Blackwater diving

Hello everybody,

I just returned from a 3 week trip to Indonesia.  My first week was spent in Lembeh with NAD Lembeh and had the opportunity to go on my first black water dives.  Needless to say I quickly became addicted and didnt miss any dives. 

A quick review of my experience with NAD Lembeh.  I will echo most of the reviews I have seen on the website regarding my experience, it was phenomenal.  Although this was my first trip to Lembeh and thus have nothing else to compare it to I will say that I will not be staying anywhere else during any future visits.  I had a nice room by the beach, bed was very comfortable and AC worked to perfection.  The food was fantastic, and they were very accommodating since I am vegetarian.  The dive boats are great with ample room for all on board.  The staff carry all your equipment to and from the dive boat and set it up, including the camera.  The camera room was very ample with lots of charging space.  There are computers to edit/post but I did not take advantage of this service.  Since I was in a room by myself I had my own dive guide/buddy/photographic assistant which was Andri.   He was great, very patient and never in any rush to move on.  It didnt matter whether we spent 30 seconds or 30 minutes in a subject there was never any rush.  

Here are a few shots taken during black water. Critique highly encouraged.  Many more to come including during regular dives. Many more posted on Flickr. 

Larval wonderpus

Blackwater-2 by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Blackwater-2 by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Larval mimic octopus, maybe?

blackwater-7 by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

blackwater (1 of 1) by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Larval long arm octopus

blackwater (1 of 1)-5 by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Larval Long Arm Octopus by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

blackwater (1 of 1)-6 by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

female paper nautilus/Argonaut riding plastic trash. Although I did see many riding their normal jellyfish, this one made me sad considering the amount of trash we are putting into the world and our oceans.

Female Paper Nautilus by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

paper nautilus/argonaut with plastic trash by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Female Paper Nautilus by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr 

Lovely images! Well done.

Excellent images.  Tell us about your lighting setup, it produced fantastic results. 

Hi Troporobo

I use a pair of YSD2.  Speaking to a lot of other photographers during this trip they had either tried the YSD2 or knew of someone who had tried them with pretty poor results. Although the complaints seem to be with support if something goes wrong rather than the actual strobe.  For what its worth when I first purchased my strobe one was firing without a flash trigger and it was replaced within a week by Sea and Sea. 

The strobes were set up above the port, about 2 and 10 oclock position and close to the housing, almost to the point of touching it since most subjects are less than 1 foot from the port.  I was shooting at +0.7-1.5 EV on both strobes. 

I use a sola red 1200 for a modeling/focus light. 

Wonderful pictures. How do you like the YS D2s performance wise? I am asking behause you mentioned „poor results“ or was this just concerning support? 

Looking at your pictures performance is pretty good.  

Hi Tutup,

For what its worth I have had a great experience with my YSD2.  The complaints that I had heard was that if something goes wrong with the strobe customer service was a nightmare to deal with; however, this was explicitly customer service in Japan.  One of my YSD2 was firing without a trigger right after I bought it, probably less than 1 month.  I contacted US customer service and I had a replacement not a repair within 1 week.  My personal experience with customer service has been exemplary.  The YSD2 perform optimally for me and I highly recommend them. 

Hi Karyll,

thanks for the feedback. I was undecided between the YS-D2s and the upcoming Retras. But for travelling the Sea&Seas are not as heavy and what I read so far, the YS-D2Js appear to be a lot more reliable compared to former models.. Guess I will give them a try finally. 

Cheers

a few more nautilus pics.  These were riding their normal jellies rather than trash

paper nautilus/argonaut on jelly by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

paper nautilus/argonaut on jellyfish by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

paper nautilus/argonaut on jelly by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

These are awesome! I cannot wait to try blackwater!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

diminuative paper nautilus/argonauts. these guys are dwarfs in comparison to the large females

male paper nautilus/argonaut on jellyfish by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

male paper nautilus/argonaut on jellyfish by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Unknown octopus species

Octopus by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Octopus by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

octopus sp by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

octopus sp by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

cardinalfish by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Double ended pipefish by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Flounder by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Jack in jelly by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

These are all wonderful, but I find the cardinalfish and pipefish images spectacular.  Again, well done!

So many amazing shots - well done! I love the flounder, and the second shot of the long arm octopus.

Fantastic photos!

Did you do all the dives in the strait?

On 10/1/2019 at 8:01 PM, errbrr said:

So many amazing shots - well done! I love the flounder, and the second shot of the long arm octopus.

yes.  they were all shot in Lembeh strait

Excellent images!

Amazing shots, thanks for sharing!

Feeding squid by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

OceanArt2019-1-17 by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Juvenile fish hiding in jellyfish by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Juvenile fish hiding in jellyfish by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

Larval eel by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

snapper by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr

blackwater-1 by Karyll Gonzalez, on Flickr