Back from Tiger Beach

Ah Nick H....so you noticed the pole came;) All I can say is "where has it been all my life"! I have a full write up with pics and instructions coming this week on that...it is super cool.

Also, the .3M is rock solid close and far. Main reason is because that is how your lens will auto focus most of the time. In very clear bright and shallow conditions, it can come up with numbers like .4M to .6M and even 1M. But .3M does trick 90% of the time. The fish can swim from 10 meters away right to your lens and stay in focus the whole way. Also, you never get that focus hunting that destroys shots. Almost all my wide shooting is done at .3M.

(note, every wide lens has its own focal distance...so .3m is not a magic number for the universe of lens)

Thanks Shawn, next trip I'll do more testing to see what my momentary auto focus comes up with in various conditions at various ranges.

Looking forward to your polecam article.

It was very amusing Simon. We had a couple of dives off West Palm Beach a day before we departed on the Shear Water. In one area there was a 'big' elusive Lemon swimming around hiding behind the hull of a local wreck and we were all desperate to get a good shot of it. None of us did, and we were very disappointed.

A day, literally, later and it was 'yeah, Lemon Shark, whatever.....'

Apparently further down the coast a diver center is training photographers on rebreathers to get close enough to Lemons to take a reasonable shot!

Looking forward to your polecam article too shawn...

water here in the manta channels is usually milky, i use .3m all the time..

I would comment on your video Nick but you know i can't watch it...

Mike what is the max file size you are prepared to download? I realise that on dial up you are severely restricted. I'd love to include you or email you a couple of clips - meanwhile enjoy a couple of stills at http://www.fluent-communications.com/Fluent/JASA.html

NickJ,

That clip was truely awesome, I got to go there some day :glare:

I have made a small story about your film in my blog/news page on my website, and made a small pic from your film, and a link to your website.

Hope it's okey ?

You can se it here: Skawdiver.dk/blog

It's in danish, but you need to trust me, when I am saying that I only speak positive about you

Skawdiver, no issue at all, but thanks for having the courtesy to let me know. I'm happy for my Andy Warhol "15 minutes of fame" in Denmark!

Nice website by the way. My wife is half Norwegian and we have a special love for all things Scandinavian. We've dived fjords, but somehow over the years have become soft and more inclined towards warmer waters!

The tiger sharks dive with Jim has been on my to do list for some time. The one problem I see with these shark feed type dives is that, one you really look, most of the footage would not be very usable as there are other divers all over the screen. Add to that the constant flashing of photographers lights and you really wind up with very little to use. Beautifully shot but the best shots were those clips that didn't have frames ruined by flashes and 8 other divers in the picture.

If I ever organize one of these, I will seriously consider a 'just photographers' and 'just videographers' group.

Steve B)

Divers and strobes in videos pose a real challenge for serious 'pure wildlife' videographers, especially at popular dive spots. For our sardine run trip in June, Drew is separating still photographers from video types to avoid ruined video.

For the Tiger Beach and the rest of the Abernethey dives, out of 6-7 hours of video I shot, I have plenty of very useable clips with not a single diver or strobe in sight. The sheer number of sharks on nearly every dive gave plenty of scope for longer takes, and firm editing in post.

I guess I'm a little weird as well, as I actually like divers and strobes in some shots, especially for folks who just want to know 'what it was like to be there' which was the intent of this very rough cut. Also there's no better scale for a 4m shark than the 2m diver it swims past....