Super excited to be headed to Wakatobi in September. This will be my first time there… I can’t wait. The resort and diving look wonderful. I will try to post photo’s while I am on the trip, but if the Internet does not work well, I will post when I have access. Here is info about where I am going:
https://www.wakatobi.com/home/
I am typing this on the plane headed back to Seattle after spending 11 days in Little Cayman participating in the Digital Shootout 2014. I wanted to do a quick post so I can share the photo that I won the Jim Watt Award with, also known as the best in show award. So first, here is the shot:
Can you figure out what it is?
I can give you a hint… I am VERY close to it… to be exact, I am about 1″ from the subject to get this shot, and this picture is as shot from the camera, no cropping or zooming has been done.
Ok, it’s the eye of a nurse shark.
Shot with a Sony NEX-7 camera in a Nauticam housing. Using the 18-55 lens and a Subsee +10 Diopter. Using Sea & Sea YS-D1 strobes.
I will post more on this trip and others I have taken this year very soon.
Thanks
Well, lots of things have been going on so far this year. First, I have completed my IDC, and am now a PADI Assistant Instructor. On Feb 8th, I will be flying to Hawaii to take my IE (Instructor Exam) and should be a full PADI Open Water Instructor when complete.
Also, have a new logo for Mydivingadventures, seen here on this page. Please feel free to let me know what you think of the new logo.
Lastly, I will be redesigning the website in the next month to reflect the fact that in addition to personal blog posts, videos and photos that I want to share, I will be offering Scuba instruction, including Open Water Certifications, photography and videography certifications and more.
Thank you and Happy 2013.
LouisK
Well, it’s been a little while since I posted to my blog because I have been very busy executing on the plan to become a PADI professional. Since my last post on the subject I have completed the following:
As you can see, I have been a busy guy, but the end is almost near, or should I say the start is almost near. I will begin teaching classes very soon now, and look forward to growing my own skills while also helping others learn and grow their skills.
I can’t wait.
I have started a Kickstarter project to fund a creative effort in Cozumel, Mexico to capture high quality video and stills from their waters. My goal is to validate if the Kickstarter model will work to fund these creative projects offering rewards that might have value to sponsors while sharing the amazing sights and creatures various locations might have, and raise awareness of the beauty that lies beneath the waves. Please take a look at the project and feel free to share with people you think might be interested.
Having enjoyed diving as a personal hobby for the last several years and earning the highest non-professional certification of Master Scuba Diver from PADI, I have decided to go ahead with the first step of my professional diving career by earning the Dive Master certification. For now I am thinking about this journey as my retirement plan when I am ready to leave the rat race that is a regular software engineering job and go live someplace tropical and do what I love, dive and teach others how to dive. I will also be able to start teaching underwater photography and videography which is a personal passion of mine. I hope I can inspire others to take cameras with them underwater so they can share the wondering sights and creatures that exist below the waves. I will provide updates as I near my Dive Master cert, but I am a little more than half way done so far.
For this trip, I took with me a Sony NEX 5N with the 18-55mm lens, and a Nauticam housing. I have used this rig once before, but always in an automatic mode (similar to using a Point and Shoot). Now, for this trip, my goal was to get better at using the full functionality of the camera and increase my skills as an underwater photographer and videographer. So, I got a quick lesson in how to use the system in completely manual mode. I manually set/changed ISO, f Stop, and shutter speed depending on if I was shooting video or photo and depending on the conditions where I was. I did leave the camera in auto white-balance mode and then fixed up most of the shots/video in post production. For lighting I was using 2 Light & Motion Sola’s (one 1200 and one 800). These lights did a good job for video, but created quite a challenge for shooting stills. Ultimately I will need to upgrade my rig to include 4 lights, 2 strobes and 2 video lights to give me that flexibility to switch between the two mediums at will and not burn down my video lights when I am shooting stills.
In the morning we went on two dives, that were nice (although lets face it, for me any dive is a nice dive so I may be biased). I shot quite a bit of stills and some video, although nothing super inspiring happened in the water, but it was my first real attempt at going completely manual and having all the control. It was quite fun, and I learned a lot on these dives.
In the afternoon, we got a seminar on underwater photography techniques, there was quite a bit of good information for me in the talk (and handouts) so that I could improve my skills in this area.
Every night during the week, there was a slide show and video presentation of the stuff shot that day if you wanted to get feedback on what you might do better, what looked good, and in general how to improve the work product. It also provided a good drinking game for the event staff by playing “buzzword bingo” and drinking on phrases like “tack sharp” or “dialed in”. I found these slide shows great not only for my own feedback, but the feedback and shots given to others. This first day is where I really got the idea that I liked macro images of animal eyes, and later in the week got some good shots.
I also learned to make sure that of all the elements in a shot I need to ensure that I had clear focus on certain elements over others to ensure a high quality shot/video such as the eyes, mouth, and fins. This is much harder than it sounds, especially underwater with moving “models” and current that causes you to move as well.
This video is cut together from work shot on the second day of the trip (first diving day). Hopefully it will give you an idea of what I experienced in the water this first day… and why I fell in love with Little Cayman almost immediately.
And this video is a slideshow of some of my favorite stills from the second day of the trip.
I knew getting to Little Cayman to attend The Digital Shootout was going to be a challenge, but it was still quite intense. My first leg of the trip was quite comfortable flying on Delta to get from Seattle (where I live) to Atlanta (where I am originally from). I decided to spend the night in The ATL in order to see family and have dinner with them, and then caught another Delta flight to Grand Cayman the next morning. This is where the jet travel stopped and where “pray you don’t die” travel started. We flew Cayman Airways on a Twin Otter prop plane holding a maximum of 13 passengers. I sat in “first class” (no not really) which was basically the seat right behind the cockpit, did I mention there was no wall between me and cockpit, so I was watching the pilots fly the plane the entire way? It was crazy, but kind of cool. On the way over we first stopped in Cayman Brac (another island about 35 minutes away from Grand Cayman), and then flew to Little Cayman (about 10 more minutes away). I will say one thing that is great about flying a small plane like this, baggage claim is very easy, we just took our bags right off as we get out of the plane and that was it.
After we landed in Little Cayman, the Little Cayman Beach Resort came and picked us up and took us to the resort. Keep in mind that was only about a 5 minute ride as the entire island of Little Cayman is only 10 miles long and 1 mile wide, and has a total of about 160 residents. The resort itself is quite lovely and the people working at both the hotel part of the resort and the dive shop are just amazing. One of the best run dive operations I have ever seen. And the kitchen staff was very accommodating to my crazy “no grain/no starch” paleo-like diet.
After getting checked in, I took my dive gear down to the dive shop to get it ready for the morning dives, got my nitrox tanks analyzed, and then setup my camera gear that I used for the trip (see next post for details on that).
That was it, my 4 flight, 2 day travel to get from Seattle to lovely Little Cayman to start my grand adventure to dive, learn, and compete at The Digital Shootout 2012.
I wanted to let everyone know I haven’t disappeared… have been very busy with work (got to pay the bills for diving somehow) and school (getting my Masters degree). Anyway, I just got back from the most amazing trip ever where not only did I get to do some great diving, but also learn from some of the worlds leading experts in underwater photography, videography, editing, photo manipulation, and much more. I will start very soon with a series of posts about the trip, my experiences, what I learned, and so much more. My work, way of looking at potential shots, and how to make the most out of the equipment and tools I have is now completely transformed and significantly for the better. Thank you to all the staff at Backscatter, Erin Quigley, and Mary-Lynn Price who have opened my eyes to a whole new level of shooting. Hopefully you all will see the fruits of this effort in my future work.
Thanks and stay tuned for the Little Cayman Digital Shootout 2012 series.
Louis Kahn
Have you ever taken underwater photo’s and videos only to have them look very blue? This was my problem and for the longest time and I thought it was the cameras I was using, so I kept looking for better camera equipment. What I have recently discovered is that the best investment you can make in underwater photography and videography gear is not the camera or the housing, but the lights that you use. There are plenty of lights to pick from, strobes and flashes for photography, and other lights for videography, but for me, what I have found works best are Light and Motion Sola lights that can mount to my camera housing via a tray. When I need the lights, I turn them on, and then when not using them I turn them off to conserve the battery life. With this method, I found that I can do 3 full dives and have juice left over after shooting a lot of video and photographs.
These lights provide a very rich color that works great even with my Sony TX7 entry level underwater camera. I can’t wait to try them out with the Sony NEX7 in a Nauticam housing which I will be doing at the 2012 Digital Shootout in Little Cayman this June. I highly recommend that if you are serious about underwater photography or videography to pick up some of these Light and Motion lights.
These LED lights can illuminate a wide or narrow beam of light with three different intensities to create many lighting modes as well as extend battery life of the lights under water. Charging the lights is fairly quick and easy to see what the current state of the battery life is both while charging as well as while using the lights.