Inside Scuba Issue #49

AuthorAuthor

Andy Deitsch & Byron Conroy
December 14, 2025

Welcome to Issue #49 of Inside Scuba

Welcome to Issue #49 of Inside Scuba! This week, we're focusing on the skills that separate a good underwater photographer from a truly great one. In our photography tips article, Byron shares his key to consistent success: understanding and anticipating animal behavior to capture those unforgettable moments. We also continue our theme of photo contests, getting expert advice from Alex Mustard and Matthew Sullivan on what judges actually look for in winning submissions. Plus, don't miss our full resort review of Atlantis—a must-read if you’re planning a trip to Dumaguete. As always, we round up the most critical Dive News from around the globe, including tributes to legends and a recap of the latest incidents and gear updates. Dive in and enjoy!

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What’s happening in this edition?

Atlantis Dumaguete: The Ultimate Dive Resort for Underwater Photographers

Atlantis Dive Resort Dumaguete is designed for the underwater photographer, allowing you to be a photographer rather than a pack mule. The resort is centered around diving, but it has the amenities and logistics that let you focus on getting the best shots on your dive.

If you have a full camera system with a housing, strobes, multiple lenses, and accessories, then the resort's dedicated camera room, ample rinse and drying areas, comfortable accommodations, and personal dive operations mean that you can spend more time looking for the image and less time worrying about the little things, like where to charge your battery or dry your dome port.

This review is for the experienced shooter who just needs the facts on how the resort supports camera work, the best diving sites for photographers, details on the local geography and how it shapes your shooting opportunities, and, of course, the best way to get there from America and Europe. I will also share some practical tips and operational realities you should accept for planning a photography trip to Atlantis Dive Resort Dumaguete.

The rooms located on the beach of Atlantis Dumaguete

In each issue of our newsletter, we will curate some top dive news from around the world. Links to each of the original articles are available.

Divernet: “In memory of Bernie Campoli, Photographer/Diver extraordinary. Bernie Campoli is best-known for his work filming the ground-breaking Sealab I aquanauts in the 1960s, though for him that was just one of many memorable scuba-diving assignments. He died yesterday, and to mark this remarkable diver’s passing STEVE WEINMAN posts a previously unpublished extended interview with him from last year.”

NBC News: “Trump pardons 2 divers who freed 19 sharks off Florida. MIAMI — Two South Florida shark divers convicted of theft for freeing 19 sharks and a giant grouper from a fisherman’s longline several miles from shore have been pardoned by President Donald Trump. Pardons for Tanner Mansell and John Moore Jr. were signed last Wednesday. They had been convicted in 2022 of theft of property within special maritime jurisdiction.”

Divernet: “Female diver missing after Vandenberg wreck separation. An elderly female scuba diver has gone missing after becoming separated from her buddy in strong currents while diving the USNS General Hoyt S Vandenberg wreck off the Florida coast – the second serious incident at the site in a fortnight. The woman was named as 79-year-old Ellen Ruth Domb from North Palm Beach, Florida by Monroe County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), which described her as a 5ft 6in white female.”

Deeper Blue: “REEFLINE Installs Underwater Art Exhibit Off Miami Beach. REEFLINE recently launched “Concrete Coral” by Leandro Erlich, the inaugural installation of Miami Beach’s pioneering underwater sculpture park and hybrid reef. Installed 780 feet/238 meters from shore and submerged 20 feet/6 meters below the surface, REEFLINE transforms Erlich’s traffic jam into a poetic environmental warning. With over 90% of Florida’s coral cover lost over the past century, this new artificial reef answers an ecological emergency with creativity, engineering and civic imagination.”

Dive Magazine: “Garmin adds voice and photo messaging to inReach Mini 3 Plus. Garmin has announced the latest version of its compact satellite communicator, the inReach Mini 3 Plus, adding voice and photo messaging to the well-known SOS and tracking device.”

Divernet: “Antibes Underwater Festival creator Mercier dies. Daniel Mercier, the founder of the long-running and influential World Festival of Underwater Images (FMISM) – known to many scuba divers as the Antibes Underwater Festival, or simply Antibes, long after it had moved on to Marseille – died on 27 November in that south of France resort at the age of 94.”

Deeper Blue: “Scientists Partially Disentangle North Atlantic Right Whale. Researchers recently worked to partially free an entangled North Atlantic right whale off the Georgia coast. The researchers were in the process of documenting a North Atlantic right whale calf — the second of the season — off the coast of the Georgia/Florida border when they received a radio call about the entanglement, which wasn’t very far away. Part of the line was embedded and cut deep into the whale’s flipper and also wrapped around its head, mouth and into the blowhole, the scientists found.”

Dive Magazine: “Egyptian Ministry of Tourism says visa fees remain unchanged. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism has said that the cost of its standard tourist visa has not risen from US $25 to US $45, in what would have been the first rise in more than ten years. Following reports in various media outlets that the fee increase had been approved by President Abdel Fattah al‑Sisi and would come into effect immediately, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said on Monday that the rumours were ‘completely unfounded’.”

Divernet: “Trapped shark bites diver trying to help it. A diver has been bitten while trying to release a blacktip reef shark from ghost-fishing gear at a site in Hawaii. Hawaii Island Police responded to the incident at Kaalualu Beach, a popular location for marine-life encounters on the west coast of Hawaii’s Big Island, after receiving a call at around 4.30pm on 9 December.”

Deeper Blue: “New Stony Coral Described In The Deep Ocean. An international team has described a new deep-sea stony coral, Deltocyathus zoemetallicus. The new species has been found attached to polymetallic nodules in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone (CCZ) at a depth of 4,150–4,250m/13,615-13,943ft. This is the first hard-coral species documented living directly on these slow-growing, metal-rich nodules, which are targeted for deep-seabed mining. The coral is an azooxanthellate scleractinian and survives by capturing drifting particles in total darkness.”

Divernet: “Irish diver’s death down to natural causes. An inquest has concluded that 49-year-old scuba diver Patrick Doran, who died during a dive off the coast of County Donegal in north-western Ireland last year, suffered a heart attack unrelated to the dive itself.”

With competition season underway, we turn to the experts for advice. Following our contest preparation feature in the last issue of Inside Scuba, we are now sharing an episode of the Underwater Photography Show on a similar subject. Join us as Alex Mustard and Matthew Sullivan discuss exactly what judges look for in contest-worthy images.

How To Pick Underwater Photography Contest Winners

By Alex Mustard and Matthew Sullivan

In this episode we're focusing on a topic we get asked about frequently: how to choose pictures for photography competitions. While competitions aren’t the ultimate goal of photography, they’re a great way to gain recognition and open new opportunities, and we hope you find our insights useful.

We believe underwater photography contests are valuable for the community, offering drive, purpose, and goals. They’ve grown more popular in the social media age, partly because they provide a platform to share achievements, but also because social media likes are a poor judge of quality. Contests offer a more objective measure of progress, with rewarding prizes like trips that can offset travel costs for dedicated photographers. While there are some downsides, we’re focusing on the positives today, like the motivation and rewards they bring. [1:03]

Choosing the right contest is key. Not all contests suit every photographer, so we recommend researching them carefully. If respected photographers aren’t entering a competition, it’s worth investigating why. Studying past winners helps you understand a contest’s focus—whether it’s artistic, wildlife-focused, or wreck photography—so you can align your entries with their style. Judging is subjective, so entering multiple images across various contests over time helps balance out the subjectivity and gives a better gauge of your work’s impact. [2:36]

How Understanding Animal Behavior Can Improve Your Underwater Photography

Underwater photography can be described as a balance of technical precision, environmental awareness and a good dose of luck. When you look at the work of the best photographers they seem to have all the luck, more than most of us could dream of, they capture the perfect moments of the best creatures, but is it just luck?

Ask any serious underwater animal shooter what really separates consistent results from occasional successes, and they will usually give you the same answer. Understanding behavior is the key. Light, composition and equipment matter, but your ability to anticipate what an animal will do next often determines whether you walk away with a forgettable frame or an image that resonates with the viewer long after they saw it. Behavior is the difference between simply encountering a subject and truly photographing it. When you learn how animals live, move, react and interact, the entire underwater world becomes more predictable, and the opportunities for compelling images multiply.

Capturing these two clown fish protecting their eggs isn’t a lucky shot; it’s understanding and predicting the behavior.

Knowing Where Animals Live

One of the most practical benefits of understanding behavior is that it helps you find animals more efficiently. I recently took my first ever trip to the Philippines. After telling my macro guide I had never been there, he was surprised to see that I was able to show him subjects and find things he had not seen. Every species has a preferred habitat. Shrimp gobies pair with burrowing shrimp and settle on patches of rubble or sand where the substrate is soft enough to dig. Ribbon eels favor sandy slopes with adjacent coral heads where they can retreat quickly. Ornate ghost pipefish can often be found in crinoids where they blend in. Pygmy seahorses are only found in muricella sea fans. These patterns are consistent and reliable, which is why your macro guide seems to have the best eyesight in the world. He’s looking for the habitat, not the animal

Our Video of the Week is another video from the SHARK BYTES channel. This time, shark scientist Kristian Parton dives into the secret social order of scalloped hammerhead sharks and why they structure their schools.

Summary

Whether you're planning your next submission for a major contest or simply hoping to capture that perfect, memorable shot, we hope this issue has armed you with valuable, actionable insights. The difference between a simple encounter and a truly captivating photograph often comes down to understanding behavior, a theme that runs through several of our features this week. Thank you for being a part of the Inside Scuba community. We'll be back in your inbox soon with more news, tips, and inspiration from the underwater world. Until then, happy diving!

Andy & Byron

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