Back from Bali

I got back from Bali yesterday and I wanted to get a few images up before zapping off to Cayman.

I was running a marine life focussed group trip for British specialist travel agent Divequest. It wasn't a photographers trip, although most of the group were carrying cameras or videos. The aim of the trip was to experience the diversity of Bali diving and marine life - which is much better and more varied than many people think. And you have the chance to do this from hotels that are much nicer than the average SE Asian dive resort. Critters were high on the list of priorities - but we also spend the last couple of days looking for bigger stuff: Wobbegong Sharks, Mantas and Mola mola (the last of which proved frustratingly elusive on the day we searched).

Leading a group trip means that my own photography is well down the list of priorities and some subjects, such as pygmies, just aren't worth bothering with (when I have to make sure everyone else gets a good look and the photos they want before I can have a go). In general I find that 2 weeks leading a trip produces less quality images than 1 week diving for myself. But it is much less intense than personal shooting and much more fun!

We had a very successful "Road Trip" diving in 8 areas of Bali: Secret Bay, Menjangan Island, Seririt, Tulamben, Seraya Resort House Reef, Amed, Amuk Bay and Nusa Penida Island. And apart from the pesky Mola molas we saw some awesome stuff. As you can see in the gallery.

http://www.amustard.com/bali/

Alex

Fantastic as always! Not bad at all for a trip where photography was "well down on the list of priorities".

Welcome back Alex? a little warmer than your cliffs of dover a few weeks back i am sure!

Good looking froggies...what is that blue stuff all over them and the seagrass?

Sounds like you had a good time...running off to Cayman now? Lots of airmiles for you

Photographically I try to differentiate my critter shots from other DSLR users by using long exposures are burning in blue backgrounds. I think that this is a good approach to overcome the repetitive feel of Indonesian black sand images again and again. This seahorse is just an example:

Whenever possible I also try to choose a camera angle that isolates subjects against open water to get clean black, or my favoured blue backgrounds. Blue water is hard to come by in murky Indonesia but the sky is blue - which is what got such a nice blue on this shot of a shortfin lionfish:

I was able to get underneath this fish because I spotted that they lived on top of the structure at Scuba Seraya which offered this unusual angle to the patient!

The other thing I tried with the critters were face portraits. I have felt that my critter shots in the past have not had enough variety being mainly whole animal shots - so I tried to get tigher, high impact, personality filled shots when I could.

I hope that provides some insight into the gallery:

http://www.amustard.com/bali/

The other thing I was doing was shooting the production version of the Magic Filter for the first time. And I was very pleased with how it coped in the low viz Indonesian waters. The pix don't look low viz, but it was. I guess that is the Magic!

http://www.amustard.com/bali_magic/

Alex

p.s. There are a couple of images in the Gallery that I took last year (as I will also direct people to this gallery to promote the repeat trip next year).

Shooting wise. I was using my Nikon D2X in a Subal housing - still without a GS viewfinder. Lighting was two Subtronic Alphas - one of which developed an intermittant fault towards the end of the trip (it would sometimes fire on full power when set at other power settings). For three dives I used Magic Filters both Magic 10.5N and Magic 16N. The lenses I used were:

Nikon 10.5mm

Nikon 16mm

Sigma 28-70mm

Nikon 60mm Macro

Nikon 105mm Macro

Sigma 150mm Macro (only on one dive - found it was too long for low Viz Indonesia - hope to make better friends with it in clear Cayman).

Alex

A little warmer than your cliffs of dover a few weeks back i am sure!

Good looking froggies...what is that blue stuff all over them and the seagrass?

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Bali can be freezing, Mike. Particularly at Nusa Penida (19-26ËšC) and Secret Bay (23-24ËšC), where those froggies at the top are from. Everywere else it is 27-28ËšC. Cayman will be 30ËšC.

The froggies are covered in dust and the green stuff is large leaves of macro algae (seaweed). The blue is from the long exposure I was using to give the image more depth. That picture was taken at F10 @ 1/15th with Sigma 28-70mm @ 28mm. Is that the blue you meant? I guess that there is a little bit of ghosting on the image?

Alex

A real highlight for me was getting to dive for an afternoon and evening at Seririt with Graham and Yan from Diving 4 Images - that James and Sarah had recently dived with (I got to make up loads of stories about them - which hopefully will spread through the UW photo world!). It is the first time that I have had a choice of two mimic octopuses to shoot at the same time! It is a great site for Mimics and other octopus. Plus Ghost Pipefish, Stargazers, Ambon Scorpionfish, rare Bluefin Lionfish and those crazy mini-mushroom corals across the seabed.

I like this image of a Mimic, which I think shows it nicely in its environment. And the second shot of the one of the Mimics up to its tricks. We even had one free swimming - but one of my group was videoing it at the time and I couldn't take a shot, even though it swan straight towards me, without ruining his sequence! Damn videographers.

The other octopus are also good on this site, such as the small ones that hide in shells and bottles etc. And the undescribed "white V" long armed octopus that does many of the same tricks as the mimic.

Alex

Thats a really outstanding set of images you have there Alex. Really liking that Horse and other Froggie as well. Nicely done on the Lion too!

I think the blue bits i meant on the first image is the dust you are talking about not ghosting or slow shutter. I wasn't sure if they had dust on them as well or if they had been able to mimic what was on the surrounding seaweed.

I would say great stuff again but that videographer comment has put you in the dog house

beautiful shots Alex,

And the Sunfish in the end is amazing!

beautiful shots Alex,

And the Sunfish in the end is amazing!

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Unfortunately that was from last year. We just couldn't find any on the day we looked. But they are around - as everyone was keen to remind us!

Alex

Beautiful work! Some excellent examples of the eye contact you once referred to in one of my posts.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers.

Michael.

Hi Alex,

Welcome back friend. I've been waiting patiently for weeks to see these images. My new old friends from Bali! It's great to see that your group got to experience so much underwater diversity.

Of course, your take on many of the same subjects that Sarah and I saw was very refreshing. I especially like your freeswimming and behavior lionfish photos. Not to mention the Siririt stuff. Great!

I'm sure your group had a fabulous trip - molas or not.

Cheers

James

I particularly love that Seahorse face shot. Awesome!

Alex....

The blue background you got with the Lionfish at Scuba Seraya was that due to the slower shutterspeed of 15? Did you use the magic filter there. I will be there for a couple of days after diving the Alor-Flores area in October. I know the structure you are talking about. Thanks

Great stuff, Alex! It is weird to recognize some of the same critters from Secret Bay!

Cheers,

Marli

The octopus in the shell is my favorite. Nice work.

Joe

The blue background you got with the Lionfish at Scuba Seraya was that due to the slower shutterspeed of 15?

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Nothing special it was just the shooting angle that was almost vertical that produced such a great blue. I don't think that it was even a long exposure on this one!

It is weird to recognize some of the same critters from Secret Bay! 

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I spent a good deal of time checking out other people's Bali galleries before going so it was equally strange to recognise actual individuals underwater from pictures I had seen before.

The octopus in the shell is my favorite.

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One of mine too. Once I found it I decided to stick with it after the rest of the gang had moved on. I used a longer exposure to get more ambient light into this image to give it more depth. It wasn't perfectly posed (as Costas Petrinos's BBC Wildlife image was from a few years ago), but I am pleased with the image.

Thanks for the all the nice comments!

Alex

Yep. Some familiar faces include:

ALL of the frogfish at Secret Bay

The catfish at Secret Bay

ALL the octos

The warty frogfish (yellow and gray) at Scuba Seraya

The HS at scuba seraya

The seahorses at seraya

A few of the nudis at seraya

It's awesome to see that they're all still there. Hopefully I can say the same in about a year.

Cheers

James

I dont mean this to be contoversial, but whenever i see your work posted, it reminds me of the art of photograghy.So much of uw is what i would call snapshots, or id shots. yours is thought out and creative, really ahead of the pack.

I dont mean this to be contoversial, but whenever i see your work posted, it reminds me of the art of photograghy.So much of uw is what i would call snapshots, or id shots. yours is thought out and creative, really ahead of the pack.

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I don't think that's controversial at all.