Luko

If by any chance you are not adverse to reading french (you may use Google transaltion as well) this is a Cabo Verde landside and diving report that was written very recently on the Forum Photosub (somehow a french sisterforum to Waterpixels, you'll be welcome to join too btw). https://www.forum-photosub.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20414

Not for the Visayas though where visibility depends mainly on the sea conditions/weather since it's shallower and sandier bottoms than Anilao/PG. March can be a hit or miss espcially for Panglao/Bohol, in all my stays in the Visayas I had much better conditions and viz late April/May.

Two Waterpixelers trying to get their rollers under 7kgs at the infamous AirAsia post check-in carry-on luggage weight checkpoint. You said it man : Nobody f***s with the AirAsius !

Problem is that the nudibranch taxonomy is continuously evolving (I won't even mention the disagreements between different "schools" and various attempts at categorizing nudibranch families) if you ever compare older books like the ones you mention from Coleman or Debelius (first published 20 years ago or so) with newer ones (say NSSI2 Gosliner, Valdes, Behrens, published some 5-6 years ago) it's completely different, you won't find the same names, even the families are completely different. Hence the older Nudi Id. books are outdated and somehow useless now. I guess the awaited NSSI3 will correct some errors, allocate new names to unnamed sp. nudibranches (about 20% of the nudibranches illustrated inside NSSI2 only get a family name with a sp. number, say Goniobranchus sp.25 for instance) or even propose new families (like Bermudella or Ceratodoris which are already in use but missing in NSSI2). My recommendation would be select some good Websites that are updated to new species names, some of my favorites (but there are many more, depending on your location) : Erwin Koehler's multi location http://www.medslugs.de/E/Pac-W/select.htm S&J Johnson from Kwajalein for Pacific slugs https://www.underwaterkwaj.com/nudi/nudi.htm For Indian Ocean, Ph.Bidgrain's http://seaslugs.free.fr/nudibranche/a_intro.htm There are also excellent Facebook groups like Nudibase where any nudi will be identified by marine biologists. Re- the initial question these are Mexichromis trillineata.

May be I'm wrong but since the first Leica came out with the 35mm format (that was exactly 100 years ago btw) there was no other significant and successful miniaturization in the history of pro/prosumer photography (except for spy cameras if that counts as professional usage...almost forgot the lame analog APS-C try that started pushing Kodak towards the edge of the cliff.). A sort of analog optics glass ceiling, pardon the pun? I dunno... but it seems the history of optics was always in the direction of "the bigger the better". On the other hand integrated computational functionalities will need a wider screen (that is to say if you want to control them, otherwise all the craft is in the machine & back to square one : smaller but powerful Smartphones win, why bother.) that's how SmartPhone sizes are getting bigger btw, so I guess any development in that direction would fall into a size tradeoff or a change of paradigm rather than a pure evolution. Eradicated? Maybe not like Smallpox was. Probably depends on which kind of photographer and what cameras we are talking about. After all, some studio pros are using big PhaseOne cameras, sensor more than twice the size of the FF (60k€ for the entry kit mind you) although the medium format market has got much thinner since digital tech allowed zillion pixels sensors. How I see it, there might be a much smaller niche than currently. If you roughly try segmenting the market : - UWP consumer/beginner : I only have very little doubts on the fact the smartphone will overtake the digital photo market within the next 5 years. - UWP prosumers including most of ourselves on this board. Probably a matter of 10 years, there is currently an ongoing switch from dSLR to the still new MIL cameras that will curb the adoption cycle for the next 5 years or so, what will be the next replacement in 10 years? Just time for the UW accessories to develop. - UWP professionals/film makers : that niche I was talking about, 8.000$ worth per optic, RED cameras etc. Not for me, not for you, 10% on this board maybe? Probably the last virus infested niche. Brands will paraphrase "Professionals, how many divisions have they got?". A point where I don't fully agree is the concept of generalist/non dedicated tools differenciation in the vast history of tech evolution. I'm afraid it's only a semantic criteria to differenciate "us" from "them" at certain periods of the evolution (ie the "Who knows" from the "who doesn't"). To me it's more how it is used than what it was made for, ie. what was the computer made for before digital photography : generalist or dedicated use? Sometimes the tech can drive the usage. Perhaps. However on the things I observe in the long run : - Tech brands often drive the market and the usage of such practise of a "medium art" (Oh wait... I'll explain the reference later) with their innovations, it's an "offer pushed" market rather than a "demand pulled" market (otherwise there would not be so many questions/complaints about strobes for instance). If the market expectancies are reduced, don't expect much innovation, meaning less "dedicated" solutions (talk about Pentax, Minolta, Kodak, Ilford, etc most sticking to old tech. That makes me think I have dozens of 135 and 120 filmrolls in my fridge, they have been sitting there for 15 years, they've probably been into 3 different fridges.) - Whenever some hype excavates long forgotten or lo-tech practises (Lomography, polaroid, cross developped film, lith printing, etc.) almost immediately a computed solution will propose similar outcome with less efforts, resulting in more adepts on the "generalist side" device. An effect of the dSLR to MIL systems migration, probably. That's the keypoint for me. We're talking Philosophy or History of Arts, drifting far away from the initial post, technicalities, etc. We've lost 99% of the readers at that point. That is to say .. errh, 2 readers. So be it and open that second bottle of wine. I've been HATED by photographers saying that : Photography is NOT a real Art. Luckily dear ole Henri backs me, hence I'm not afraid ("je crains dégun" in french Marseillais). Or like Bourdieu said "Un Art Moyen" (with the french pun on "Moyen" understood as both "average" or "physical mean") Not really an Art but a social practise, where both the means and their outcome (emphasizing on the lack of correlation) say more about the photographer social environment with little to do with art values like freedom of creativity. There was far more physical activity with the analog printing process, moving your hands, either burning or dodging parts of the print under the projection of the neg film, controling the temperature and the rocking frequency of the chemicals bath in order to increase contrast of tint your print with shades of color. Why is there anymore anyone shooting with dark room chambers, printing cyanotype, coal transfer or so? these were beautiful prints though, now left for geeks, who wants to be pigeonholed as a geek? Hence the way I see it is that one social practise will evolve along with more general social practises with the means the community are generally using. Whoever would like to return to a more hands-on/minds-on Art might find another way or enjoy being called a geek by young Smartographers throwing pebbles at him for using outdated alu housings with different lenses. Interesting that you refer to music and analog musical instruments but that is a true Art, instruments haven't evolved a lot since a while, isn't it? So I guess Artistry is the real password/vaccine against generalist tech evolution. I think a hint for the future would be asking everyone here not "how they see the tech evolution" but rather "why they engaged into UW photography and their motivations behind." I think it would be a good proxy.

Ben honestly, it's a matter of generation maybe ; although I'm in between Dave and you agewise, I feel closer to Dave's opinion. The dream I have is to leave my 40kgs of photography lugagge home, avoid to drag a 10 to 12 kgs rig on Tulamben's rocky shores and replace it with a smallish rig max 2 kg encompassing the 2Xth generation of an iPhone (that might be called the iLife or something like that then...), no housing needed -since it will be 200m deep waterproof- along with 2 small LED strobes/videolight and perhaps an aberration free wide angle iConverter (thanks to the integrated lens distorsion and color correction software) that would fit in my SMB pocket. I'll skip the moment when old bearded photogs who first had to carry a 4*5" inch chamber camera and climb on a ladder switched their equipment to a handheld 35mm camera called Leica I, allowing for street reportage. it was the start of the trend though... Remember when digital cameras came in 25 years ago? On my side I went digital from the early days we could put a compact Oly 3Mpix into a plastic housing, something the slide shooting serious photogs used to laugh at. Even 10 years after I came across a group of US photogs in Lembeh led by a famous pro photographer (his book was listed into the White House gift list) who was swearing no pixel number would ever outpass slides definition... Hahaha : we can have a good laugh now. The guy was so sure, oh well, another visionary person. On the other hand I see many young UW photographers especially in Asia who haven't practised (nor are interested into) land/studio/street/name-anything-dry photography, many of these guys/gals can achieve correct to excellent UW images without knowing much of the "basics" of photography. They hire one good spotter, as the trend is now to shoot without a strobe but continuous lighting it's easier to get a WYSIWYG photo in the electronic viewfinder, let alone the sensor dynamic abilities : exposure wot? who cares? Repeat 200-300 times a dive, you might get interesting results in the end. For many, it's the results on Instagram that count : hence the iPhone evolution is the natural photographic bean-to-bar automation without the sweat or the knowledge in between. Ok, we might still be currently in the period where the weight of your rig defines your "manhood", although I feel it is in decline, the good times where you would hear ooohs and aaahs on the beach when you bring a dual strobe housing/large converter dome are over. Now the guides in Tulamben are just listing the equipment they already know by heart, sometimes a frown when they notice something special, they'd even snub you for missing an accessory for your new strobe. My Gen Z daughter and her friends don't have the same POV, they don't like to carry check in luggage and pay for it, they don't appreciate the fuss in between shooting the images and sharing them on social networks. It's the fast result and the storytelling around that is valuable, not the process. Let the 'puter do the work. She did good videos with her iPhone and an Amazon case on her first try. You may argue that they don't have the same focus in photography as we do but I am anticipating that the UW Smartphone use will increase the number of people doing UWphoto as much as the evolution from analog to digital, many of whom won't have a photography process focused mind. Some 50 years ago Cartier Bresson abandoned photography for drawing because for him it wasn't real art, he claimed doing photography schematically needed only an eye and a valid finger after all. That's what Smartphone photography would be about : back to the basis in a sort. Add on top people like me don't want anymore to carry weight, I don't see a bright future for the big rigs like we have now. For me that's a deep trend.

Ask Utama, they told me they do and apparently some of the guides like Noris love that.

Wow, that's a reference... (not sure there is enough on my side to stand even a remote comparison... 🥴). But yeah I come from a travel/streetphoto background (you know : a Leica M6 loaded with TriX film, the guy in the back looking the people moving around, waiting for the scene to happen then processing/enlarging the films on the homelab), so it was a nice break from purely Nature photography, involving thoughts on how to scenarize the action. Probably closer to video except that I am really hopeless at shooting video.

Yeah me too, it's really different like street photo on slow motion. Needs to be aware on what's going around and have eyes looking behind. I nearly had the bubu of another boat falling on my head.

5- Yellow corner Yellow Corner is the name of the deep wall that was discovered by Alor Divers some 12-15 years ago and that was a regular passing site for hammerheads schools at a certain time of the month under certain conditions. It has become "publicly known" some years later, therefore becomes more often dived even by liveaboards, but the special conditions can reward the divers only a few days a month around full moon, hence like all the dives in Alor that need specific schedules, much better to stay at an experienced resort. Even though the hour/tide/moon phase conditions are met, you can always find yourself either "empty handed" at the end of this often demanding dive (35 to 40m deep, beaten with current on the plateau where you need to hook) or rewarded with anything from a couple of HH to a wall of 30+ hammerheads interspersed with a couple of silky sharks (somebody explains to me why silkies like to mingle into HH schools). If you don't get the HH, you'll still get a beautiful though deep dive where your computer might not like your PPO2 value, along a deep wall on the top of which flows a waterfall of bannerfish and/or a zillion snappers, then hooked on a lively coral plateau at 30-34 m deep, where you can see various species of sharks, grey reef or blacktips passing in the distance behind the curtain of multiple coral reef fish. Along the wall with the snappers (the images are tilted for the sake of the image composition) This is the deep plateau where you need to find some room avaialble to hook yourself, the snapper school is still parading. Time to "dehook" 6- Technical considerations Now time for technicalities. All of the wide angle pictures where taken with a R7/Nauticam housing equiped with a 18-45EFS entry zoom and a Nauticam WWL1-B wide angle lens. For the macro part I used a EFS 60mm macro lens. Lighting was provided by 2 Fotocore GTX strobes most of the time at full power without any diffuser. It was my first trip with these newely purchased strobes, I found the light delivered was pretty good for wide angle. Only drawback was the issues with optical cables I had, these flashes don't accept all kinds of S&S type connectors. I only had consistent results with WeeFine cable connectors (this is not related to the type of cable but only to the connectors). I used sometimes a Scubalamp/SUPE OSC snoot for the macro part. I wouldn't have the same opinion on these strobes fro macro usage, they are heavy and the OSC snoot is not optimal/precise enough for super macro (probably due to the circular bulb combined with the lack of a fresnel lens inside the snoot). Now my recommendation : GO AND DIVE ALOR !

4- Muck diving The long and narrow Kalabahi bay stretches on 15 km from inland Kalabahi town to the Pantar strait where current is running and most of the dive sites located. Near to the entrance of the bay, villages like Ampera, their mosques or their schools set a background for muck diving sites like Mucky Mosque, School's Out, Faktori Es or others. It easily reminds Ambon bay settings above and below without the used diapers floating or the goat skulls lying on the bottom, but most unpleasantly a temperature drop of 3-4 degrees compared to the northern Pantar strait sites. (Ultimately for those unlucky divers who surfaced near to the village sewer, a frequent flyer pass to the bathroom that would jeopardize any diving for about 3 consecutive days 🚽... I was one of these divers on my second stay in Alor, lesson learnt, I would never take my regulator out of my mouth until I'm on the boat when I dive the place.). The biotop is also very similar with black sand, rounded volcanic rocks, rubble, sparsed corals and crinoids where Rhiniopias like to roam (one rhinopias sighting per dive was my ratio). You may also find fields of fire urchins with Coleman shrimps or zebra crabs riding on top, froggies concealed in between ropes, lots of ornate GPF, an abundance of seahorses, occasionally some tiger or harlequin shrimps, fewer nudis than expected though.

3- Bakalang jetty Bakalang jetty is the local "big ferries" harbour for eastern Pantar island, that is quite close to Alor Divers (15 minutes boat ride), it can be done as an afternoon dive or even a nightdive. While 10 years ago it was regarded as a pure macro/muck site, the corals have encrusted the pillars, the early afternoon sunbeams with the small fish schools concur to make it a legit wide angle site. It's probably with Bama wall and Yellow corner, one of the sites I have dived the most often in Alor in all my stays. Encrusted pillars and sunbeams : Fish life : froggie hiding Fish schools Topic related to chapter 2- : ghostnets

2- Local fishermen action Fishermen traditionally use "Bubu" local name of bamboo woven traps that they set on the bottom of the spots where they fish, for decades or centuries it hadnt done too much harm since the traps are resting on a mostly sand or rubble, they also allow smaller fish to get out of the trap. Unfortunately fishermen are using more and more narrow meshed nylon fishing nets like seines which are damaging both the fish and coral life. Indistinct fish like damselfish or anthias find themselves entangled, these larger nets are disposed on larger coral fields. Even though still better than bombing, that trend might become a threat to the more delicate coral fields and also to the small coral reef fish. Scouting the bottom for the perfect bubu location : Bubu down Securing the Bubu Bubu check Fishing nets and spearfisherman

1- Shallow parts : The shallower parts of some of the main sites in Alor (Bama Wall, Cathedral, The Edge, Red Sand beach etc.) are incredible, I would stay there for the whole dive instead of going deeper on the wall. This thanks to the topography, the fish and coral life density and also the incredible visibility : the walls drop off almost immediately starting from 3 to 7m deep close to the shore, hence compacting the shallower reef inhabitants in a relatively small area with great visibility making it ideal for Snell windows or sunbeams. However the downside is that you can be often swept sideways or over the shallows by a sometimes raging current. Alor is not a joke for currents, but then you get the fishlife. Here's below the idea. Cathedral which is typical for sunbeams and greenish light coming from the tree shades and the algaes in the shallows Bama Wall - my favorite dive site in Alor- Other sites like The Edge, Red Sand beach or even Rumah Biru

Alor can be a PITA to get since it takes at least 2 domestic flights from Jakarta or Bali, the flight connexions times are not optimalat all -undesrtatement-. it will most of the time force you to an overnight in the dull city of Kupang, add on top the indonesian carriers enjoy canceling their flights on last minute (happened to me twice in a year with the same airline group that I’ll shame here ; LionAir, WIngsAir or BatikAir ). At least the newer seafront Sotis Hotel provides occasions to see local life at sunset time : Alor Divers is located on the island of Pantar which is one hour mixed car and speedboat ride from Alor. Once you get there you’ll be beached on a fantastic white sand beach then greeted by the resort and dive managers who will set the tune and success of your stay (this year dutch couple Koen and Melissa made everything easy ). The 9 Bungalows are all facing the beach, 30m for the most from the sea, deluxe bungalows have a large shaded terrasse with sofas, an entrance to the outdoor bathroom, two large tables for the photographers need and all the electrical sockets you need. The bungalows are spacious wiith mosquito netted queen beds, no AC but 2 fans on top and on the side of the bed. In august it was cool and breezy enough at night to sleep with double sheets on. View at sunrise from Alor Divers bungalows : The place is quite well known to me : It was my 5th stay at Alor Divers over the past 10 years, so I could focus on what I was looking forward to. Luckily, we were only 5 divers and sometimes 2 snorkelers, hence I could discuss with the managers to plan dives I wanted for the days after. Once this said, mother Nature wasn't fully cooperative with my major target : the famous hammerheads. Although the party had seen them on the day I checked in, another operation consistently spotting up to 15 HH on the two days before we dived the site… yes, before... of course, you could guess the outcome : there were zilch on the day we went there. For those who haven’t dived Alor, it’s a weird sort of area full of marine ressources but uneasy to capture : Alor is a mix of vivid blue waters teeming with fish but NOT schooling, the coral life is outstanding as well, add on top you will find a mini Ambon/Lembeh sort of muckdive environment when diving Kalabahi bay. Aside from the hammerheads which are a hit or miss (Overall I’m on a 30% success rate on the HH site) , the main photo interests for me as five-peater photographer in Alor are : · The fantastic shallows in crystal clear waters (the guides are always surprised when I tell them I want to stay in the shallows rather than diving deep on the wall), · Human action (you often meet local people fishing or setting bamboo fishtraps underwater – aka « Bubu »-), · The nice Bakalang ferry jetty with populated with batfish between the colorful coral encrusted pillars. · and the ubiquitous Rhinopias when going to muck sites. UW photos to come.