Bali Diving from September 2007

I've posted a video from our diving in Bali in September 2007 towards the top of my home page. The video is for AquaMarine Diving to show silently and looping on a TV on their stand at the London International Dive Show next month.

I would be interested in any comments on the video and whether it downloads/plays smoothly.

Shot with the Sony Z1 in Light and Motion Bluefin housing. Wide shots with the 80 degree port. Most of the macro with Century Optics +3.5 diopter behind flat port. L&M Sunray halogens on many shots.

Edited in Sony Vegas Pro 8.0b. The Flash .flv file is 500 kbps video, 128 kbps MP3 audio. I frameserved from Vegas to On2 Flix Pro and did a 2-pass encode and it took over an hour on my quad core! It's hosted on brightcove.com

I'll put a 960x540 version up on Stage6 next week after any adjustments.

Some lovely Images on there Nick old Bean and it was as smooth as a babies towel dried and powdered cheeks....

Dive safe

DeanB

Hey Nick, why don't you try Wags new site for hosting?

Sorry, not enough GB on my account to download..

Nice imaging Nick lots of diverse shots with good composition and substance-kudos

How Long were you there for this shoot?

-Scott Blain

Really liked it Nick, some fantastic macro stuff. Loads of diversity, were you using the century achromatic for the macro stuff?

Jon

I've posted a video from our diving in Bali in September 2007 towards the top of my home page.

It was great, a ton of great shots and I liked the editing for the transtions A couple of slight glitches at the beginning while the intial loading started up, but after that smooth playback.

Nick there is some great shots in that, well done and I wish we had clear water like that here, 2 metre snowy vis at the moment...

Shot of the volcano is not straight.

On2 Flix Pro is a great encoder looking at that 500kbps encode. I found another encoder called SUPER, it's open source and it too does a better job at making flv file than maromedia 8's encoder. See other post coming up about it.

Well I see you have it on Brightcove, load it up on me new site if ya want as well.

Thanks for all the comments.

Scott, I did 27 dives over 9 days. The macro is from Coral Garden and Drop Off at Tulamben, Seraya Slopes (Seraya Secrets), and Puri Jati. Wreck is USAT Liberty at Tulamben. The mola is the only one I got anywhere near at Crystal Bay.

Jonny, yes, most of the macro stuff is with the Century +3.5 achromatic.

Wags, it's the volcano that's not straight, not my shot! (If the spirit level on my tripod is to be believed anyway).

You're all so nice here. I had plenty of criticism on a couple of other sites. I'll go for version 2 and then post it up in some other places including Wags' new site.

cheers all

It was crap.......

oh sorry, too harsh?

I just say that cuz you chickened out meeting up with us for beers...

Hmm, that is probably a good thing. The less photographic evidence the better. I do remember Drew pointing his camera around last week

Unlucky for you I can't find that phone! But I'm sure there'll be repeat performances by you lot.

Mike you need to move to Puri Jati. Bali is BIG.

Next time...

Wow Nick, so you dived from Aquamarines mysterious boats too eh? Nice vid mate. The Achromatics work well eh?

Good stuff.

Mark.

Nick, you did come in and out the airport no? :D

Move to PJ's? hahah... Guess i could use the new toilet and shower facilities there as a home..

Mark, yes, the Century worked really well. Thanks for sparking up my interest in it again, just in time to get it sorted for that trip. Could still do with a little more though. Getting greedy now. Not enough room to stack them inside the Bluefin though.

Sorry Mike, I didn't realise you lived in the airport. You really do need to move to PJ. They've even got power now as well as running water. What more could you want.

Great stuff Nick! I'm just wondering what criticism you could have got from 'other' sites - it looked peachy to me!

Cheers, Simon

Mark, yes, the Century worked really well. Thanks for sparking up my interest in it again, just in time to get it sorted for that trip. Could still do with a little more though. Getting greedy now. Not enough room to stack them inside the Bluefin though.

 

Sorry Mike, I didn't realise you lived in the airport. You really do need to move to PJ. They've even got power now as well as running water. What more could you want.

Nick, wich diopters from Century did you buy and how menny can put on the camera with the Bluefin?

Great stuff Nick! I'm just wondering what criticism you could have got from 'other' sites - it looked peachy to me!

Too loud, too long, poor choice of music for topside part, too much topside before getting underwater, and strange to go from an underwater opening shot back to a longish topside sequence before getting underwater again. To be fair I think they all had points and I changed to a shorter version last night with no topside, which is what you might have seen Simon.

As for the loudness, as long as it's not going over 0dB and distorting then as far as I'm concerned my video is correct and the rest of the WWW is too quiet! I didn't add any audio compression.

Nick, wich diopters from Century did you buy and how menny can put on the camera with the Bluefin?

Brumpy, I used +3.5 and you can only fit one in the Bluefin. Can fit 2 in the Gates (according to Mark Camdiver).

I think you can actually fit more then two if you wanted to in the Gates (if it's similar to the HC7 or the HD1). Would be interesting to see the difference between the Century Achromatic vs. the cheaper (single element?) diopters. I should hope significant for the price difference...

I think you can actually fit more then two if you wanted to in the Gates (if it's similar to the HC7 or the HD1).

I think more than 2 would be getting a bit excessive. Would be very difficult to control camera shake, even on a tripod, and I would think so many boundaries for the light to travel through is likely to degrade the image.

Would be interesting to see the difference between the Century Achromatic vs. the cheaper (single element?) diopters. I should hope significant for the price difference...

In my tests it was significantly superior to the L&M flip macro, which is a rectangular single element diopter (more on this thread).

Note to manufacturers: It would be great to have something like the Century +3.5 in a flip arm.