fruehaufsteher2

One additional comment: Longfins are the high shoes below the surface - they make beautiful legs, but it is necessary to have them in a good position.

I am surprised that the TE feels so attacked. I think we've certainly had sharp personal attacks here in the forum, but I don't recognize any such attacks in this thread. Hopefully we can get back to the topic at hand, which I think is very interesting. I do 2/3 freediving and 1/3 scuba. I use a coiled lanyard as described by @Dave_Hicks, which alternatively acts as a hand strap or as an attachment to the BCD. Even though the instructors on the boat and fellow divers are always concerned, the camera has never been in danger of being lost. Important side effect: My camera is negatively buoyant (no float arms for the flash). I use it as part of my own buoyancy control. If I really had to come up faster when freediving, I would rather drop the camera and have half a kilo more buoyancy. When swimming fast (manta rays, whale sharks, humpback whales...) I hold the camera with one hand under my belly, where it has the least drag in the water.

Hi Scubagirl, When we saw it they did some painting on the building, so in fact it could be quite new there. It is at the main road to the harbour (facing south on the left side) quite opposite the airport. There's a scooter rental (ugly scooters!) in the same building. As far as I remeber they were painting some korean or chinese signs on the wall. You won't miss it. If you have additional information on it, let me know!

Great! Too cold for me and looks really scary…

Hi Wolfgang, thanks a lot, that’s really helpful. For the usual dives I am happy with the zoom range of the WACP-C, and if I am looking for the small things, the 90mm is in the pocket. Just for show: WACP-C is also capable for some sort of macro

Inside the Sony-ecosystem: Do you think there are advantages over the 28-60 + WWL1b or WACP-C? Just below the surface, not on land - there I personally use the 50-400, WA only from time to time.

I had a similar experience: Travelling from Malé to Fuvamulah they asked me to put my backpack (14kg, looks quite similar to that of @ChrisH, but is cheap from Rollei) on the scale. „Too heavy“ - „Look, my camera gear. I can take it out, put it together and take it in my hand“ - „Okay, camera….“ and after very short discussion with his colleague it was no problem.

Hi @devinphotographer, My comfortable dynamic apnoe time is around 50-60sec. in this time I should be able to go down, unfold flash arm, frame the scene, take the picture, have a short look at the histograms, adjust flash intensity, take a second picture and go up again. I found this workflow comfortable up to 12m, if necessary up to 15m. Before going down I usually have the flash arm folded in a way that the flash itself is as close to the housing as possible.

Hi Ben, thanks for that input! I wasn‘t aware of Fiji, but the last experiences with divers from China and Japan weren‘t not so good - often unrespectful to nature and sometimes even unable to swim…. In contrary Palau should be added to my bucket list. It doesn‘t have to be tigers - we had one dive in Grand Bahama when the mood of the big mamas was somehow heated. You have to look out very careful and if they come too close, push them away.

Hi Marcus, Same for us - We found out that "Richardson" from Divepoint aka Sharkexpedition is more on the careful than experimental side with the tigers. Regarding Internet: If you want to be independent from hotel-WLAN then Ooreddu is a good choice. You can buy a SIM at the airport or - as we did - use an app like Airalo where you can buy electronic SIM-cards for reasonable prices (30GB for 44$)

With Sony underwater, the price difference between APS-C and full-frame for the same image quality is relatively small. For this reason, either the overall cheaper version with Seafrogs / Salted Line or then full-frame is usually taken. A used A7 IV costs less than a new A6700, and if you use Nauticam, the costs for the housing and underwater lens are comparable. I would think twice about using the A6700 (which is an excellent camera!!) for underwater use. And: With the 28-60 + WACP-C Sony has a perfect underwater-combination. The 16-50 is weak at best...

That's the most likely explanation. I was really surprised to find this shrine! 2 years ago it wasn't there. More surprisingly - There's no shop for camera equipment on the island.

The more interesting question could be how to transport the rig in the plane or on the boat... 😁

And here the pics showing the island:

Here some pictures from the dives, second pic shows the situation - my wife is the one with the white fins and approaching the position from where you can watch the sharks

After Oceanramsay had visited Dharavandoo and Fuvamulah, there had been a huge trend in freediving. Some of the diving schools still offer freediving with tigers. But with the given situation in Fuvamulah there’s not much of a sense. „Fish from above“ is only in few exceptions a good way to take pictures.

Hi Wolfgang, uuuuh, „Lesen hilft“ my fault. You are right. I am still puzzled what could have happened. My last theory: there has been a very small oil drop on the inside that never moved so far. Now it did.

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