Dugongs

I've been asked to find and shoot dugongs in HDV (which I don't yet have) for a documentary. I'm told the best places to find them are Australia and UAE.

Have any of you dived with or even videoed dugongs?

Are there organised tours in Australia to spot them? If so then is one allowed to dive with them?

Can they be dangerous? There's a particularly frisky one in the clips on oceanfootage.com

Am I looking at a wild goose chase?

Nick

They are a very protected species in Australia.

Unless you are in indigenous australian it may be easier to get film permits and close access to the animals in the UAE.

Peter

Hi Nick

Funny, small world...that guy contacted me as well. We have dugongs over here in West Aus but it takes time to get any good shots. One would need weeks and a good budget to get want he wants and lots of luck.

I spent 3 weeks once for a German crew and still did not get any good shots. We sailed around on a KAT in Monkey Mia, water is very green and Dugongs very shy and as soon as you spot one in clear water, they swam to the dirty water.

The only close up shots we got was with another crew who we went with that was tagging them. These guys chased them around in a rib and then leaped off and grab them. I cannot belive how fast they can swim over a short distance.

We also get them around here on the Ningaloo Reef but same thing, very shy and hard to get close to.

What HDV camera are you getting?

Wags

There is a member named Blaze who lives in the Seychelles or Cocos Keeling (can't remember which) who has a dugong "regular" who is very used to having her photo taken.

If Blaze isn't a member here, try dd.net

Cheers

James

Cocos Keeling is where Blaze's one is I believe, Kat's the name of the beast. There is also a tame one on Vanuatu which will let you get real close to shoot. The loner ones are usually more tame.

Looks like whomever is asking is just looking for locales to shoot dugongs and spreading the word. Then they'll shoot it themselves. So if I were you, I wouldn't break my back about finding locations without a firm contract.

Hey Drew

I'm going to load up two demo MPEG 2 clips soon.

One will be PAL and the other NTSC, both progressive. Will give you and idea of the quality I have achieved straight from the timline.

I downloaded that magic bullet but takes forever to process HDV. Looks like you have to encode out to a AVI file, add the deinterlacer render then encode to DVD. My tests have shown that encoding out from HDV to a format then encoding to a DVD file is not as good as straight out to DVD from the HDV timeline. Other option is to add the filter to every single clip on the timeline, render to make sure it looks okay, then encode. That would take days....

But I will do a small test.

Wags

Thanks for the replies guys. I've followed up a possiblity to dive with dugongs here in Thailand at Koh Libong and also warned the customer that his project is likely to be lengthy, frustrating and expensive.

What HDV camera are you getting?

I was intending to upgrade to the Sony Z1 but I need a big season before I can afford it so it probably won't be for around 6 months. This dugong guy says he has a Z1 or FX1 but I don't know if he has a housing.

I have a lot of loyalty to Gates after my VX2000 housing has given such great service but I must admit the Amphibico looks nice. However I was a bit horrified by the vignetting in your review.

The Sony A1U is also coming into my reckoning against the Z1. Haven't done the research on that one yet really, but this board seems to be the place to start.

Nick

Hi Nick

I like you site, hey I think I have filmed that same Whale Shark over here??

Yes don't expect to get fantastic wild underwater Dugong footage in just a day or two unless you have a pet one.

The A1 will not be as good the Z1 in low light. I set the shutter at 100+ for a clear 14 meter dive without a URPRO filter which puts the exposure on around f9-f11 so going by that the A1 will still be good to use I recond.

The Phenom is a very nice housing but its vignetting is a bummer, but still better when you compare to the lenses that come standard with the other housings. A wider lens is suppose to come out soon.

The 94 degree lens can be zoomed in abit or I just edit it out. Every single screen in the world that has been designed to have a TV signal displayed on it has overscan, they have to. Some though you can turn off for reasons like connecting ones computer to the screen etc.

If you or Mike or Drew have broadband, here are two links to a PAL and NTSC mpeg2 DVD files.

http://www.ningalooreefteach.com/PALpro.m2v

http://www.ningalooreefteach.com/NTSCpro.m2v

I made them from a PAL HDV timeline and will give you an idea of the quality.

They are 14 megs each.

I have also found with HDV you can get abit of motion blur in certain shots, but once you are aware of it, you can shoot around it. I wll load up a demo clip as an example to what I mean.

The quality of the raw HDV is stunning though on a high res screen. Its ashame one has to downconvert to normal DVD specs. It looks like the new DVD players, P3 and the like will all be able to play HD wmv files which will be great. One will be able to get over 60 mins of near on the same quality as raw HDV on a normal DVD. Its also funnny that once you start editing HDV, editing normal DV looks so strange as you are use to seeing this stunning image on the screen.

More soon

Wags