bghazzal

Here's a review of the series: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/nov/20/our-oceans-review-barack-obama-nature-show-netflix Here's a little snippet on wildlife documentary narration by former POTUS 😁 For the most part, Obama acquits himself well in his new role. His voice, which has always been steady and soothing, was made for this. (Can you imagine any other high-level US politician pulling it off? Would narration sustain George W Bush’s attention? Would Joe Biden’s narration sustain ours? Does Trump know what a fish is?) This doesn’t mean that Obama is the new David Attenborough, of course. Attenborough is a career naturalist who almost single-handedly created the genre of wildlife television. Barack Obama is here to emote about dolphins. He isn’t helped by the script, which sometimes seems to underestimate the intelligence of its audience. It’s too folksy, describing the clownfish as “the world’s most famous fish”, presumably because there is a film franchise that stars the species. During a sequence about cuttlefish, Obama growls: “Don’t make him angry; you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.” At one point, he namechecks Murder on the Dancefloor. At another, he uses the word “fishnado”. Attenborough would never.

Here's a 30 minute promotional documentary shot by Kirin Sekito on Mikomoto Hammers, one of the four dive operations currently running trips to Mikomoto. Mikomoto is an islet 10km south-east of Japan's Izu Peninsula - an area with complex topography and under the powerful influence of the Kuroshio current - which is now famous for its resident scalloped hammerhead schools and other exciting encounters in strong currents. The documentary highlights the specifics of the area and also of the operation's diving style (dive time limited to 35 minutes max, for example 🙂) cheers ben

Great thank you both - working distances seem similar as to what I measured on the compact at my default 50mm equivalent at f/11 90mm-infinity with no diopter 30-210mm with the +6, 5/glass-90mm with the +12.5 5/glass-60mm with the CMC-1, which was too tight (so I used the +12.5 instead) The Zeiss 50mm + CMC-2 at 30-130mm seems like a good option, even though magnification is unclear, along with the +6. I guess now we could also throw the MFO-1 to the mix, need to look into it. Is there a way to get working distance info for the bare 50mm prime lens in the Nauticam port system?

Thank Craig, this is food for thought. I'm building the whole kit from the ground up, so it will be macro only at first (which is fine as this is what I’m focusing on at the moment anyway), expanding to cover wide angle as well at a later stage 🤞 I now think a Zeiss Touit 50mm - combined with diopters on a flip holder as Davide was suggesting - is really the way to go for now. I already have the CMC-1 and also have the Inon UCL-165 +6 or an AOI +12.5 as weaker to slightly weaker options - might go for CMC-2 later on, but the AOI UCL-09 is similar and a nice lens to work with. The one thing I’m a little worried about is the range the 50mm on its own would give me on APS-C, especially for BW type scenarios, where it would also be nice to be able to shoot larger subjects like salps or squid, typically in the 10/20cm range. But based on sensor calculation equivalents, unless I'm reading it all wrong, I think it should be fine. For such larger subjects I’m shooting removing diopters and shooting at a 36mm equivalent on a 1” sensor at f/11, which is equivalent to 98.2mm at f/30 on FF. Which is, in turn, equivalent to 60.5mm on APS-C, so actually tighter than the native 50mm lens, if I'm not mistaken. Meaning the 50mm should allow me to film larger subjects in the 10/20cm range while also having enough magnification work in the 1cm to 5mm range with diopters.

Thanks for all the advice, this is really useful. I would love to know your opinion on the following - as stated, I've recently started shooting small planktonic critters (so small, 10- 5cm for the largest to 0.5mm range) in blackwater/bonfire type settings, which I most likely will be concentrating on in the future. On the 1" compact I currently shoot with, I have a zoom lens , and I'm working mostly with my 36-72mm equivalent lens at zoomed in to 50mm equivalent, combined with a +6 diopter - this is my default shooting mode and works well in most BW-type situations (at f/11, I get a working distance of min: 30mm max: 210mm with this setup) Now this is all on a 1" sensor, so a crop factor of 2.7. I zoom out to 36mm for larger subjects (eventually removing the diopter for bigger ones like squids). I sometimes shoot with a stronger diopter (+12.5, in this clip for instance) also in zoomed to 50mm equivalent, but rarely go beyond 60mm equivalent with either diopters as it's very difficult to handle (shake and in-camera spotting/framing issues) Now switching to Sony ASP-C will be a completely different game of course,. Looking at the macro options mentioned above a 50mm like the Zeiss (plus diopters on a flip-mount) should give me required magnification with good image quality. However, I'm a little concerned about flexibility, and wondering if in this type of scenario it might not be better to go with a zoom lens, like a 16-50mm, which has been suggested. Keep in mind that this is for video, so as much as I love pixel-peeping, it's a little different with moving pictures. Two things I'm concerned about with a zoom lens is: 1. having to work in the telephoto range more often than not (which will increase shake and increase distortion) 2. autofocus performance, which might be slower than with a prime? Any thoughts on this, 50mm prime vs. 16-50mm zoom for bw-type video on an ASP-C sensor? thanks!

Here's a related thread on the infamous photogear tax. I wouldn't be surprised if they started applying it to scuba gear more regularly as well (has happened before, as well as for golf clubs and other equipment)

Agree - more than visitors, action would need come from diving operators and dive-tourism stakeholders first. If dive operations - both Mexican and foreign-owned - in Mexico's main dive-tourism areas, primarily the States of Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur, worked together on a joint petition addressed both to their State's local government and also, bringing the issue up on a national level (to the Mexican Secretary of Tourism / Secretaría de Turismo) this could carry some weight. Such a petition would need to stress how the current application of taxation on tourist imaging equipment is damaging their respective businesses and also the image of Mexico as a flourishing dive-tourism destination (and is thus detrimental to the tourism-based economy in their area), and should aim for an offical amendment to current regulations (ie. a tax exemption for camera equipment to be used by tourists during their visit for amateur purposes, equipment which will not be staying in the country), and/or to the way regulations are applied on the ground by customs personel. If dive operators in Cozumel, Tulum and Playa del Carmen, as well as La Paz, Cabo Pulmo and Cabo San Lucas and Bahia Magdalena petitioned their local governmental authorities and nation while also submitting a joint petition on national level, this might have more luck in acheiving something. But I imagine local politics, rivalries and strife (along with general indifference on their part? 😅) might make this more complex than it sounds in reality. Ruthless application of tax regulations (and this is not just for camera equipment) has been getting worse across the country recently, but the camera import levies issue has been going on for years...

As a sidenote, if you want to try it "on the cheap", just buy a pair of the strongest cheap reading glasses you can find (usually +3 or +4), remove the arms and replace with a strap. My vision is dropping fast as well, but I've been using this system for 2 years for shooting macro to supermacro video, and it's fine. What I really like about this system is that the readers can be moved up or down (I usually have them low when I'm spotting, and covering the field of vision when I'm shooting), and removed as well (I just fit them on the mask at depth). And it's super cheap as well. Just make sure you have a clip on the reader's strap so you can clip them to something when not in use. This is what my current kit of DIY readers look like: There's also a thread on the subject here cheers

Underwater image-maker getting ready to cross Mexican customs with his camera gear... 😁

Thank I'll look into these - main reason for putting the R7 is the crop factor applied for 4K video - to quote what I've been reading online on the subject, on the R7 uncropped 4k60fps is line-skipped, and the image quality is not as good as in 4K fine (which is oversampled from 7K) or 4k60 crop (which is a 1:1 4K “cutout” of the R7’s sensor) - specs on 4K modes are here maybe I'm reading this wrong but it seems like R7 sensor crop implementation is not as efficient as on the similarly priced A6700. But yes, i'm a little worried about WB on the Sony... Thanks, I’ll do some digging. Good to know for macro lenses - a primarily BW shooter also mentioned that some people using the A7R are using the monster adapter to use the Nikon 60 macro But not sure if this would work on the A6700 as well. 90mm on a cropped sensor will be too much to handle for BW type scenarios I think. The A6*** range is a little odd, so I'm really happy to hear feedback from someone using one for video. I don't really understand the positioning, seem to me these are mainly aimed a v-loggers and professionnal land shooters look for a cheaper B-cam? Very little info for UW use, even less for UW video. But on the spec front, it looks pretty capable, with a somewhat similar lineup to the FX3 range - not sure how this works in real life though, and if I had the choice, I would prefer a camera which isn't a hybrid since I don't shoot stills, but these are in a different price bracket. Thanks Chris - yes, it’s tricky and I still do have reservations regarding the Sony when it comes to wide-angle WB (which for me will be with a Keldan filter and/or mixed lighting) - for this I would love to reunited with Canon colours, but at the same time in terms of image quality/sensor and AF Sony does seem to have the lead for video in this price range. I didn’t know for the Marelux A6700, thanks for the heads-up. Regarding M43, this was indeed my go to choice until recently - unbeatable plan was to get a second-hand GH5s rig, and work with that for a while as it’s a great tool. But something came up, unfortunately... a growing interest in plankton and BW/bonfire type shooting scenarios, for which I really need a workable video AF. Working in manual works fine for wide or standard ground-based macro/supermacro, but when it comes to small critters moving in the water column, the combination of shallow depth of field and erratic movement makes manual focus too much to handle. What happens is that I get the animal in focus (using peaking as my ref) and start shooting, but they tend to move in and out of focus range too fast for me to make the small adjustments required to follow-focus at this magnification level. I’ve even played around with Panasonic tracking AF, and can get the tracking locked on the critter (it’s amazingly good - possibly because this is a high-contrast situation), but the lens / actual AF is way too slow to follow and make the required micro-adjustment in time (as in really slow, 3 seconds of so...), so manual focus and following with the camera is more efficient. And I can't adjust manually on the camera itself - I need to lose a hand to reach the knob, which moves/shakes the camera a lot at this magnification level, and also the adjustement range is not precise enough to follow-focus. So I just follow in manual by moving the camera, using peaking as a reference - we're talking small adjustments forward of back, of a couple of cm, but it's tough to try to read critter movement. And this is where AF would come in - logically, if the lens is fast enough to do its bit while I also follow along, working together should work well and extend the in-focus duration of encounters Also having 60fps will allow me to slow down to 50% speed, which will help as well compared to 30fps. But all this said and done, the main issue I’m having here is that it’s very difficult to estimate underwater AF performance for macro video, where I would need the camera to work with me and make small focal adjustements so we follow the critter together. I think it's doable as I'm already able to tracking-lock on critters, which is pointless but shows that even a Panasonic can track. Then it's just a question of lens AF efficiency. cheers ben

Sounds like rebreather dives would be tricky for blackwater-style diving and anything requiring frequent buoyancy changes... It's a shame because bubbles have - in theory at least - a marked effect on planktonic critters who are thought to be primarily guided by uw noise and water movement (“vortexes”) marine life makes... If planktonic critters can sense creatures pulsating, undulating, jetstreaming or finning, imagine the effect a regular flow of OC bubbles must be having on the encounters 😅

Hello all, I'm started looking into future upgrade options for my video rig, and APS-C cameras seem to be the best in my price range (otherwise I would like a cropped sensor more than FF) Currently looking into the Sony A6700, which seems to be a better package than the Canon R7 in the APS-C range (though I do have reservations about WB possibilities), and more financially accessible than the Sony FX30 However, I'm completely clueless in the Sony ecosystem and practical for lenses for video, so was wondering what your recommendations would be for: - a wide lens AF is not really important here (I will be shooting in manual), but I would like to avoid corner distortion. Doesn't have to be super-duper wide. The Sony 11mm F1.8 SEL11F18 has been recommended - maybe rectilinear options? Matching port recommendations for a Nauticam housing would be welcome - a macro lens This would need good AF support, as main application would be blackwater/bonfire type scenarios (again, video only) AF is one of the reasons (along with 4K60fps, HDMI monitor support and battery life) prompting the interest in an update, as following fast moving small critters on a tiny focal plane is tricky - there's only some much you can do with elbows and it's too fast for manual adjustements. Since this is an APS-C cropped sensor with a x1.5 crop, I'm thinking a 60mm macro would be good in this type of scenario? Looking forward to reading your wise insights cheers! ben

Thanks Val. Looking forward to your feedback on the FX3. I shoot macro/super macro in manual as well, but for blackwater-type video I'm finding it very difficult to handle small critters moving in an out of the focal range - it's too fast to make adjustments manually - if the critter is slow enough you can follow with your elbows using peaking, but in and out movement is often erratic, so that's left me longing for some AF tracking, which puts on the Sony/Canon trail 😄 cheers

Thanks - Yes, I agree. my idea was to avoid being locked in an all-inclusive resort, which is not my cup of tea in general, but if there's nothing around, then there's no way around it. If i go there it's really for the night-diving blackwater/bonfire diving scene, meaning late-ish nights and not much day diving (if any), so logistically it would make more sense to stay in a place organizing it. I also don't think cheaper homestays would be able to organize BW, which is pretty specific. I was asking because quite a few places I've worked in or visitied in SE Asia (Indonesia, Thailand) have the diving scene grouped up in one small walkable area, with a little town of hotels, eats and restaurants, which is for me anyway - much nicer than eating/staying at a resort. Even when I was working in Palau, which is mostly resorts, guests would have the option to stay in downtown Koror, 15minute pick-up from Malakal where the diving leaves from. But some more remote places are pretty much resort/homestay only - I now understand Anilao is this type of place. cheers

Good to know, thanks - I'm not a big fan of all-inclusive resorts in general, so I was wondering, but if it's far and there's no much around, not ideal (I had a foretaste of Filipino food / cooking when I was working in Palau, 80% of the workforce is from PH...) My primary interest in the area is blackwater/bonfire diving, if I do go there I don't think I'll be diving much during the day, so logistically it would also make sense to stay in the same place to avoid the hassle in the evening. Ah well, no way around resort-life then I guess. cheers

Welcome Val - Really curious as to your experience with the FX3 when you do upgrade - I have my eyes on the crop-sensor version, the APS-C FX30, but it's just a distant pipedream for now financially. Really looking to some feedback on the FX3 manual WB at depth and also autofocus tracking, which, after shooting in manual for a while, I've become strongly interested in for black-water type scenarios (small critters moving unpredictably in the water column). cheers ben

No clue for the Philippines, but it's definitely increasing fast in Indonesia, centered mostly around the Bali / Lombok / Sulawesi areas. Here's a 2022 article on the subject. In east Bali (Tulamben/Amed) area where I am now, I can think of 3 Amed dive shops offering CCR training and/or support. Some are tech focused others just tech friendly. Same goes for down south (Sanur area) - though not sure what is going in Nusa Penida/Lembongan, which are the closest diving areas from Sanur. Otherwise the Gili islands area (Lombok), where a tech scene has been around for a while now. And there's definitely some CCR support in north Sulawesi (Bunaken was one of the first places where a dive center hosted a full-time tech department IIRC), and there's a budding but dynamic cave diving scene in south Sulawesi. Sure, it will be more tricky in more remote areas like Raja Ampat, Alor or Komodo, where beyond logistics currents also make it difficult to offer more independent, longer duration unguided diving (can be quite dangerous without good knowledge of the sites and the area), so don't think it will be much of an option other than on dedicated liveaboard cruises. There's a small tech and cave diving scene in Thailand, people like Ben Reymenant in the south (Phuket) and also tech training in Koh Tao (Gulf of Thailand). Sourcing sofnolime and O2 is certainly doable in Palau, where local based divers dive on rebs (mostly for the wrecks and also spawning dives), and tech-focused trips are regularly organised, and speaking of Micronesia, Chuuk / Truk based operations should offer some support as well, despite the area's remoteness. And to stay in main dive-tourism / travel destinations, Mexico (Quintana Roo / Tulum) is a well established cave diving and training area. Not sure what's going on in Egypt, but surely there's tech diving support / training in Dahab and Sharm el Sheikh? cheers

Thanks for the tip - I've never been to Anilao (or to the Philippines in general), so was wondering if it was possible to dive with most operations as a drop-in, without actually staying at their resort, or is that frowned upon? Staying at these accomodations, are Anilao resorts within walkable distance or is it spread out, and are there food options closeby? Thanks!

This type of workflow is very commonly recommended for video editing from a laptop (similarly, for desktop, dual drives setups are typically the way to go for video). As you edit, the computer is reading footage off the drive it was imported to. So importing to an SSD, and running everything from there saves a lot of internal HDD space (FCP library of imported work files and renders, FCPX's motion capture folder), and this essential on laptops with less than 5TB of disk space. And as mentioned, on slower machines like mine, this workflow (editing from external) also helps the computer with buffering issues - it's really night and day for integrated software like FCPX (as in I can't run FCPX and edit from libraries on the internal HDD without everything freezing as the project develops, but this doesn't happen when running from an external disk). There are plenty of hits on this subjects explaining how to set this up and why: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=why+edit+video+from+external+hard+drive So yes, it's certainly a workaround in a way, but pretty much a necessary one for regularly editing video on a laptop (one of the reasons prompting the upgrade) so it probably would be worth looking into even on a newer machines. cheers

For me more than speed, it's actually a question of making editing possible or not on my machine and its 8GB of ram for a 1.8 GHz Intel Core i5 processor. If I am doing everything internally, it saturates all read/write buffers. Running FCP and its library externally on an SSD works fine to edit 4K video (I do need to work with proxies for HEVC codecs though), so it might be worth a shot on a more powerful machine as well (there are plenty of videos on how to set this up, this one for instance) DaVinci Resolve, however is not an option - I have never managed to get fluid playback, even after tweaking and working with proxy files.

One thing which might be interesting to take into account for video editing on a laptop: running Final Cut from an external SDD drive, instead of internally will help a lot with processing speed. This is how I manage to edit 4K video on a 2017 Macbook Air... And nothing stops you from running Lightroom and Photoshop from the SSD ( I do this as well). What I do is partition a Samsung T7 SSD, one small partition for running apps and one for storage (and FCP libraries), and just run from that. cheers

Thanks for that, always good to see some nice BW video clips! Swarming is mostly a bonfire issue - it does happen in BW but to a much lesser degree, and much more occasional, hitting a big school of copepods for instances. You can look at the light beams and how clean it is: What strikes me here is two things: first the nature of the footage critters: the video footage is mostly of salps and ctenophora, with some fish and a couple of more exotic critters. This is interesting as while David Fleetham's commentary is about the vertical migration of deep dwelling species, we are shown images of critters which are encountered also commonly encountered in the shallows. Maybe it was a bad day, nature is unforgiving... And yet even if the same species can be commonly encountered on shallow bonfire dives in certain locales, the great thing about being in open ocean like this is less swarming, and potentially better viz with less runoff and other terrestrial influences. Also, from a technical point of view, these are some of the bigger and slower critters encountered on these dives, and are slo-moed above 50%. I'm happy to see big-floats in there, which definitely help with stabilisation. Also not sure if these rigs are video focused or not - the main video light used here seems to be the wide video light, top mounted, and primarily functioning as a focus light. cheers b

Pretty cool! Given the colour and shape, the first one looks like a hairy purple reef spider crab - probable some kind Achaeus , same family as the orang-utan crab (Achaeus japonicus).

hehehe, yeah saw that - I actually know this particular map base they're using on Coralia liveaboard, actually copied it myself, before going 3D instead 😁 Here's the original, created by Mermaids liveaboard IIRC https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=862 Humble study copy: 👨‍🎨🎨🤣

Yes, it's a little weird - copyrighting an actual device I can understand, but a diving technique and name? Especially on a individual level? Imagine if "sidemount", "muck" or "drift dive" were copyrighted... 😅 I wouldn't go as far - what's certain is that the predatory action build up in bonfire-style diving can also make things more difficult, for getting cleaner images for instance. And current is a bonfire killer, whereas it is not a problem for drifting black water. Also critters encountered are not necessarily met at the same period of the life cycle between the two styles, and while up to 80 to 90% are common in certain places, they might differ in terms of frequency and ratio. Ram Yoro (most of these observations come from him, based on his long experience with bonfire) said he also noticed - in his locale anyway - differences in sex ratio, with more female argonauts or blanket octopus than male argonauts in deep blackwater diving, but more male argonauts or female blanket octopus in bonfire diving for instance... These differences could be linked to a number of factors, it's all pretty fascinating! And some truly deep sea critters, like the deep sea 7-arm octopus are rarely seen on shallow bonfire dives (but some have actually been spotted in close to a bonfire site, in slightly deeper water... again, the relation to depth and light is probably more complex than we'd think...) Overall bonfire-style dives are more "regular", since you can build up at site (to the point that it's detrimental, with predatory habituation as mentioned above), whereas in drifting deep blackwater diving, the light bait is moving and critters migrating from the deep to shallows are ecountered more by chance than anything else. In a way, we could say that maybe it's not so much blackwater diving which is overrated, but more likely bonfire-type diving which is underrated, and also not alway organized in the optimal way...