bghazzal

A few Andaman Sea liiveaboard boats that used to go to from Thailand up to Myanmar/Burma (leaving from Phuket or Khao-Lak/Tap Lamu or Ranong used to organize blackwater dives - my wife did one on a trip to Myanmar on a trip she worked the Andaman Queen, and otherwise the Smiling Seahorse used to do regularly them as well. I doubt the trips are running with the ongoing situation in Myanmar, so not sure what the blackwater status is. Maybe it's possible to do blackwater on the Thai side, in the Similans/Surin islands, but it's fairly shallow, and night diving itself really wasn't a highlight when I was working there...

Various types of Shaun the Sheep / Costasiellidae nudis are found in the Tulamben area as well, it's actually one of the more common nudis out here. I'm sure Ajiex will have no problems finding them for you, and probably lots of other, rare nudis. It is seasonal, but the Shaun the Sheeps are year round 🙂

Unfortunately not for west Bali / Permuteran and Menjangan... My mandarin-fish data is pretty limited... other than Bunaken mentioned above, we did have mandarin fish for a while under staghorn coral in Siaba Besar (central Komodo) when I was working there, and more recently loads of very easy to spot mandarin fish in Palau (just outside Chandelier Cave, in 5m of water, way more than in the so-called "Mandarin Fish Lake"). Won't be much help for Bali though...

On the other hand, you do have places like French Polynesia (Rangiroa, Fakkarava) or even Palau (reef sharks for the most part, but also bullsharks and oceanic black tips on the spawning dives, and the odd tiger at German Channel), where sharks baiting is illegal, yet where sharks (and related dive tourism) play a major part in the local economy. Same goes for the hammerhead schools and sharks in the Eastern Pacific or the Banda Sea for instance, that attract a lot of divers to see sharks in unbaited, more pelagic settings, or even the (slightly iffy atm) oceanic white-tips and other sharks encounters of southern Red Sea itineraries, where shark expeditions are run quite regularly. In the end, it really depends on the type of sharks you want/expect to see - baiting focuses on attracting mostly larger, more pelagic species that are more difficult to see in a non-baited context (with a special focus tiger sharks and bullsharks, great hammerhead or even great whites for the now banned Isla Mujeres operations etc). As a slight counterexample to this "fundamental economic principles", there are Marine Protected Areas - these can do a lot for rebuilding the ecosystem, and while enforcement of the MPA can be an issue, they probably do more good than baited diving operators do, especially on the long term. The Misool Eco Resort in Raja Ampat was built on what was primarily a shark-finning camp, and shark populations did rebound after the establishment of the MPAs - sure, we're talking reef shark here, but this does not mean there aren't bigger pelagic sharks around. However, you will probably not see them. This is normal - the bigger, pelagic sharks which are the stars and highlights of chummed-dives are actually around in quite a few diving areas that do not practice such baited/chummed shark dives. If you could bait/chum in Palau, you would surely get all the bigger sharks as well - fishers or people looking for whales on the outer reefs see silkies, tigers, great hammerhead, bulls, oceanic white tips and black tips - they're definitely around. But just not on the main dive sites. Same goes in many diving areas, even Bali's Lombok strait, off the macro-focused Tulamben area actually has its share of big sharks, fishers on rumpon fish aggregating devices see tigers, hammerheads and more - a random great hammerhead showed up on a Tulamben dive site last month. They're around, and baiting/chumming would most likely work, for instance, even in a place where (now illegal) shark-finning is still a major, ongoing issue. Bigger sharks play their role in the ecosystem, but are not generally seen by divers, for behavioural and habitat reasons. I hear the conservation argument (basically: if it wasn't for the chummed shark dives locals would be shark fishing/finning), and I'm also with you in that it's not for me. As for the only protect what we know, can experience and love idiom, we need to remember also very good at commodifying natural highlights, and in a bigger picture, the impact of such a commodification of ressources can also be quite high, and the conservation argument can easily turn into some sort of self-justifying greenwashing. Seaworlds and similar venues have long used the educational agreement to justify their debatable practices, such as the captivity of large marine mammals, for instance. Sure, shark chumming is not the same thing, but even if the animals are not less fascinating when they have been baited, divers have to keep in mind that they are taking part in an artifical animal-encounter activity which is repeated daily, sometimes multiple times a day, with a definite impact on animal behaviour. As often, the frequency of the event is key - same goes for touching marine fauna and flora, fish feeding - the impact of such micro-events might be relatively small, but exponentially amplified if repeated daily on a large scale. Practically, when I see behind-the-scene footage of divers kneeling in front of the chum buckets waiting to take pictures in Fiji or the Bahamas (or the "shark scramble" in Japan's Chiba prefecture...), I know deep down this is not an experience I would want to be a part of, regardless of how cool the end footage would be. Even more "open water" settings like blue shark dives in the Azores or shark dives off Cabo San Lucas are not super appealing to me to be honest... I get it, but don't really want to do this. I would much rather pay to try to see a few seconds of a baitball in Bahia Magdalena for instance, or cross-finger to hammerheads in Alor or the El Bajo in the Sea of Cortez (to give a sad example of dwindling shark populations, primarily due to poor handling of the shark breeding area...). But then again I'm not a fan of zoos and aquariums as well, and consider that when it comes to animals and fauna spotting, diving is (and should remain) more a gamble than a fully-marketable, bang-for-your-buck experience. I personally hit my limit when I was working in the sea of Cortez and doing California sea lion dives daily. Sure, it was taking divers to a sea lion colony (rather than artifically attracting them), but it started to feel like I was working in a zoo, and that made me increasingly uncomfortable, and realise that this was not really the kind of diving experience I was interested in facilitating, regardless of how fantastic the sea lions are (they are!). Returning to shark dives, (so-far) more "unintentionally chummed" (tuna fishery) tiger dives in the Maldive's Fuvahmulah sound a bit more fluid, as it's taking advantage (again, for now) of an existing man-made situation. I think the bull-shark dives in Cabo Pulmo are similar. Same goes for observing mantas at cleaning stations, which, if done reasonably, doesn't really have the same impact as light-pooling (plankton aggregating) operations for instance. As with most conservation issues, it is far from black-and-white, good/bad, but chummed dives are taking the diving experience in a direction that I'm personally not interested in - again, regardless of how amazing the resulting footage of animals that would not be encountered otherwise would be - and find that the conservation argument is also somewhat debatable.

Found this source in France: https://www.plongimage.com/lentille-macro-ucl-g100-sd-inon-pour-gopro.html https://www.plongimage.com/lentille-macro-ucl-g55-sd-inon-pour-gopro-1.html Otherwise I would get in touch with Photodenfert, they do sell Inon lenses and can probably place an order for you: https://www.photo-denfert.com/ cheers b

cool! the manta pics at the end are in Maamigili right (South Ari atoll, island with an airport)? I've guided there many times when I was working there and the table corals to the slope are quite remarkable. Apparently the site was rubble only a few years back, and now the table corals are (almost) all over the place. It's also a shark cleaning station, got silver tips a few times, bigger than the usual grey reefs!

Wow, really great footage indeed from Team River there! The AOI lens is definitely on the wtb list, when I'll update the action cams. Do you think it could it could be made to fit on the dive housing of the other action cam contender's nsta 360 Ace, or would that be asking for trouble?

Argh - post swallowed by the forum.... retype... Indeed, indeed... I was thinking on inside the actual lens, which might not really be visible from the outside. Weight pulling on the cover, changing exposure to temp, something like that.... Is it a new issue with the waterproofing? I've snorkeled many times with the GoPro7 without the protective lens cover, never had issues. You need to remove the protective lens cover to use the dive housing, so I just got rid of it altogether. If it hasn't changed too much, the lens was actually screwed in, and goes quite deep inside the cam. I changed the lens of my useless GoPro6 for a 3rd party non- distortion 3.37mm lens, and was worried about loss of waterproofing. But when you unscrew the GoPro lens (don't do it, you will need to adjust focus manually afterwards which is tricky), you realise it's quite sturdy. On the previous models (up to the 7), this is what the actual lens looks like bare: (great little product this btw, a 3.37mm non distortion lens by Mapir / Peau Production, good stuff : https://www.peauproductions.com/collections/gopro-hero-7-6-5-cameras-and-lenses/products/3-37mm-f-2-8-87d-hfov-16mp-br-no-distortion-hero-5-6-7?variant=39863341285463 )

I see I see. Very mysterious, this fogging issue. If it's only with the AOI then the only further speculation I can offer would be that the weight of the lens is pulling on the protective lens cover as you'd already figured out, and this is still happening, over time during the shoot, despite all the care taken on setup. Maybe this is generating a greater temperature differences with the lens somehow, and generating fogging inside the lens. One way to test this crackpot theory would be to remove the protective lens cover on one of the other gopro to see if this generates fogging as well no warp-free pans and fly-bys on the gopro then eh... Good chance the lens helps a bit though, we'll see!

That is very nice indee, crisper and sharper ❤️ I know you're shooting on a tripod at a fixed angle here, but really looking forward to seeing some pans and camera motion with the new lens config, as this was where the GoPro angle warping was/is generally really bad Your blur issue is odd indeed - could it be an internal lens condensation issue because of the temperature difference between the cam and the environment when shooting for extended durations?

Out of curiosity, would anyone know what cinema camera is it seems to be mounted on here? Housing looks like a RED Digital Cinema V-Raptor housing - not sure if the lens here is the FCP-1 (or is that the WACP-2?), but if it is indeed, I would love to see some video footage shot with this combo!

A further issue is that Apneagraph is actually trying to do the transfer without downloading the files to the phone (Ideally, without having to use the phone as an intermediate storage ) which would mean simultaneously recognizing two peripherals, and doesn't seem to be possible on a phone in general. One possible workaround would be using an SD to Micro-SD adapter as a card reader on a phone with a micro SD card slot, while connecting the SSD OTG, but iphones have never had SD cards slots.

I see - might be tricky without transfering the files to the phone first. Apple support has a workflow here where you connect the camera in reading mode to the iphone, transfer the files to the iphone, then transfer the files from the phone to the SSD (using the Photos app) https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph480caa1f3/ios Tricky not using the iphone as an intermediate storage, as you would need to get two drives connected recognized. Even the Android workflow i posted used the phone as intermediate storage (which is probably safer). It would be easier if iphones had SD card slots (in which case you could try with an SD to micro SD adapter)... Major issue is that it doesn't really look like it's possible to simultaneously connect two actual drives to one iphone... Maybe a cheap working option would be to get a dedicated Android phone just for that, or use that old Android tablet of yours.

I use a laptop so no direct experience but remember reading of an interesting phone-based workflow a few months back. Here is a copy paste: I have a pair of 64GB SanDisk Extreme Pro (300 MBs) cards in my GH5. Like all of us, I try not to video just anything whilst underwater, obviously, but still with my usual GH5 codec with a bitrate of 150 Mb/s I reach about 10-15 GB of data if the dive is good. Carrying even a small computer on a trip is a headache due to luggage restrictions. I do love new bits of tech, but.... the solution I've found is way cheaper than this lovely-looking Trainer. I just put my camera in playback mode and connect it via USB-C cable to my 3-year old Samsung phone (A71). Both cards then show up in "My Files". I can then copy files to my phone, where I have a 256 GB micro SD card + internal storage. Once that's done, I "unmount" the USB connection, then connect a tiny Samsung 1TB SSD drive (80 euros, same as each of my SD cards), also via USB-C and transfer the camera files before deleting them from my phone (apart from any pictures I want to edit and share). The transfer rate seems to be just under 1GB per minute of footage. So for a full "64" GB card (in reality something like 59) the entire operation would take about two hours I think. However, if I just do it at the end of each diving day rather than waiting for a card to be full it's not a problem. On a liveaboard, it's basically the time to have a shower, dinner + a beer. I guess the transfer would be faster with a newer phone. original source

The insta360 Ace Pro is surely interesting, but lacks most manual functions which make compact cameras so interesting for our purposes (especially aperture control, which is set at 2.6, zoom lens and more). This definitely places it the action-cam category, I think. So called "point and shoot" compact cameras are a dying breed, choice narrowing down to action cams and phones or bigger, interchangeable lens cameras (M4/3 and up). Here are some videos on the subject. It's a shame, because in our beloved underwater photo/video niche activity, full manual controls, a zoom lens and a bigger sensor definitely still have a role to play... At least still shooters have the Olympus TG series as some sort of hybrid - for video, much less options.

Darn, now you both have now got me jonesing for an AOI lens I don't need at the moment.... That is pretty much spot on 😆

Great news for the AOI, finally something which can help with the corners then. I've also tested cropped wide in the past - while it's certainly done with a sensor crop, there's something else at play when switching fields of views and the fisheye-style distortion is difficult to correct in post. It's clearer on land footage comparisons vids like this one:

Thanks - sorry to hear the forum swallowed your post, had that happen a couple of times as well, it's weird... I would be very concerned about lag - I have used the Panasonic wifi control app a couple of times on land with my phone and laptop, which works fine to control the camera, but lag was really noticeable, and it didn't seem like a practical remote display solution because of that. The other issue i can see is battery usage and possibly overheating. Wifi functions typically use a lot of battery, which is really of the essence for video, and typically generate quite a lot of heat ( when using a smartphone as a wifi hotspot for instance). This could definitely be an issue UW, on both sides of the loop. It's a very tempting approach for cameras that don't offer practical HDMI options (compacts, some action cams for instance), but probably needs to be tested on a case by case basis cheers

Here's a small macro clip where I tried working with slightly different subjects and angles, sometimes a little more abstract. Shot in Amed, east Bali, in 4K 30fps, CineD profile, edited/graded in FCPX Equipment used: - Panasonic Lumix LX10 (LX9/LX15 in some locales) compact camera in a NALX10 Nauticam housing, AOI UCL-09 +18.5 diopter, Inon UCL-165M67 +6 diopter and Nauticam CMC-1 (the skeleton shrimp clip if I remember - I just got this lens and will be working with it in the coming weeks) - Backscatter MW 4300 video light and two Archon D11V2 video lights - Homemade quadripod cheers ben

Welcome Andrei, glad you made it to the otherside safely

On the budget side, I'd stayed at the Ibis Budget in Clarke Quay a few years back and that was quite alright for the price, considering it's Singapore Our main port of call in the area is actually Kuala Lumpur, which is a bit more messy, but also more budget friendly and a bit more fun for us (and the food is amazing - like in Singapore, it's a mix of Chinese / Malay / Tamil-Indian, but they've started incorporating Levantine food as well since the population movements caused by the Syrian civil war. It's taking a unique local twist... ) Can't help more on Singapore you need any tips on KL don't hesitate.

Yes definitely the warping is really terrible on the side - it's been like this since the stabilisation was introduced on the 5, and really shocking coming from the 4.... Lots of improvements but also corner distortion when panning. I wonder if the Inon/AOI lenses will help with this, as this would be fantastic. I think linear fov is fine though - you can always switch to wide for a larger view but in many situations I prefer linear and rarely shoot in wide. I'm not using the gopro these days but these are some of the last clips I shot when i was working in Palau last year, showing different WA shooting scenarios, all in linear. These are on the GP7, not on the GP11, but unless i'm mistaken I don't think the field of view options have evolved much since linear was introduced on the GoPro5 to replace the medium fov) The warping corner distortion on the Jake seaplane shots on the 2nd vid is pretty horrible for instance, it really stands out when there is a little camera movement, panning especially. If this is has improved on the new models, it would definitely be a major reason to upgrade. cheers

Great - happy it worked out in the end! Looking forward to some first impressions/feedback on the lens, see how the trout footage compares to what you shot so far.

Thanks Bill, this is really interesting, and really like the alternate tale on the role of lure lights. Nannette's blackwater vids are fantastic - if you don't mind, I'll post some links here for reference: It would be great if you could also share some technical info on how she approached these blackwater video shoots on the Sony handicam (basic settings used, light positioning for instance), and generally what seemed to work best in terms of getting good shots on video, where to wait etc.... Thanks again! Ben

I don't know, but it seems to work for the proud owner, since he had it made this way 😄 this is his work: https://www.instagram.com/diveivanov/?hl=en the ball ends are all used as i know he has both strobes and video lights on his kit. cheers