"Bonfire" Dive - East Bali

[bghazzal]

Here's a little something I shot over 3 "bonfire" (light-trap) style dives, a setup I've been experimenting with here on the shores East Bali's Lombok Strait.

Being alone in this venture, my bonfire setup is really basic, with very little lure lights to work with...
It's not really much of a bonfire to be honest, more a modest campfire than anything, but hey, it is what is is, right? 🙂

 

 

Despite being all on my lonesome with a very light-limited setup, these experiment have nonetheless been rather interesting, with some surprising encounters.

The dives also brought-up very video-centric questions on lighting power, positioning, spot focusing, and the relationship between video lighting’s constant light output and the lure lights, something I'll be developing in this thread (along with details on the lure setup used)

Please note that I shot in 30fps, because I don't have 4K 60fps on my compact, so this video is probably a little different from the ultra-slow motion often seen for such critters.
While I certainly do wish I had access to 60fps and its smooth 50% slow-mo for lightning fast subjects, I find I'm actually ok with a little erratic critter movement, as the real-life action itself is rather chaotic at times - let's just hope it won't have you reaching for dramamine pills... 😉

 

Equipment used:

- Panasonic Lumix LX10 (LX9/LX15 in some locales) compact camera  in a NALX10 Nauticam housing,  Inon UCL-165M67 +6 diopter

- 2 Kraken Hydra 8000V2 video lights
- Lures lights: Backscatter MW 4300 video light and Archon dive lights
- Shot in Amed, east Bali, in 4K 30fps, CineD profile, manual focus, 400 ISO
 

cheers!

ben

 

Edited October 5 by bghazzal

[Nikolausz]

I liked it a lot!!

[humu9679]

@bghazzal Pretty cool. I think 4k 30fps looked good. Do you ever shoot 1080 60fps? The music was fine and not a distraction.

[John E]

Great video, thanks.,, and wow, fascinating critters... also nice to see the activity in real speed rather than slow motion, and some great reference shots near the lights to show how busy it is. 

[bghazzal]

10 hours ago, Nikolausz said:

I liked it a lot!!

Thanks a bunch - it's still very fresh as I'm still figuring out what works best in this setting, but the fact that pretty funky critters showed up despite my modest lure-light setup was really a pleasant surprise.
Someone should try in a deep lake on a moonless night, just to see what happens (just saying 😁)

Edited October 6 by bghazzal

[bghazzal]

9 hours ago, humu9679 said:

@bghazzal Pretty cool. I think 4k 30fps looked good. Do you ever shoot 1080 60fps? The music was fine and not a distraction.

Thanks! I did try 1080p 60fps, but on my camera the drop in image quality is really too much I think.

Another thing that put me off is that while 60fps 50% slow-motion is great to extend the footage, critters that don't hang around and zoom in and out are usually too fast to get a clear motion at 50% playback, it wasn't as dramatic as I thought.
120fps would probably be the way to go for this kind of thing...

That said, if I did have 4K 60fps, I would definitely shoot in that, as it's more practical, but until we have a longer outlook on a place to base ourselves with regular diving opportunities, a kit upgrade (sweetly priced GH5 kit for instance) is off the financial and material books 😁
I'm already waking up in cold-sweat at the thought of having to do Bali-Okinawa with our luggage... 😅

[bghazzal]

7 hours ago, John E said:

Great video, thanks.,, and wow, fascinating critters... also nice to see the activity in real speed rather than slow motion, and some great reference shots near the lights to show how busy it is. 

Thank you. Yes, it was quite amazing to see who'd showed up on a shore dive. But the location itself is very rich, and facing 1500m+ depths in the strait.
What got me interested in giving it a go here is both the fact that weird larval critters sometimes show up on day dives and also the abundance of swarmies on certain night dives under certain conditions.

It's just scratching the surface, but from what I've seen there are regulars (different types of shrimps, worms, plankton and larval forms), and also more occasional visitors, including pelagic larva (marlin etc), which is likely due to proximity to the strait. 

Handling the swarming is tricky, especially for video, but good practice for deep black water diving.

I'm glad you like the speed - while it can be frustrating to lose details in the motion blur, I think it's also nice to see the actual movement and behaviour (downright odd at times with the spinning backflips), which is not something shown that often...

 

cheers!

ben