sinetwo

Hey @Antoine de Brisbane, you can see the responses on my post which is a *REALLY* similar ask 🙂 I ended up ditching the idea of hammerheads in Bimini as the day trip cost an obscene $610+ - which is more than my return direct flight to Florida from London. You can do it on a day trip to Bimini if you're flush with cash. Sadly there's a monopoly there, so you won't have a choice as to who you go with. The Jupiter shark dives start in the morning, and they're FL based (closer to West Palm Beach). I'm going for roughly 8 days and I think I'll be able to fit in: * 2 days manatees * 1-2 days Sharks * 1-2 days land wildlife * Springs * Chill

Wow, that seems like such a weird use of time for the Nikon firmware engineers 😛

Thank you all for your advice - the number of operators are a bit overwhelming but it's clear that we need to consider who we go with and what they're able to offer photographers specifically. This may be more difficult with boat charters that charge $4-500 for a private manatee excursion, vs $50 for a shared boat. Having said that, we may do manatees for 2 days if needed, as our schedule is pretty flexible. This is the first water trip I'm doing where diving isn't the main activity. @Pooley: Stellar photos, both under and over! Sunset owl is ❤️ Even with the milky vis I think you've managed to extract a really nice photo. Enough inspiration for us to go, I'm certainly hoping we also see burrowing owls. @Lasongo thanks for the advice, I'll look them up. We need to consider the ethical part around chumming (totally aware of arguments both for and against!), and I'd hazard a guess that even dive ops like Jupiter, who do not chum, get to go on shark dives due to others' chumming, so it's probably a side effect than anything else. Even if I could snap one good grouper shot I'd be really happy. The backscatter grouper hero images are really getting to me 😉 @Davide DB thanks for the clip, I'll look at the recommended charters there too.

Thank you @fruehaufsteher2, I think we will skip Bimini. I'm absolutely desperate to see hammers but for a 2-3 day trip to Bimini it'll be an extra $1k at least. I'd rather put that towards Galapagos! So our plan is generally: Snorkeling with manatees - absolute priority Snorkeling with turtles/dolphins if possible - not a priority Diving springs (any that look great with natural light) - medium priority Jupiter for sharks - high priority Blackwater - low priority (we've done some of the best) Blue heron bridge - low/medium prioirty The nice thing is if I'm able to pack my 300mm 2.8 + 1.4x TC, then we can go birding as well, which means spoonbills, skimmers, bald eagles, ospreys 🙂

Hey folks, We're looking to go to Florida (Orlando and south of Orlando) for a week in winter (February). On our list we have: Snorkeling with manatees Snorkeling with turtles/dolphins if possible Diving springs (any that look great with natural light) Jupiter for sharks and potentially blackwater Blue heron bridge (during the weekdays, not up for the weekend crowd!) Our thoughts are... Fly in to Orlando Do manatees/springs Head down to Jupiter / west palm beach Sharks, general diving Maybe go to key west if it's worth it Snorkelling/diving Head back to Orlando before flight Maybe squeeze in another manatee snorkel if required 🙂 Ideally we'd join the trip up with a cheeky visit to Bimini for dolphins and hammerheads but it'll add on way too much to the budget (at least $1k for a quick trip). I wanted to ask: If people had general recommendations on what to go for for mostly wide angle shooting How to structure the trip Which operators will make our lives easier as uw photogs? Are groupers, or other awesome subjects on the diving menu in February or is that wishful thinking?

What would people recommend as a gilet, vest or hoodie? I really dislike the fisherman look, and my Ayegear hoodie sags so much when I put in anything with weight in it that it's a complete dead giveaway 😂

Hey @Crasoner, would you recommend both of those options in winter time?

Is focus peaking available only on 13 or 12 as well? Lovely video as well! This will be my 4th trip to tulamben. I'm going to do everything I can to avoid the nudis and focus on everything else 🙂

Interestingly I was just looking at this. I'm probably getting the AOI wide lens, as it'll help me do close focus wide angle style shots. However, the only macro specific lens I could find was the Macromate +15? The corners (which are HUGE!) look really bad in all the footage I've seen. Is there an option here to film in 5.3K, use the macromate +15, and then crop to 4K to enable more center sharpness? I'd love to hear about, or ideally see, gopro macro capabilities. I'm off to Tulamben soon and I'm thinking of entering the video part of the competition for the first time ☺

@Davide DB Thanks, I will certainly look at it. I'm one of those weird divers that have very little interest in wrecks in the Med - I need life, and lots of life where possible 🙂 I've been seeing a lot of interesting Numana and Messina, especially from this guy: https://www.instagram.com/davidsalvatori_photo/ I had an extremely disappointing trip to Tenerife (I think that was more dive site/school related, than what's actually possible there), so that's put me off the canaries for some time, although Lanzarote was pretty good! I'm desperate to do more cold water diving, especially to see critters and life I've never seen before, but for some reason I'm finding it very difficult to get the information with searches like "best coldwater diving europe" etc.

Thanks all! I've recently gotten in to drysuiting - I'm based in Brighton so we're not quite as lucky as those along the Jurassic coast. But I am doing more cold water diving now. In terms of where I've been in general, I've been travelling quite a lot to Asia, Mexico and now a bit more in Europe. I'm absolutely desperate to see Wolffish/wolfeels (and more coldwater blennies)

Hey all, I'm seeking a bit of drysuit diving in Europe. I'm working my way down to colder temps. Desperate to see wolffish and other critters, whilst also getting better at drysuiting. Rough criteria: * Great for marine life * Reasonably budget friendly (say £1k per week) * Short flight * Easy diving, as I want to focus on photography * Ideally dive sites are shallow ish to capture any ambient light, but obviously this isn't a requirement. Areas I'm currently considering are: * Norway * Scotland * Italy * France Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I prefer critters over wrecks, and would love to avoid the red sea given I've been there so many times I'm not sure my memory card wants any more blue spotted stingers ☺

I used to be reasonably active at wetpixels when that was up and running. I'm based in the South of the UK and have been getting more and more in to cold water diving!