Underwater Photography

This package suits photographers using everything from a compact Olympus TG-5 on a macro setting to full-frame DSLR rigs. The setup also works well for couples where one person shoots and the other just wants to dive. The macro sites on Mabul and Kapalai let you move at a slow pace. You have time to adjust your strobes and compose the frame while your buddy explores the surrounding reef. You can dive Sipadan in the morning to capture the large pelagics. You then spend the afternoon searching for rare invertebrates in the shallows. The variety keeps both wide-angle specialists and macro divers busy for a full week.

Sabah Parks issues 254 Sipadan permits a day. Diving here offers wide-angle scenes and massive schools of fish alongside macro subjects on the walls. You need confident buoyancy control because the walls drop 600 m into the deep.

Barracuda Point

Skill level: Confident AOW | Depth range: 5–40m+ This site is the ultimate wide-angle environment. The resident chevron barracuda tolerate divers and often tighten into a defensive column when the current runs. You should dive this site early in the morning when bumphead parrotfish herds are most reliably seen and incoming currents often condense the barracuda. Down-currents are a known factor here so instinctual buoyancy control is required. Fisheye lenses help capture the true scale of the schools. Managing heavy strobe arms in strong currents is physically demanding. Many professionals rely on ambient light and custom white balance in the brightly lit shallows.

The Drop-Off

Skill level: Newly Qualified AOW | Depth range: 5–40m The topography here is a famous vertical wall dropping directly into the open ocean. This site offers excellent wide-angle opportunities shooting upward to capture resident green and hawksbill turtles silhouetted against the surface. Whitetip reef sharks rest on ledges. The navigation is straightforward and the currents are typically gentle. It works well in the mid-morning or afternoon as a relaxed follow-up to the high-energy points.

Hanging Gardens

Skill level: Newly Qualified AOW | Depth range: 5–40m A sheer vertical drop heavily terraced with deep undercut crevices. The site earns its name from dense cascading curtains of pastel soft corals and enormous purple gorgonian sea fans. You should go in the mid-morning to early afternoon when the shifting sun angle directly illuminates the intricate textures of the wall. The classic shot involves framing the soft corals against the sunlit surface.

North Point

Skill level: Confident AOW | Depth range: 25–40m+ This deep wall receives the main oceanic currents hitting the island. Pelagics often pass this wall including massive grey reef sharks and giant trevally. You need strong drift management skills here. Reef hooks are practically mandatory to hold your position to shoot the passing sharks.

Turtle Patch

Skill level: Newly Qualified AOW | Depth range: 5–12m A sunlit shallow reef plateau highly decorated with massive overlapping Acropora table corals. This site offers an unmatched density of resting and grazing green and hawksbill turtles. It is exceptional for non-strobe ambient-light wide-angle photography. The turtles are habituated and allow close wide-angle approaches. Be sure to settle low in the water column and remain static to avoid disturbing them.

Diving in Mabul and Kapalai offer a stark contrast to Sipadan. These sites focus on extreme macro subjects living in the sand and rubble.

Crocodile Avenue

Skill level: All levels | Depth range: 5–20m This site off Mabul sets the global benchmark for classic muck diving. You dive over gentle slopes of natural volcanic sand to find seahorses and garden eels. Flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi) can be found patrolling the open sand during daylight. You must approach low and slow to capture its aposematic colours during a hunting strike.

Paradise 1 & 2

Skill level: All levels | Depth range: 5–18m These house reefs sit right off the resort jetties on Mabul. The substrate is a mix of sand, coral rubble and artificial reef structures. You dive here at dusk to look for mating mandarinfish (Synchiropus splendidus). The site also holds ghost pipefish and juvenile cuttlefish.

Semporna Straits

Skill level: All levels | Depth range: 5–30m This area involves diving in a soup of silt and anthropogenic debris near the mainland. The visual contrast is extreme. You photograph jewel-like biological perfection thriving among discarded tyres and bottles. Operators document astonishing concentrations of well-camouflaged fish and sea slugs here. You can find extreme micro-species like the Ruby Stiliger or the Gold & Gemmy Melibe. The dive pace is extremely slow to allow photographers unlimited time to frame these minuscule subjects.

Mainland Muck

Skill level: All levels | Depth range: 5–30m If you want true macro rarity you can dive the mainland muck sites to find the critters of Semporna. The substrate is dense silt mixed with terrestrial runoff. The area serves as an evolutionary incubator for extreme micro-invertebrates. You can find rare nudibranchs like the Tiger Trapania or the green juvenile Notodoris gardineri. Optical snoots and heavy diopters help isolate these tiny subjects against a black background. Be sure to maintain perfect buoyancy to prevent silting out the site for other photographers.

A dedicated photography week requires the right base to manage camera gear. Borneo Divers Mabul Resort features a climate-controlled camera room and nitrox to extend your bottom time. Mabul Water Bungalows offers nitrox to 100% O2 and spacious villa suites where you can charge your batteries. Seaventures Dive Rig provides a platform reef where you can do night diving in Semporna under the rig lights to hunt for groupers and bioluminescent ostracod displays.

If you prefer a sandbank location Sipadan-Kapalai Dive Resort sits over a clear shallow reef. There is no land beneath it except at low tide. You step straight into the water from the dive centre to shoot the house reef. You can also do a dusk mandarinfish dive here at 17:30.

A typical photography package balances pelagics with macro. The team steers you to the resort and package that guarantees your Sipadan permit days. A guaranteed Sipadan permit comes by combining the right resort, dive package and minimum number of nights. Which dates can be guaranteed depends on the resort you choose.

Your Sipadan days run from early morning until the afternoon. A Sipadan permit day gives 3 dives if you stay on Mabul or Kapalai or aboard the Celebes Explorer and two if you stay on Mataking or Pom Pom. You look for wide-angle shots of sharks and resident turtles in the clear blue water.

On the macro days you stay local to dive sites around Mabul and Kapalai. The pace slows down completely. You might spend an entire 60-minute dive moving just 10 metres across the sand to frame a single frogfish or blue-ringed octopus. The day often finishes with a dusk dive to look for mating mandarinfish.

Packages typically include your accommodation, meals, boat transfers and your diving. Nitrox is available at several resorts to give you longer bottom times on the macro slopes. Sabah Parks requires an Advanced Open Water certification or equivalent to dive Sipadan. The team briefs every diver on emergency arrangements at booking.

Micro-muck diving depends on careful movement. Perfect buoyancy is mandatory to protect the fragile micro-fauna. Photographers must never move animals to improve a shot. When you dive Sipadan's walls you must anchor exclusively to dead rock if you use a reef hook in the current. When night diving you should avoid shining strong torches directly into the eyes of sleeping turtles. Be sure to maintain a strict horizontal trim above the staghorn corals to prevent catastrophic fin strikes.

Diving happens all year. The best visibility runs from March to October. Mid-February to mid-November is good diving with softer visibility at the ends. Sipadan is closed to all visitors every November 1–30 to let the reef rest. Mabul and Kapalai stay open so you can still book a dedicated macro week in November. Water temperatures sit reliably at 26 to 30 °C year-round.

• Macro & Muck
• Sipadan Classic
• Borneo Divers Mabul Resort
• Kapalai
• When to dive Sabah

Send us your dates, the names of everyone coming and your certification levels. The team comes back with what can be arranged for your photography week.