocampus bargibanti in different colors, hippocampus denise).

Currents are quite predictable in the area so that dive guides can very well adapt to skill of divers, or whites and interest of their guests.


There can be found some very rare to spot species too.

The pigmy sea dragon, or pigmy pipe horse on the right is only one of them.

This is a species incredibly difficult to photograph.
It is very small. The sea dragon shown here was not longer than 5 mm and constantly moving.

This one was living in a coral hidden in a little cave where it was hard to position camera and strobes.
The hardest part is actually finding the subject in the view finder of the camera, or if you are using a compact camera on the display.

Another one is the harlequin shrimp. Almost impossible to be successful with this one if dive guides do not have a spot where they know that it is staying.

This one was feeding on star fish and living quite local.

Also here, the photographic challenge was to get the right point of view and correct positioning of the light without destroying the reef.


Taking macro pictures under water needs patience, good diving (buoyancy) skills, a buddy assisting, and most important diving in a very small group. There is nothing more annoying than photographers queuing behind subjects and stressing each other to get equal exposure to opportunities.

More images can be found at my website at www.andreasrmueller.com

Philippines: Underwater Photography

Today we are off to the Philippines for another underwater photography trip. - A long flight with two flight segments.

As written in an earlier post "Thresher Sharks at Malapascua" one of our goals is to capture some thresher sharks at the famous spots in Malapascua.

But there is much more the area around Cebu has to offer for underwater photographers. In the interest of our limited time we decided to focus on only one second destination which is the island of Cabilao, south of Cebu City. There is a series of very promising dive sites around Cabilao. Here a listing of sites by local dive operator Sea Explorers - link.

Let's find out what the destination has to offer.

Underwater photography - Thomas Peschak

An impressive TED Talk by Thomas Peschak on his experience as an underwater photographer.

The talk features some of the most impressive pictures of manta rays feeding in the Hanifaru Bay on the Maldives and many more.

Pilot whales in Raja Ampat

Raja Ampat, the center of the coral triangle, the area with highest marine biodiversity on earth, is an exceptional place for underwater photographers and underwater videographers. But sometimes, given by the unpredictability of nature some of the biggest marine wildlife spectacles can best be captured from the air.

Watch that exceptional movie of a large school of pilot whales taken - probably by the owner of the Pindito livaboard, Edi Frommenwile!

The Majesty of Manta Rays

Manta rays belong to a family of eleven species of plankton eating rays. Nine of them are mobula rays while only two are manta rays. The two manta ray species being the giant oceanic manta (Manta birostris) and the resident reef manta (Manta alfredi).

The oceanic manta reaches 7 m in width while the reef manta reaches 5.5 m. They are dark brown or black on top while mostly white underneath. With this colouring they are well camouflaged in the water both when spotted from the bottom against the bright sky or when viewed on from the top against the dark background of the deep sea.

Manta rays are an endangered species listed in the "vulnerable" category of the red list of the international union for conservation of nature. Primary threat is fishing bycatch. Among other threats is deterioration of their habitat and unregulated tourism. Pollution of the oceans, floating waste, and disturbance by mass tourism are main reasons for manta populations to disappear.

The infographic on the right shows the fisheries value of a dead manta compared to the value of a manta alive over its entire lifetime. Hence, the economic value of controlled and mild tourism is by orders of magnitude higher than the direct fishing income.

There are several conservation organisations taking care of manta rays specifically.

Manta watch: this is a project which found a low-cost solution to collect data around manta occurrence by collecting photographs from scuba divers world wide including location of where pictures have been shot. Identifying unique patterns on the mantas' skin allows to keep track of manta movements. - For all the scuba divers, please contribute your images of manta rays to this innovative project and help to enrich their database.

Manta trust: this is an organisation doing research around manta rays raising awareness and providing education to the genreal public and community stakeholders.

Manta pacific research foundation: is a research foundation to study manta rays in their natural habitat.

Manta ray at dive spot Magic Mountain, Misool Raja Ampat

Manta rays are majestic swimmers and very photogenic. However, they are difficult to capture unless one is at a cleaning station in the reef where they happen to stay a while for removal of parasites by other smaller reef animals.

Manta rays are rather shy animals. Hence, it is difficult to get into a situation where they come and stay close enough for a spectacular underwater photography.

Collection of manta ray images at 500px

Since manta rays are plankton eaters also visibility in the water is usually not too good upon manta encounters which is another challenge for an underwater photographer.

A selection of my own manta pictures can be found at: link

A search at 500px yields more than 300 underwater images of manta rays. Some of them are really spectacular!

Mark Erdman on the marine biodiversity epicenter

A very interesting talk by Mark Erdman on the epicentre of marine biodiversity.



Mark Erdman @ ADEX 2014 from Wetpixel on Vimeo.

Bali - Underwater photography

Underwater photography from my last trip to Bali.

Staying at Alam Batu Beach Bungalow Resort (http://www.alam-batu.com) we explored a series of spectacular, mainly muck dive sites in the area.

Bali 2014 - Images by Andreas Mueller

Raja Ampat 2012

Another spectacular underwater photography trip aboard the MSV Amira (www.amira-indonesia.com) goes to an end.
The ten day cruise started and ended at the harbour of Sorong in West-Papua, Indonesia.
In between we visited the most exciting dive spots around the Kri and Mansuar islands, in the area of Penemu, the muck diving area in the south of Batanta, and spots in the south east of Misool.


Marine Wildlife - Raja Ampat - Images by Andreas Mueller

See my new book: The Heart Of The Coral Triangle

The present book is a photo report of a scuba diving exploration tour aboard the MV Raja Ampat Explorer in the Raja-Ampat and Triton Bay area in West-Papua, Indonesia. The tour took place in April 2009.

Starting point was the harbour of Sorong located at the north western tip in the indonesian part of the New Guinea main land.

The tour brought us to the most beautiful dive spots of Misool. From there via the Pisang Islands, Momon Waterfall and Kaimana to the Triton Bay area.

Triton Bay offers some of the most spectacular dive spots on earth by means of its marine biodiversity.

After exploring the islands around Triton Bay for a couple of days, we crossed the Ceram Sea again to reach Koon Island in the Banda Sea.

From Koon we transfered back to Misool and from there further north to Kri in the Raja Ampat area before ending our tour in the harbour of Sorong again.

The Heart Of The Coral Triangle by Andreas R. Müller | Make Your Own Book

Underwater Impressions - Maumere to Ambon

Marine Wildlife - Maumere to Ambon - Images by Andreas Mueller

Global Epicenter of Marine Biodiversity

Looking forward to our next scuba diving expedition to the parts of the global epicenter of marine biodiversity.

See some older impressions:

Marine Wildlife - South East Asia - Images by Andreas Mueller

Diving in Papua

Find some of my images from my 2009 West-Papua scuba diving trip on:
Diving in Papua

More images on:
my photoshelter page