PNG - Milne Bay

Video from a trip I did to Papua New Guinea - Milne Bay last year aboard the MV Chertan.

Weather was pretty dreadful, we really only had one sunny day in 2 weeks, and the unseasonal wind kept us away from diving the reef pinnacles, but we thoroughly enjoyed long, relaxing and interesting dives on the coastal slopes and shallow hard coral reefs, a great place for a still photographer to practice video ;-)

This was my first time for macro video; I felt comfortable using a diy tripod as many of the sites we dived had sandy/silty bottoms.

Not a particularly fishy or colourful place at the time, but good hard coral and fabulous critters

https://youtu.be/fEff0y7xPvw

PS how do I "embed" a youtube video instead of just providing a link?

Are you shooting a mix of video lights and ambient with a red filter? One critique I would have is that your cuts are fairly quick and do not leave the me enough time to immerse myself in the scene or the creatures behavior. Try extending the cuts some.

Thanks for taking the time and providing feedback.

No filter.

Lights used on most shots but a few were ambient (eg manta). I spent lots of time practicing my manual white balance...

It was often quite dark with little ambient light anyway.

My first version was longer, with cuts generally double the length, but I received feedback that it was too long and a bit slow! I agree that this one is more like a showreel so maybe I'm trying to squeeze too much content in to one movie and should go for fewer but longer clips...

thanks again

Thanks Dave I really enjoyed that. I think you have got the clip lengths pretty much spot-on.

I used to have trouble embedding the videos until I realised that you can't add the link from the YouTube Studio page. If you just go to the regular YouTube and search for your video and use that link it should embed OK

Cheers

Steve

Hi, most enjoyable. About the clips, they are all lovely, I prefer longer ones, even if the video runs much longer. Thank you for posting the video. Please let us know if you issue a new edition.

Very nice. I really admire the macro work especially. What was your lens set-up?

Cheers,

Matt

Very nice. I really admire the macro work especially. What was your lens set-up?

 

Cheers,

Matt

Thanks Matt.

The dive sites, boat, captain, spotters, "buddies", conditions allowed me to spend quality time to get the macro shots, not something thats easy or suitable on many dive trips and locations (eg in Raja Ampat recently I didn't even try to get macro video)

Macro was GH5 with Olympus 60mm, no wet lens. One or two clips may have been with a Panasonic 45mm (since sold as I found the 60mm better stabilised with the GH5, which surprised me, considering the 45mm has OIS and the 60mm relies only on the GH5 IBIS). Although I generally used a tripod, sometimes it was just a monopod and hand held, so the stabilisation helped.

Wide was with Panasonic 8-18 and some portraits with 12-35.

Lighting with 2 x Weefine 5000 Solar Flares.