Sweet Button-eyed Creatures: My Love Affair with the Florida Manatee

Carol Grant · Issue 41, Mar/Apr 2008 · pp. 40–45

Products mentioned: Nikon D200, Subal Housing, Nikon 16mm f2.8 FE lens, Sea & Sea YS-110, Tokina 10-17mm f3.5-4.5, Sony P-10, Fuji F-810, Inon Wide 105AD lens

“Sweet Button-eyed Creatures”, that was my husband’s remark after he had his first up close encounter with our beloved Florida manatees. It has now been a growing passion of mine for over ten years to communicate the details of their fascinating lives and my heartfelt desire to help protect manatees so their future survival and quality of life is assured. My “quest” to tell the manatee’s story and convey my deep affection for them took a huge step forward when I procured my first underwater DSLR setup in 2006. Actually, I got some quite acceptable manatee photographs before with a digital point and shoot Sony P-10, then a Fuji F-810 in manual mode with Inon wide 105AD lens. But most important - I learned “how to” find, photograph and act around the manatee gradually, first with a small photographic setup and then with a little larger one, so that when I initially took down the Nikon d200…