Ultimate Indonesia 2011 official trip thread

Here's a few of mine

Plus a dragon shot or two...

Thanks for a wonderful trip guys. You might be pleased to know that after the correct buttons were put on the Seacam D7000 housing it performed flawlessly, after a bit of tweaking and a lot of swearing. Anyone thinking of buying one please PM me for an unbiased review HA HA!

Julian

Ha ha! That is awesome.

Alex

Here's a few of mine

 

 

Thanks for a wonderful trip guys. You might be pleased to know that after the correct buttons were put on the Seacam D7000 housing it performed flawlessly, after a bit of tweaking and a lot of swearing. Anyone thinking of buying one please PM me for an unbiased review HA HA!

 

Julian

Fantastic series!!

Underwater photographers are a strange species. ....

I like it. I am always left explaining to people how small certain subjects are and that illustrates perfectly.

Todd

Some stunning and wonderful images, looks like everyone had a great trip.

At Disaster Bay (Garry's name) you can find three different types up in the shallows (6m depth) the yellow/blue striped the lady bugs and the black yellow spotted. But, they aren't highly concentrated like they are at Yellow wall. The ones at Castle rock were the ladybugs, but also highly concentrated on some things, like sponges with nudi's.

Interesting.. never heard of Disaster bay.. will have to ask Garry, thanks

Interesting.. never heard of Disaster bay.. will have to ask Garry, thanks

Disaster Bay is Gary's name for the little bay around the corner from Pelican Head, where he flipped a tender once...

Haha.. I have no idea where Pelican Head is either! I use the local names as that is what is on the charts

South Komodo i guess? Obviously he has made his own names rather than what is on the charts

It's the bay across the channel from Yellow Wall.

fantastic collection of images all!

It's the bay across the channel from Yellow Wall.

Right, i asked him and here is a quote from Garry...

"I generally make up my own names for dive sites to piss other people off."

That sounds about right

Most excellent! Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Finally got a chance to see the slideshow - awesome!!! Seeing the dragons jump was fascinating - I knew they could run fast but never knew they could jump!

...and Eric, was that a L___o in the Nauticam cube?

I loved all the images especially the slideshow. Just awesome.

Everyone seems to have left today, but I have an extra day here to work on pics and add to the thread. It was an absolutely fantastic trip!

That's excellent stuff!

Tim

Hey, could somebody tell me what is the deal with the steel rod I see a lot of people carrying?

I saw some divers a couple of months back on our Turks & Caicos boat using them and they told me they got them diving in the Philippines. One of the divemasters made a comment how he didn't like them because he felt they encouraged people to poke at critters and live coral/sponges, but I guess that's like anything else, it's how you use it.

Are they better for helping to hold you in-place with current or surge? I usually just find a non-living spot and put my left hand index finger on it to hold me, but with surge that becomes problematic.

Great photos, LOVED the slideshow Eric.

If I might *really* be a pain in the butt, it would be great if the participants chimed in with their exact equipment setups. I noticed Eric had his 3D Gopro and as mentioned you guys and gals had mostly 7D's or D7000's -- what else did you really like using or what else was a "bust" equipment-wise? Was most of the video from the 7D/D7000's or other sources? Did everyone backroll in holding their rigs (great video perspective on that BTW) or did others have their gear handed down?

Take care,

John

Slideshow. Watch full screen for best results.

 

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Great video Eric. Looks like you guys had an epic trip!

Eric, I bet you just sold 10 more trips on that boat with your slideshow. I'm still a bit dazed just watching it.

JP

John, Julie and I use this gear:

3 x Nikon D7000 (1 spare), 2 x Subal ND7000 housings, 2 x Inon Z240s, 4 x YS110 (2 spare) all strobes with fiber optic connection, Stix float arms, 2 x Nikon 105mm, 2 x Tokina 10-17mm, 1 x 1.4 TC, 1 x macromate, 3 x hartenberger focus lights (1 spare), ultralight clamps.

We had 1 minor malfunction. The AE-L/AF-L button on the back (re-assigned as autofocus button with autofocus removed from release button), did not work properly on 1 of the subal housings, driving Julie insane. It looked like there's a spring that wasn't working right. We took it apart ourselves and re-seated everything, which helped a bit, but not very long. Then Garry the cruise director did it again, and ever since things have been working ok.

I know 1 person had a lot of trouble with his housing, but i'll leave that up to him to discuss if he feels like it

There were 3 floods, one pretty serious, but amazingly no gear was damaged. Leak detectors rock.