fruehaufsteher2

There‘s one page from Nauticam that states, that with heavier impacts some drops might penetrate the o-rings: https://nauticamindonesia.com/nauticam-product-care-maintenance-tips.pdf That’s why I‘m with Alex.

Diving with tiger sharks is actually only possible reliably and predictably at two spots in the world. One of them is Fuvamulah in the Maldives, and compared to the second spot, Grand Bahama, this is a cheaper option and particularly interesting for divers from Europe, Sri Lanka/India and China/Japan/Taiwan. This is our second time here and I thought some information might be of interest to other big fish lovers. How do you get there? All roads lead via the Maldives' main airport in Malé. From there, you take a domestic flight, a turboprop plane, to Fuvamulah. The flight there is always organized by the hotel or the diving school; as a non-local, it is practically impossible to organize tickets yourself. The flight takes a good hour, so it is manageable. If you want to organize the trip yourself, the best way is via one of the now 11 diving schools. Whereas until a few years ago you had to plan well to get to the Tiger Zoo, there is now competition for divers and you have a good choice. The oldest and best-known diving schools are Fuvamulah Dive School, Pelagic Divers and Sharkexpedition. You have to give Pelagic Divers credit for being ecologically committed and actually bringing large numbers of water filters to the island to reduce plastic bottles. The guys are also pretty cool and still focused on safety - I would personally choose the Pelagic on my next trip. In terms of hotels, there are all levels from “pretty ok” to “pretty run down”. But a few new hotels have been built in the last two years at least. Still the most interesting are the “Ataraxis Grand” and the “Maa Thundi”. Here's a tip: the rooms on the 3rd floor are directly below the kitchen and bar. Because modern building standards are not so well known here, these rooms are quite noisy, sometimes until 1 am. There are actually only 2 attractions for underwater photographers: The tiger sharks directly in the harbor entrance and, unfortunately quite deep, the Thresher Sharks. In contrast to other atolls, there is little else to see. The house reef is reasonably good, but this year has also seen quite a bit of coral bleaching. Diving with the tigers is trivial: the boat leaves the harbor for about 50m, then it goes with a negative entry to a depth of about 10-15m. The diving spectators are placed with quite a lot of weight on the underwater edge to the harbor entrance and hold on to a rock formation. As soon as everyone is in place, the guide gives a signal to the boat and a few fish heads are dropped and partly hidden under rocks. The sharks know the procedure very well and are already waiting at a safe distance. It's nice that they came quite close, at least with us. This time we had a somewhat pushy tiger with us, who wanted to see if we might be tasty too. But that's what the guides do, and depending on their strategy, they either keep the animals away with poles or with their hands. I recommend at least 3 tiger dives. Only after the third time are you relaxed enough to enjoy yourself. Four is better. The Thresher spot is a few hundred meters to the left of the harbour. Look out for the Threshers at a depth of around 35m, if you see one, you have to go much deeper. We didn't see any. The typical divers only commute between the hotel and the diving boat. The island is actually beautifully green and has much more to offer with its two freshwater lakes (be sure to hire a pedalo) and the many restaurants. We hired a scooter both times from the start, which was a very good decision. Beware, left-hand traffic and typical speed is 30-40km/h. Only one islander rides with a helmet. The others without. In terms of restaurants, the “Cool Banana” has the best food, but the “place to be” currently seems to be the “Briques”. In the harbor, “Oivaali” is the first choice. The house reef (especially on the west side) is 5-10m deep. If there is no swell, it is also possible from the beach. We had monsoon and waves - no chance. Negative: Plastic waste is a big problem. The islanders are blessed with unshakeable composure, unfortunately also with regard to illegally dumped waste. This is particularly terrible at the two freshwater lakes. The garbage dump north of the airport occasionally stinks terribly, I would avoid hotels in the vicinity. Overall: After 5 days it can get boring, but the beautiful sharks are absolutely worth the trip. If you are not afraid of the rainy season, a split with the Baa Atoll (Hanifaru Bay with manta rays) is recommended. I‘ll include the photos wenn I‘m back home.

Got the quote: 700.-€ including sending to Nauticam - all in all. Could be worse but nevertheless GRRRRR.

Unfortunately the scratches are not unexplained… sharp edge of a concrete wall… I only wear the golden marriage ring, and that one is softer than the glass. I‘ll keep you updated!

The scratches are deep. I‘ll ask Roland from PanOcean….

Scratched my WACP and the scratches are visible in the pictures. Even more stupid that the scratch happened while checking the equipment in the pool, not while surviving a tiger shark dive. Fortunately LR has this new AI-eraser, and this tool works very well. But I‘m stressed. Anyone knows how much Nauticam charges for the repair? I‘m pretty sure that only the exchange of the front glass is possible…. GRRRRRRR

Hi Davide, available light, around 10m (same as Grand Bahama) WACP-C and 28-60. You are located at the edge of the outlet of the harbor and just 50cm above the ground. So any action by the many fish leads to more backscatter. Not ideally for photography. I tried flash but the results were worse.

The whole island is one village. Close to the harbor there is a dump where they burn their garbage… avoid this area. recommended hotels are Ataraxis and Mathundi.

The sharks came yesterday really, really close- even the guides were a little nervous. I didn’t have an ultrasound with me so I couldn’t look for pregnancies 🫣 But the number of dive centers increased and there are only a few I can recommend (pelagic divers, dive point, dive school) which are responsible, respectful to the sharks and restrict the number of divers per slot to 6 or so … others take up to 11 divers to the small area. we were lucky and had sort of private diving!

It depends on the housing. The ones that fit the camera perfectly are not interchangeable. There is additionaly a significant design change starting with RX100 VI with respect to the lens, that makes it less usable for underwater photography. That’s why most dealer recommend the RX100 V(A). Here the movement of the front element of the lens is minimal and in wideangle position closest to the port

As soon as I have better connection I‘ll open a thread with some recommendations on local islands of the Maledives where other can contribute too. I can absolutely recommend coming here, but you have to be aware of the limitations. Somehow the pics don’t show… strange…

Diving with tiger sharks is actually only possible reliably and predictably at two spots in the world. One of them is Fuvamulah in the Maldives, and compared to the second spot, Grand Bahama, this is a cheaper option and particularly interesting for divers from Europe, Sri Lanka/India and China/Japan/Taiwan. This is our second time here and I thought some information might be of interest to other big fish lovers. How do you get there? All roads lead via the Maldives' main airport in Malé. From there, you take a domestic flight, a turboprop plane, to Fuvamulah. The flight there is always organized by the hotel or the diving school; as a non-local, it is practically impossible to organize tickets yourself. The flight takes a good hour, so it is manageable. If you want to organize the trip yourself, the best way is via one of the now 11 diving schools. Whereas until a few years ago you had to plan well to get to the Tiger Zoo, there is now competition for divers and you have a good choice. The oldest and best-known diving schools are Fuvamulah Dive School, Pelagic Divers and Sharkexpedition. You have to give Pelagic Divers credit for being ecologically committed and actually bringing large numbers of water filters to the island to reduce plastic bottles. The guys are also pretty cool and still focused on safety - I would personally choose the Pelagic on my next trip. In terms of hotels, there are all levels from “pretty ok” to “pretty run down”. But a few new hotels have been built in the last two years at least. Still the most interesting are the “Ataraxis Grand” and the “Maa Thundi”. Here's a tip: the rooms on the 3rd floor are directly below the kitchen and bar. Because modern building standards are not so well known here, these rooms are quite noisy, sometimes until 1 am. There are actually only 2 attractions for underwater photographers: The tiger sharks directly in the harbor entrance and, unfortunately quite deep, the Thresher Sharks. In contrast to other atolls, there is little else to see. The house reef is reasonably good, but this year has also seen quite a bit of coral bleaching. Diving with the tigers is trivial: the boat leaves the harbor for about 50m, then it goes with a negative entry to a depth of about 10-15m. The diving spectators are placed with quite a lot of weight on the underwater edge to the harbor entrance and hold on to a rock formation. As soon as everyone is in place, the guide gives a signal to the boat and a few fish heads are dropped and partly hidden under rocks. The sharks know the procedure very well and are already waiting at a safe distance. It's nice that they came quite close, at least with us. This time we had a somewhat pushy tiger with us, who wanted to see if we might be tasty too. But that's what the guides do, and depending on their strategy, they either keep the animals away with poles or with their hands. I recommend at least 3 tiger dives. Only after the third time are you relaxed enough to enjoy yourself. Four is better. The Thresher spot is a few hundred meters to the left of the harbour. Look out for the Threshers at a depth of around 35m, if you see one, you have to go much deeper. We didn't see any. The typical divers only commute between the hotel and the diving boat. The island is actually beautifully green and has much more to offer with its two freshwater lakes (be sure to hire a pedalo) and the many restaurants. We hired a scooter both times from the start, which was a very good decision. Beware, left-hand traffic and typical speed is 30-40km/h. Only one islander rides with a helmet. The others without. In terms of restaurants, the “Cool Banana” has the best food, but the “place to be” currently seems to be the “Briques”. In the harbor, “Oivaali” is the first choice. The house reef (especially on the west side) is 5-10m deep. If there is no swell, it is also possible from the beach. We had monsoon and waves - no chance. Negative: Plastic waste is a big problem. The islanders are blessed with unshakeable composure, unfortunately also with regard to illegally dumped waste. This is particularly terrible at the two freshwater lakes. The garbage dump north of the airport occasionally stinks terribly, I would avoid hotels in the vicinity. Overall: After 5 days it can get boring, but the beautiful sharks are absolutely worth the trip. If you are not afraid of the rainy season, a split with the Baa Atoll (Hanifaru Bay with manta rays) is recommended. I‘ll include the photos wenn I‘m back home.

Currently on Fuvamulah, far away from the Waterpixels-server. Loading the website is really slow, other than other pages. Is it just me who is experiencing this problem or is it generally slow? AFAIK sometimes the ads cause the lag?

The 3m I need for myself seems to be missing… 🫣 And absolutely of course I‘d take the same approach. This is to help each other, not to make money!

Exactly! Thanks for your efforts!!!

Hi Tim, sitting here in Dharavandoo and just having killed another cable I changed my mind- I feel able to forward distribute as long as it is inside EU.

In fact I am really interested- some 2 or 3m. but I‘d also take 20m and distribute in EU…

Yes.

Try to adjust the monitor brightness manually to "high" ... and no one uses the "auto review" - this blocks the screen. I usually use the histogram view (press two times up on the "wheel") that shows better whether you have under-or overexposed.

Hi @Crasoner, All true. Now that I practiced more I saw an additional point - the extension was too short. I‘ve updated to second flash, longer arms and the first tests look promising. Thanks a lot!

https://i-fiberoptics.com/fiber-detail-asahi.php?id=3360&sum=166

Hi Tim, I thought about making the middle man - but in the next 6 months I will be travelling very often. Sending to EU would be about 20,-€ but in fact tax will be added. So for example 20m will be around 300.- all in all with the help of @bvanant null That shouldn't be a problem. But then distributing is an additional effort that currently I cannot do.

Have read all the posts more than once but now I’m sure I get most of the facts. Extremely interesting from technical and practical perspective! To follow up: what is better? Short flash duration or a long one? If my Retra Pro Max has 1/600 flash duration (at full power) I should be able to use 1/1000 without HSS? But no, because in fact the two courtains of the shutter need 1/200 (sync speed) to finish their way? So: how long is the HSS-flash duration? If the tube of the flashlight is slower, let’s say 1/200, is this similar to HSS? Still not getting it all…

Incredible beautiful. Much of what can be seen at Nat GEO is worse. Did you switch from auto-ISO to manual? There's one scene where the exposure settings seem to change?