TRAVEL

Special dive trips in 2009

We've arranged two fabulous liveaboard trips for next year, and you're not likely to find these custom itineraries anywhere else. Read on...

Raja Ampat, east Indonesia

Ours is a special extended itinerary that begins in Ambon and ends in Sorong, cruising through Seram, Misool and Kri. It's 13 days of sensory overload and diving bliss.

Raja Ampat is the epicentre of marine biodiversity, an area with so much biomass that new species are being discovered on a routine basis. Add to that the gorgeous reef scenery, heaps of schooling fish, spectacular topside topography... it's a must-dive destination.

We are heading there in March, an ideal month to cruise east Indonesia — don't miss out, there are only four spaces remaining. More details...

Galapagos Islands

With the new Park rules, 10-day liveaboard trips in the Galapagos are now as rare as hen's teeth — but we still managed to secure one. We're off to this special part of the planet in October 2009, a month which happily coincides with the whale shark season. Join us for 10 glorious days of world-class diving (including the famous Wolf and Darwin Islands) and close-encounter land tours.

We recently returned from a Galapagos dive trip and have a video on our website that will definitely have you twitching to sign up. Don't miss out on this rare opportunity for a longer-than-usually-permitted Galapagos dive adventure. More details...

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VIDEOS

New underwater videos online

Following the launch of our online stock footage library, we've put together a series of short videos to showcase the variety of underwater subjects in our High Definition 1080p catalogue: schooling fish, underwater scenery, interesting marine life behaviour... Watch the videos and escape underwater.

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PRODUCTION

Music composer wanted

We're looking for a talented up-and-coming composer who would like to produce the music for our next underwater DVD — something in the style of BBC's Blue Planet, just minus the mega Hollywood budget. If you know anyone, drop us a line.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Smithsonian photo exhibition

Liz's photograph of villagers in the Solomon Islands is part of the Smithsonian Institute's Eyes on the World photo exhibition. The photograph is on display until 15th January 2009 at the Smithsonian “Castle” on the National Mall in Washington DC. If you're in the Washington area, pop in and have a look.

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TECHNIQUE

How to make murky water look (almost) gin clear

At this year's Byron Bay Underwater Festival, Josh competed in the 4-day underwater shoot-out at Julian Rocks. Unfortunately, the visibility was pretty dreadful for the duration of the competition — but poor viz doesn't mean you can't still get some nice shots. Here are a three tips for making the water appear clearer than it is:

1. Move in closer in order to minimise the volume of murky water between lens and subject. The less water you have to shoot through, the clearer you shot will be. If you can, swap the wide angle lens for your macro setup — this pretty much forces you to get closer.

2. Use the reef
to hide some of
the backscatter,
ie: try not to show too much blue
(open water) or black (caverns, crevices) background.

3. Shoot away from the sun. This makes a huge difference. Have you noticed how dirty your car's windscreen looks when you drive towards the sun, and how clean your rear window looks? It's because the sun, at a certain angle, highlights and reflects particles — and the same thing happens underwater. Shooting away from the sun will always give you footage that looks much, much clearer than shooting toward the sun. On your dive, figure out which direction looks best and then only look for subjects in the "clean water" direction. If you see an interesting subject in the "dirty water" direction, you just need to swim around it to shoot from the other side — and hope you don't end up with a butt-shot of the subject.

Watch Josh's winning video from the Festival.

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FISH IDENTIFICATION

The Great Fiji Butterflyfish Count

2008 is the International Year of the Coral Reef, which gets us fish geeks very excited. To help celebrate, The Great Fiji Butterflyfish Count has been organised as a Fiji-wide event running from the 2nd to the 8th of November this year. The organising committee invites visitors and locals to collect data on species diversity and numbers — and the count can be done on SCUBA, snorkel or even glass-bottom boat.

Results will be sent back to the Fiji Reef Check and Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network Coordinator for analysis, and reports and a distribution map of Butterflyfish Abundance and Diversity will be posted on the official website.

Undersea Productions contributed a Butterflyfish Identification DVD as part of the information packs that will go out to participating resorts; it will be used to help volunteers learn the "who's who" of Fiji's butterflyfish. Learn the butterflyfish names...

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