Devils in the sky at Cannibal rock,Komodo by GH4

[DEEPsix 12]

Devils in the sky is one of the dive site in Myanmar,Andaman sea.I used to dive there long time ago and we spotted school of Devil rays quite often hence the name.

Cannibal rock is world famous dive site in the south of Rinca,Komodo.The dive site named by pioneer diver during survey of the area and they spotted one Komodo dragon eating another in front of what appeared to be a large shallow reef.The dive site covered in yellow and pink soft corals as well as tubastrea and other cup corals.It's so rich of sponge in every color and bouquet of feather star.

The cold nutrient-rich water is probably bring the lush growth within the dive site with water temperatures often falling into 20-24 C in dry season(Jun-Oct) and can get warm and clear water in rainy season.Every square inch of the rock full of color and life of verterbrate and inverterbrate species such like Giant frogfish,Nudibranch galore,Ladybug amphipod,etc.During the dry season it's the cold nutrient-rich and green water so we don't expected much to looking for the stuffs in the blue but actually abundant fish out there.

This film is one of the best dive I had in Cannibal rock.A hundred of Mobula rays(probably Short-fin Pygmy Devil Ray,Mobula kuhlii) roaming to the current split point.They swoop in and out the rock again and again.When I gazed up to the surface the school of Devil Ray blanketed me and reminded me the dive site "Devils in the sky" in Myanmar's sea but this is much larger scale.I spend about 15 minutes in freezing cold 19C water with this phenomenon,filming with the thrill in my heart.It's absolutely one of the best dive in Komodo.

Best fishes,

Nu

Camera info:

Panasonic GH4 + Nauticam housing + Lumix 7-14mm +Lumix 8mm fisheye +2 iTorch Pro 7

 

 

[SwiftFF5 134]

Impressive, thanks for sharing.

[peterbkk 110]

Hi Nu,

 

Wow, what a great opportunity. Cannibal Rock is always a great dive but usually for Macro. You were lucky to be there when those rays arrived and also lucky to see them as it's usually a dive of intense focus towards the rock rather than out in the blue (actually, I should say "out in the green").

 

But, can I give you 3 pieces of advice.

 

1. Do some more color correction work on the footage. You have some reddish - purple in the highlights from the surface. With some careful secondary color correction, you should be able to pull that out.

 

2. Cut the yawning frog fish. This is what I call the "self-editors dilemma": you shot something interesting so you want to get it into the final cut, even though it has nothing to do with the storyline. An editor would chop it because it distracts from the story. The audience wonders what is the connection with the Rays. Is it yawning because the dive was boring before the Rays arrived? You get the point? No matter how much you love that shot, if it is not relevant to the story, it ends up on the cutting room floor. Maybe you can use it in a different story about yawning fish.

 

3. Don't use YouTube for quality footage. I'm sure that what you uploaded to YT looks great but their lousy compression ruins it. Especially bad in open water footage like this. Lots of ugly compression artefacts. Vimeo is better - not great, but better.

 

But, otherwise, great stuff!

 

regards

Peter

[DEEPsix 12]

Hi Nu,

 

Wow, what a great opportunity. Cannibal Rock is always a great dive but usually for Macro. You were lucky to be there when those rays arrived and also lucky to see them as it's usually a dive of intense focus towards the rock rather than out in the blue (actually, I should say "out in the green").

 

But, can I give you 3 pieces of advice.

 

1. Do some more color correction work on the footage. You have some reddish - purple in the highlights from the surface. With some careful secondary color correction, you should be able to pull that out.

 

2. Cut the yawning frog fish. This is what I call the "self-editors dilemma": you shot something interesting so you want to get it into the final cut, even though it has nothing to do with the storyline. An editor would chop it because it distracts from the story. The audience wonders what is the connection with the Rays. Is it yawning because the dive was boring before the Rays arrived? You get the point? No matter how much you love that shot, if it is not relevant to the story, it ends up on the cutting room floor. Maybe you can use it in a different story about yawning fish.

 

3. Don't use YouTube for quality footage. I'm sure that what you uploaded to YT looks great but their lousy compression ruins it. Especially bad in open water footage like this. Lots of ugly compression artefacts. Vimeo is better - not great, but better.

 

But, otherwise, great stuff!

 

regards

Peter

Hi Peter,

 

Thank you so much for your useful advice I really appreciated that.I just need all good advice like this.All of your advice straight to the point and really useful.

 

About the YouTube,I accepted that I don't really satisfied about video compression from YouTube.I do have Vimeo account but now the problem is it's banned in Indonesia.

That's very frustrating for me.When you work and live in Indonesia and can't access to Vimeo website that I paid for Pro account.I just hope that they will cancel this policy later.

 

Thanks again for your advice.

 

Cheers,

Nu

 

[MikeVeitch 0]

Great video Nu, amazing that they hung out for so long!

 

For Vimeo, if you sign up with a VPN such as Tunnelbear or GoTrusted or any of a number of others you can then access Vimeo

[DEEPsix 12]

Great video Nu, amazing that they hung out for so long!

 

For Vimeo, if you sign up with a VPN such as Tunnelbear or GoTrusted or any of a number of others you can then access Vimeo

Thanks Mike!Last week we didn't see them again at the dive site but they still jumping around in the horseshoe bay.

 

Thanks for the trick for Vimeo.I will try that

[Nick Hope 151]

Nice video Nu.

 

I agreed with Peter about the video being too red at some parts where your lights are reaching the subject. I would try a cooler white balance. When shooting with my GH4 with my Keldans I use 3300K adjusted to A:5 M:5, for macro but also for wider shots where the lights are reaching the foreground subjects. That might be too far in the opposite direction. I need to do more testing really, but that has put me in a range where I can control the colours in post.

 

As for YouTube vs Video, although Vimeo was traditionally superior to YouTube in terms of quality, recent stuff I've been reading has been saying the opposited is not true. Haven't tested it myself though. Always be sure to upload a really high quality file.

[kc_moses 142]

When in doubt, upload video to both Youtube and Vimeo. You can reach more viewers in Youtube and more commercial works sit in Vimeo because it get separated from all the cat videos .

 

The video in Youtube have improved a lot. I recently bought a 65" 4K TV, I stream my own 4K video as well as Eunjae Im's "Living Color" to see how everything look on a big screen. The detail holds up, color banding is not as bad as I remember 6 months ago. So I think Youtube have done something recently. The RX100 IV 4K underwater sample shot in Taiwan looks very very nice by the way and it's stream from Youtube. I thought it beat the GH4/LX100 if not neck and neck. But it's subjective and really depends who're behind the camera to bring out the capability of the camera.

 

Also, Vimeo streaming is hit and miss, sometimes you get stuck with buffering, while Youtube may look crappy and pixelated when it's buffering at least you see something play back instead of a spinning wheel or as if the browser is not doing anything when Vimeo is buffering. Youtube search feature is also quite accurate. Keep in mind also many people are starting to have a Smart TV, and Youtube channel player is almost standard for all the Smart TV. So when I got my big screen tv with smart tv feature, I don't have to plug in a computer or do any setup, just launch the Youtube app, search for a clip and play back, just like using a Playstation.