Mucky Secrets - The Marine Creatures of the Lembeh Strait - Series

[Nick Hope 151]

In September 2007 I took my old Sony HVR-Z1P to the Lembeh Strait for 9 days and came back with a ridiculous amount of footage of a ludicrous number of critters. Six and a half years later, I've finally made a documentary of it. Speed of post-production is not one of my strengths

 

Last year I posted a prologue video. Now, finally, here is the first episode, which introduces Lembeh's location at the heart of the Coral Triangle, and takes a look at corals and tunicates. If it's OK, I'll post future weekly episodes on this thread.

 

The camera was in a Light & Motion Bluefin HD housing with a flat port, and I used a Century +3.5 achromatic diopter for most of the macro shots. I used Light & Motion Elite (halogen) lights on most shots.

 

As always, honest feedback is welcome - positive, neutral or negative.

 

[SwiftFF5 134]

Nice, please keep them coming.

[Oceanshutter 121]

Hey Nick really nice work. The only thing that I would recommend is changing the banner with all the information on it. It seemed very intrusive on the screen. Somehow making it smaller, with less words might be better. Just my 2 cents..

But otherwise, great as always.

Dustin

[Davide DB 420]

Good news for my 22 months old baby!

He is addicted to reef life of Andamans and Muchy Secrets, prologue. So finally a new hit!

 

Good work

[Nick Hope 151]

...The only thing that I would recommend is changing the banner with all the information on it. It seemed very intrusive on the screen. Somehow making it smaller, with less words might be better...

 

Thanks for the feedback. Do you mean the captions track? There are 2 of those (narration & names) and they can be turned off using the controls at the bottom of the video player. Do you know which of those 2 came up by default and appeared intrusive?

[Oceanshutter 121]

 

Thanks for the feedback. Do you mean the captions track? There are 2 of those (narration & names) and they can be turned off using the controls at the bottom of the video player. Do you know which of those 2 came up by default and appeared intrusive?

 

Nick,

 

I just watched this on my computer, and it doesn't have the captions unless I choose it. I first watched it on my ipad. and I couldn't find a way to turn them off. So I thought it wasn't an option. Looks like it was was just an ipad thing...

Regardless..Excellent video.

 

Dustin

[Nick Hope 151]

Thanks Dustin. Maybe I can split them up to make them shorter, and try and get them onto one line. Cheers

[wagsy 0]

Hey Nick, job well done mate.

It's not easy that narrating.

Should be a hit on YT. :-)

[Nick Hope 151]

Part 2, in which I take a look at saddleback clownfish and partner shrimps and their symbiotic relationship with sea anemones, then emperor shrimps hitchhiking on sea cucumbers, then finally Lembeh's mantis shrimps and their amazing eyes.

 

[troporobo 237]

Very nice work! These are excellent mini-documentaries that would appeal to generalists and divers as well. I can get an idea why it has taken a little while to put together.

 

My only technical comment is that the color saturation sometimes seems a bit lower than ideal. For example, compare the peacock mantis shrimp which is vividly coloured to the anemomes earlier which look a bit washed out. I am no videographer so don't know if this can be adjusted in post production.

[Nick Hope 151]

troporobo, thanks very much for the feedback.

 

I colour-correct every clip to look the best it can, so I'm a bit puzzled by your comment. Which anemone clips appeared washed out?

 

I adjust each clip so that my black level is at 16 (on a scale of 0-255) and my white level is at 235. This is the same as adjusting video levels to be "legal" for broadcast or DVD etc., and in the majority of YouTube playback scenarios that 16-235 is correctly "expanded" to 0-255 on playback. i.e. 16 is mapped to 0 and 235 is mapped to 255. In some playback scenarios the levels are not "expanded" and so the blacks actually appear dark grey and the white actually appear light grey. i.e. Insufficient contrast in the video. See my post of 3/13/2011 8:05:31 AM on http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=754422 for a summary of testing that I did in 2011.

 

troporobo, perhaps your levels are not being "expanded" on the device/software that you're using to view the video? One way to test this is to watch the following video. If everything is working correctly (levels are expanded) then you'll just see white on the left and black on the right. If not, you'll see different shades. If you get a chance, please play it and let me know what you see.

 

Note that the luminance can be different in an embedded player (like here) and in the non-embedded player on the same device.

 

[troporobo 237]

Maybe my comparison is not quite fair, as they are different species shot at quite different distances, but looking at the two anenomes from about 0:05 - 0:30 to the one that begins at 0:34 there seems to be a difference in color saturation. But I certainly take your point about luminance.

[Nick Hope 151]

Part 3, in which we meet squat lobsters, hermit crabs, true crabs and sea urchins. The highlight is a male box crab clinging onto his chosen mate from behind, carrying her everywhere with him until she is ready to mate

 

[Nick Hope 151]

Part 4 is a short episode about 3 elasmobranchs that can be found in the Lembeh Strait: The bluespotted singray, bluespotted ribbontail ray and brownbanded bamboo shark.

 

[Oceanshutter 121]

Enjoying the series. thanks for posting Nick.

[troporobo 237]

More excellent work! I especially like the macro videography in part 3. How do you keep the camera still for such shots, with a tripod or do you have a surgeon's steady hands? Thanks again for posting these

[Nick Hope 151]

Thanks guys.

 

troporobo, I had 3 legs made of a butchered Gorillapod attached to the bottom of the housing (at the front corners and the back). The plastic "battery pod guard" was later replaced with an aluminium one I made.

 

But in many of the shots I just had the housing resting on the sand, especially shots where there is a pan. That Lembeh silt is like a nice smooth pan-and-tilt tripod head.

 

[stewsmith 14]

Nice job Nick. :-)

[lutfu 118]

The elections are over and after managing to hide a lot of proofs of their stealings by turning off you tube ,the government seems like that they had to open you tube again... I know this is no place for politics but im happy that this stupid bann is over

And a classic great Nick Hope moviie , what a stable camera .thanks for shearing.

[Nick Hope 151]

Thanks guys!

 

Here's part 5, in which we meet Lembeh's cuddly and loveable snake eels and moray eels, including ribbon eels, which are a type of moray, in case you didn't know.

 

Edited May 8, 2014 by Nick Hope

[Alison Perkins 29]

Great stuff!

[Nick Hope 151]

Thanks Alison

 

Here's part 6, in which we look at carfinalfishes, including the pretty Banggai cardinalfish. It's a species that appears to be thriving since it was introduced to the strait, but is still endangered due to the ornamental fish trade. We also witness a poor frostfin cardinalfish meeting a grisly end when it is targeted by a trumpetfish.

 

[Alison Perkins 29]

Gripping viewing!

Edited May 15, 2014 by Alison Perkins

[Nick Hope 151]

Part 7, which features seahorses including the pygmy seahorse, pipefishes, ghost pipefishes and shrimpfishes.

 

[kobrowisky 1]

So good Nick!

 

Looking forward to seeing your future work. Hopefully not a 6 year wait;)