Sipadan, 23-28 May

[antacid]

Hi everyone,

Would like to share some photos from my Sipadan trip. Spend 4 wonderful days diving there with Seaventures. The weather was perfect, and the sea calm as a mirror (will upload photos to show!)

The resort/rig was comfy and staff very friendly. Not wanting to push ourselves, we did 14 dives in total. Saw a group before us who were pushing 5-6 dives a day like there's no tomorrow. haha

All photos were taken with Canon A640, Ikelite housing, 2x Inon D2000 strobes, and either macro or WA lens. All generously loaned to me by my wonderful friends, without which i would have been terribly miserable during my dives...

One problem i found: There was very serious vignetting with the A640+ike+WA/macro lens combination, and it seems to be an alignment problem. Black corners can be seen only at the bottom right, and slight edges at the top right. I wonder if anyone else encountered this problem? Also, the WA lens was a little disappointing, with bad distortion and poor quality at the sides. Killed some WA shots that would otherwise have been keepers.

#1 Turn right, turn left


#2 Head-on


#3 Cruising


#4 Reef


#5 Turtle


More coming soon!

[diver-hloc]

Wow.... pics 4 is great !! My Canon's own housing for my A610 can't use 3rd party wet lense..... but i can't afford a Ikelite also.... hehehe

[kthan]

wonderful control on the sunburst

[cityofangels]

I love #4 too! I love the composition and the sunburst!

More pics pls!

[howeikwok]

yep, very nice sunburst....

[whoswho]

#3 is awesome. Love the shark in the picture and the sun burst... Great stuff antacid!

[whoswho]

Originally Posted by howeikwok yep, very nice sunburst....

agree...

[lovells19]

very nice

[jelimon]

good stuff john...

anywayz, had exactly the same prblem with the WA lens (Inon UWL-100) - vignetting and the dark black corners. Macro lens (UCL167) was surprisingly better. Will put up my pics from last month's Sipadan trip also for reference.

[lovells19]

Originally Posted by jelimon good stuff john... now i'm tempted to put up my stuff (using the same set up also!) from last month's sipadan trip...

mai tu liao.. get 2nd strobe, buy buy buy

john why don't u zoom in a little, it'll get rid of the dark corners and edge problem

[howeikwok]

I think you'll get that problem with most cameras at the widest setting for the lens. As lovells says, gotta zoom in a little. Even with a macro lens i have to zoom in.

[antacid]

yup, i had to zoom in about 2 'stops' to get rid of the black corners. however, what i'm not happy with is that its clearly an alignment problem, since only 2 corners have it.

if its an evenly vignetted picture, i can live with it since its equipment limitations.

just thought of highlighting this problem to see if anyone else has the same problem, and hopefully get ikelite to fix it. no point spending so much money then settle for a compromise.

oh wait, i don't own the camera and housing! hahaha

jeli, was your dark corner also in the same position as mine? my macro was ok, except for a slight bottom right dark corner.

thank you for your compliments, i'm glad you guys enjoyed the photos!

the WA shots were taken with a -1 or -2 EV for the background on AV mode, relying on the strobe to light the foreground. for some reason, i kept thinking of it as clubbing photography and approached it in the same manner.

the shark+sunburst shot was very special to me, cos i already had that shot in my head, and spent most of the dives waiting for the correct moment. i'm very glad i managed to get it.

((=

[jelimon]

ya lor, the same top right hand corner.

[antacid]

Some more stuff to share.

These are the 2 most amazing videos I've ever taken (these are the only 2 videos I've taken on this trip!).

#1 Nemo gets pwned by turtle.
In this video, I was just filming the turtle swimming along in relatively poor vis, when suddenly a clownfish swims up and attacks the turtle repeatedly. The turtle gets fed-up, spies the anemone, and proceeds to rip it apart. PWNED!


#2 Dance of the jacks
I started with a mini-tornado of jacks at about 8m, slowly moved my focus up to a larger school of jacks, and before I knew it, they formed a huge swirling tornado me! There must have been tens of thousands of jacks there..On the shallow reefs, spilling over down to the where I was...Simply breath-taking. (Need a fast computer to enhance contrast, and add music. Anyone?)

[antacid]

Just a few more photos that I'm particularly proud of!

#6 Rob, the diver


#7 Toothless: A crocodilefish that tolerated me despite my lens almost touching it


#8 A chromodoris magnifica climbing down from its perch


#9 An elegant cuttlefish at 25m


#10 Away it went, into the sun


That's all folks! After some brutal deleting, I was left with about 70 keepers from the 14 dives. Have been very satisfied with some of the photos I've managed to get. A WA lens and 2 strobes makes a world of a difference!

You can see the rest of the photos here: www.colouredshots.com in the dive section. Don't forget to check out the land shots to see how calm the water was...
((=

Thanks for looking!

[RSU]

HOLY COW! Your nemo video is priceless!!!

[whoswho]

Originally Posted by antacid the shark+sunburst shot was very special to me, cos i already had that shot in my head, and spent most of the dives waiting for the correct moment. i'm very glad i managed to get it. ((=

And I thought so too.

That's a good wait for a great shot. Love that piece very much.

[cityofangels]

I totally agree! The nemo & turtle video is priceless. Definitely a moment to capture! Poor anemone.. but the turtle is merely doing its thing.. Eating!

[Gymrat76]

Very nice Antacid

[kthan]

i like no. 10 more than no. 4......one of the best sunbursts from a prosumer...

remember, to PS is human, to crop is divine.

u want RAW for your A640?