Malpelo Expedition January 2024

[Guest]

Unexpectedely (the strobe trigger broke) this turned out a video trip without lights

Interestingly the hammerheads hate lights and strobes and take time to come close when they hear a noise or a click the turn back

Difficult conditions and visibility around 10 meters best case

 

 

 

[Architeuthis]

What lens did you use? WWL-1 or fisheye with TC??

 

Wolfgang

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Architeuthis said:

What lens did you use? WWL-1 or fisheye with TC??

 

Wolfgang

WWL-1 for most photos and all videos and I was at 30-50mm frequently the hammers do not come as close as you may think

24-70 would have probably been as good except with the current it is better to have a smaller port and the WWL-1 is perfect. I had to remove water bubbles each dive but I am used to it

Importantly I shot with the red filter but then removed it because the custom white balance of the A1 is amazing

Edited February 18 by Interceptor121

[SFEgr]

Great, thanks for sharing! quite liked the soft backgrounds in many of the sequences.

[Guest]

On 3/4/2024 at 7:42 PM, SFEgr said:

Great, thanks for sharing! quite liked the soft backgrounds in many of the sequences.

Visibility was low so things were blurring away naturally put it that way including a thick green thermocline

 

In hindsight it would have been better to shoot rec709 amd not log anyway...

[Ajay]

Thanks for the video, gives a good idea of Malpelo, diving and above. I like that you left the beeping of the computer telling to to ascend towards the end 🙂; if my computer was programmable, I'd have this beep replaced by the *knock* *knock* It's time to go (from Pink Floyd's Bring the boys back home) on a loop..

[Guest]

On 3/13/2024 at 2:38 AM, Ajay said:

Thanks for the video, gives a good idea of Malpelo, diving and above. I like that you left the beeping of the computer telling to to ascend towards the end 🙂; if my computer was programmable, I'd have this beep replaced by the *knock* *knock* It's time to go (from Pink Floyd's Bring the boys back home) on a loop..

That beeping is actually a fast ascent beep. I use a Suunto Vyper with super conservative model so I get in essence plenty of mandatory stops if I do not do deep stops (which I do)

Sometimes I need to follow fish and I want to know when am going fast (but not too fast the ascent rate is super slow)

[Kraken de Mabini]

Lovely video, most enjoyable !  The natural light makes it even better. 
Thank you for posting it.

[Guest]

On 3/15/2024 at 8:52 PM, Kraken de Mabini said:

Lovely video, most enjoyable !  The natural light makes it even better. 
Thank you for posting it.

Thank you. Looking at the skittish behaviour of those hammerhead and how bad they reacted to the minimal noise made me wonder about the whole strobe paradigm.

For sure with baited dives and sharks travelling to the food a few flashes and video lights on a bright scene seem not to matter

However for genuine wild hammerheads in a natural setting not used to the presence of divers it seemed a whole world different and to be fair the fish was out of reach of strobes for most of the time and did not come closer than 2 meters

[Dave_Hicks]

I have been to Hammerhead locations in Cocos and Socorro with CCR only groups of divers. They hate bubbles and come much closer when Open Circuit divers are not making a racket. I don't think that strobes have nearly as much influence.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

I have been to Hammerhead locations in Cocos and Socorro with CCR only groups of divers. They hate bubbles and come much closer when Open Circuit divers are not making a racket. I don't think that strobes have nearly as much influence.

I have seen footage one strobe shot and they flick 

i think is the sound of shutter/ strobe more than light

The shark immediately turns