fruehaufsteher2

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?

Yep. Let’s go. Please dm and we’ll have that done.

Did you ask i-fiberoptics about alternative shipping other than UPS? I think they stated that you could ask them individually....?

Price reduction to 200.-

Signed.

Maybe this helps: https://www.usa.canon.com/pro/electronic-range-calculators/angle-of-view?srsltid=AfmBOopuFgvwHXgH0bqclAwuZc_ufA1ykX-Sy2UdmSg6C-fWz8_ckvMu in combination with the Nauticam Port Charts: https://www.nauticam.com/pages/wwl-1-port-chart The converter FOV is 130-70 degrees but the information whether this is vertical, horizontal or diagonal is not given. Let‘s say it is diagonal. The according focal length at 130 deg could be around 10-11mm if used on land. For 70 deg it is around 30mm

Thanks. It took only two Teams-Meetings that should have been an email until first try finished null

Hi Bghazzal, fully agree. The fact that until now no gopro wasn't in scope doesn't mean that it will stay that way. "doesn't matter" seems a bit too optimistic. But one more speculation: there could be another reason why Mexico is not so unhappy about becoming less attractive to divers and underwater photographers. There is a rumour, for example, that no-wake zones for animals have been established not because of the animals, but to keep the cartels undisturbed. Honi soit qui mal y pense....

Paracord was fast in delivering the products and I am ready to go. I measured 36cm from one shekel to the other. How long should be the paracord? 10m? Too short is stupid, too long increases the effort.

AFAIK GoPro has never been in scope. So that doesn't matter. Having the camera in the housing might reduce the risk only a little bit - most of the customs officers know what they are searching for. So best is hoping for the green light if you hit the button.

When I thought about testing the lens I noticed that the FOV would not increase despite the shorter lower end of the zoom range. Additionally I would need to buy another 35mm Nauticam extension. I think it's not worth the effort as the 28-60 performs extremely well. null

This question is really interesting. The verdict of this lens says „weak corners“ but who cares about that? https://www.digitalkamera.de/Zubehör-Test/Sony_FE_24-50_mm_F2_8_G_im_Test/14107.aspx The large entrance pupil could be the downside if combined with WACP-C. But the constant length of the lens could be the positive aspect. I‘ll start researching and will come back to this.

Great! Short enough to keep the attention high and beautiful images. It's the Lingcod that I liked most: Looking first like a still image then moving the eyes... Nice!