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An Underwater Photographer's Guide to Southeast
Asia
Author:
Matt J. Weiss / August 10, 2008 12:00AM MDT
Category: Photo
After
3 months in the field, and a brief stint manning the DivePhotoGuide
booth at the Malaysian Dive Expo (MIDE) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,
I am finally home and in the process of preparing a series of
articles about South East Asia, sometimes referred to as the coral
triangle and the most bio-diverse marine ecosystems in the world.
Therefore, this is also one of the most productive regions for
underwater photographer and video. Of course in no way is this
nearly a complete guide to Southeast Asia (that would take years!),
but rather some recommended destinations to dive and shoot.
I will be providing comprehensive trip reports on the diving and
photo opportunities in each location. I was fortunate enough to
stay at some of the top resorts in each destination, and the
articles will include some information on the resorts and their
facilities. We intend for these articles to be fairly different
from other trip reports. I plan to concentrate on all aspects of my
trip, including some that are often overlooked, solely from an
underwater photographer’s point of view – How was the
camera room set up? How large were the rinse buckets on the boat?
etc. This vital information is often ignored by non photographers,
so I hope to cover all the idiosyncratic requirements that are very
important for underwater photographers and videographers to keep
top of mind while traveling..
You will see that a lot of my images are macro shots, with little
coral around them. The reason for this is simple - I am very
interested in the seemingly barren benthic environments that
nurture a surprising amount of life. It is here that I found the
smaller, interesting and charismatic critters that make you scratch
your head and ask - “why?” It is my intention for each
article to be informative by answering not only what and who, but
also the how and why of the marine biology behind these
environments.
Underwater photography stargazer Lembeh Strait
Did you know that stargazers (family Uranoscopidae) are represented
by 50 species in 8 genre? This amazing animal was one of two
species I found while searching the benthic environments of the
Coral Triangle.
I will be covering the following destinations in the upcoming
weeks. Each article will have a link back to this main page, where
you can access each article as it goes live online.
Bali, Indonesia with AquaMarine
Diving-Bali
Puerto Galera, Philippines with El Galleon
Resort/Asia Diver
Palawan, Philippines with Club Paradise/Dugong Dive
Center
Lembeh Straits, Indonesia with Lembeh Resort
Manado, Indonesia with Minahasa Lagoon Resort
Sipadan/Mabul/Kapalai, Malaysia with Borneo Divers
For any readers who are looking for ideas for your next dive trip,
South East Asia is full of them, feel free to bookmark this page,
and within the upcoming weeks, you'll find links to each of the
destinations I've visited with a complete report on each. I
certainly hope to bump into many of you as I return to these
destinations in the future.
Happy Diving & more from Matt Weiss @
http://www.divephotoguide.com/articles/an_underwater_
Underwater Photography continous...Nudibranch Photography in National Geographic Magazine NOW we know how he did it...
DID YOU KNOW?
Is brought to you by the
Philippine - Micronesia
Alliance,
the
Divers Choice.
We care about our Environment!
© Gunther Deichmann - Nudibranch,
Nembrotha kubaryana
from Puerto Galera Philippines diving with Asia
Divers
How did he achieve this? That is a very good
question…you might say Photoshop…but I have heard
another story…moving a complete studio underwater, tons of
equipment and of course a dozen or so assistants. Wow what a budget
given to him by National Geographic, however there is no way that
this could have been executed without moving the Nudibranchs from
their original location…
As mention in my previous blog I have seen
David’s other images and one can only admire him, absolutely
fantastic there is no question about it…
…read the feedback from
Marilyn an employee of the National Geographic Magazine
who has shed some light on the
subject… certainly an interesting topic, worth while talking
about it... how
far we can or cant go in today’s
Photography. Now it is up to
you and form your own opinion after you have viewed the mention
Video or checked out the other supported link How did he do
it? Find out @
http://www.deichmann-photo.com/blog.html
GD
The things you can do with just a small Digital Camera… Underwater Photography…great Marine Images from a Dive Master at Dugong Dive Center in Palawan, Philippines…plus our NEW Dive & travel Packages.
Dirk Fahrenbach from Dugong Dive Center dropped by a few days ago and gave me this CD… Dirk what I am going to do with that one?
There are some images from our Filipino Dive Master Omar on it, please have a look and give me your opinion. Sure…I imported the images into Aperture 2 and got a real surprise…wow these are real great…what camera is he using?
Dirk replied, Oh… one of these little small ones in some sort of Housing…
After I had a good look at the images I checked on the Metadata in Aperture 2 and found out the Camera Model, it is a Canon IXY.
After importing the images I only applied a few adjustments, mainly…cropping, Auto levels and a bit of contrast…since all the images had been in JPG I had some limitations, but Omar’s shots where that good anyway that little was needed for improvements.
I created a new project and after I am done can store this on my external drive in case we need Omar’s shots for some future publications, of course with his permission.
Great shots with such a small Camera, this
gets to show you again what can be done with limited equipment, I
guess in Underwater
Photography you have to
be a good Diver first, and Omar has that mastered for sure.
Hey, lets not underestimate these Dive Guides with perfect diving
skills they can show even the most experience Photographer a trick
or two…in particular in finding you this elusive critters,
remember they dive these places all the time, so next time you
at Dugong Dive Center have a chat with Omar or even better have
a dive with him.
A big thanks to Omar
for sharing his images with us, he has a lot more cool shots, these
are only few of them.
GD

