Please scroll in the displayed image or click here for full screen view of the story.
Personally, I recommend using the Link for a better experience with bigger photos.
]]>
Sometimes I got the feedback that my site is a bit dark and dramatic. So I took myself a long evening / night and made some minor changes.
First of all I changed the Header and Footer from a dark grey to a bright white. Then I removed all the disturbing and drab backgrounds from the galleries. Moreover is the "Photo Page" changed into "Dim the Lights", which means you can see the photo even bigger now by just clicking on the Thumbnail.
I also change the background image on all the text pages into bright photos which are more adequate for a friendly appearance.
]]>
Before our dive trip started we had two days in Maumere. After a day of acclimation on the beach we got up in the middle of the night for our visit to the Kelimutu volcano. It was a long drive to the other side of the island through small villages and the rainforest. The weather by the volcano wasn't as good as we expected. It was "very" cold and foggy. Luckily the clouds vanished soon after we got to the three volcano lakes "Tiwi Ata Mbupu", "Tiwu Nua Muri Kooh Tai" and "Tiwu Ata Polo".
Tiwu Ata Polo and Tiwu Nuwa Muri Koo FaiThe photo shows two of the three summit crater lakes of the Kelimutu volcano which is situated in Flores, Indonesia. The darker one is the Tiwu Ata Polo (Bewitched, or Enchanted Lake) and the other is the Tiwu Nuwa Muri Koo Fai (Lake of Young Men and Maidens) Tiwu Ata Polo and Tiwu Nuwa Muri Koo FaiThe photo shows two of the three summit crater lakes of the Kelimutu volcano which is situated in Flores, Indonesia. The darker one is the Tiwu Ata Polo (Bewitched, or Enchanted Lake) and the other is the Tiwu Nuwa Muri Koo Fai (Lake of Young Men and Maidens) Lake of Young Men and Maidens (Tiwu Nuwa Muri Koo Fai)The photo shows one of the three summit crater lakes of the Kelimutu volcano which is situated in Flores, Indonesia.
When we arrived on the summit, which is a viewpoint, a group of Crab-eating Macaques were enjoying the warm morning sun and so did we.
Take care and don't forget to subscribe to my blog for further posts.
]]>Our second day on the Arenui, the boutique liveaboard, started at 6:30 in the morning with a short breakfast, the briefing and finally at 8 o'clock our first dive in the area of Pantar Strait. The dive site for the first and second dive is called Tanjung Yan Village and is situated in front of Pura Island.
First we dived with the macro lens, like the day before, to get some good pictures of the small creatures down there. When I go through the photos of this dive I have to say that some of the creatures look like being around their own houses. As you can see in the first picture!
EXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | 105mm | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f/9,0 | Strobes
I'm not sure if the creature is called a Goby but he does look like he just woke up and is checking out the weather (water) conditions. It was 8:22am when I captured this and he was curios and looked at us for a short time before he went back in hiding.
Below are 2 more early morning snapshots of some interesting fishes. EXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | 105mm | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f/9,0 | Strobes EXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | 105mm | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f/9,0 | Strobes
And for some diversity, here's a soft coral. EXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f/9,0 | Strobes
In the second dive, which was at the same dive site, I went diving with a wide angle lens for the very first time. And with wide-angle I mean a fast 16 to 35 mm zoom lens without the possibility to zoom because I didn't get the zoom ring in time. However, I had huge problems with the correct use of available light and the strobes. In fact the difference between macro and wide-angle is even bigger in underwater photography than I've expected. So it wasn't a very relaxed dive for me and in the end I had a bunch of useless photos. Well not totally useless, at least I learned something through my failed photos and got some good advises from underwater photographers with more experience. And here's the only photo which is good enough to show you. EXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | 16mm | ISO 200 | 1/100s | f/5,6 | one strobe from below
Afterward the boat started the engine and we travelled to our next dive site called Cave Point, same area but another Reef, around Reta Island. And this time I went for my fisheye lens, which allows you to get closer to the subject. Due to the bigger angle of view it was a new challenge again.
Although I had the fisheye only for approximately half a month I managed to get better results than with the normal wide-angle and I consider that diving with a fisheye is real fun.
EXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | 16mm Fisheye | ISO 200 | 1/250s | f/11,0 | Strobes EXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | 16mm Fisheye | ISO 200 | 1/250s | f/11,0 | Strobes
So that’s all from the second day on which I’ve learned a lot about underwater photography. The strobes are one of the most important creative tools below sea level but you have to understand the link between the strobes, shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
In my next blog-post I will write something about the trip in generally which includes the Kelimutu Volcano, Alor and the Arenui itself.
]]>Actually it was the first time for me with a DSLR camera underwater. Prior to this dive safari I simply used a compact camera for diving without external strobes, so it was quite a challenge with this big housing. However I think I've done a pretty good job as you will see on the pictures below, which are from my very first dives.
EXIFSony SLT-A99V | 105mm | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f / 7.1 | Strobes from left and right
Sorry, but I have no clue what kind of fish this is, well he was really small but that's all I can tell you. So let's go to the shooting conditions. You've probably noticed, that this photo is slightly cropped for a better composing. Because I was using the centred focus point instead of the flexible. Beside it was also somehow a cut out between me, the camera and that tiny little blue fish.
To get such a small moving object on the sensor with a 105mm macro lens is super difficult, even more underwater where you have a magnification factor of 1.3 so you're already near to a 140mm zoom. This means if you lose the target you have to search it again which sometimes can be incredible hard, seeing that the camera is in a super oversized underwater housing.
However, in the end I was lucky and got my shot.
And here are some more photos form the second and third dive.
EXIFSony SLT-A99V |105mm | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f / 9,0 | two strobes EXIFSony SLT-A99V | 105mm | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f / 9,0 | two strobes
The photos above and below are from the dive site Tanjung Wai Womang in the Leba Leba Bay near Lembata Island where we've done three macro dives. Macro dive, because there's not really a coral garden but a lot of strange small creatures walking and swimming around.
Harlequin Swimming CrabEXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | 105mm | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f / 9,0 | two strobes ShrimpEXIF: Sony SLT-A99V | 105mm | ISO 100 | 1/160s | f / 13,0 | two strobes
I was very delighted in the end of my first diving day when I went through my photographs which turned out much better as I expected. Before the first dive I had mixed feelings about my underwater photography skills and was a bit worried if I could manage all the diving and camera equipment at the same time. Moreover I never used strobes in manual mode before, except studio-lights, so I figured that it would take me the whole trip to learn how to use them. But it turned out to be super easy, it is almost the same as on the surface so it wasn't a big deal.
Finally a photo of myself, handling the camera on the first day...
In the next two weeks I will post a few new photos from my second day of diving in Indonesia.
If you by any change know the creatures on the pictures, please let me know...
Thank you!
]]>Thanks for your patience!
A small pretaste ....
]]>