Hello, all! I'm here at Kasawari Resort with Tony Wu, and we've just finished a week of Night Safari with David Cheung of Scubacam. It was a lot of fun to be doing 3 night dives each night, and for some reason, all of us felt like we had more time than we do during day dive schedules (although after doing 2 night dives immediately after traveling for 30 hours, I was pretty much dead).

Yesterday, Ryan Canon (Reef Photo), Edward and Jacqueline Lai (Nauticam), and Kenji Ohmura (Fisheye) arrived, which means that we are going to be geeking out on underwater photography equipment in the coming days. Aey and Mean (FiNS) are also here, adding an unusual dose of youthful laughter to whole experience.

I've been shooting the INON insect eye lens exclusively, mated to a Nauticam 7D housing and Saga adapter. However, I think Edward may have brought the Nauticam macro lens, which is directly compatible with the insect eye lens. I look forward to comparing the two.



Shooting the insect eye lens has been both rewarding and frustrating. Even at its sharpest, any standard macro lens is *much* sharper, so I sort of feel like I've had vaseline smeared over my eyes. But the lens does allow one to capture a different view of a marine landscape that has already been photographed a hundred thousand times.









For the rest of the images from this trip, please see my Flickr set. I'll be updating this set regularly here from Lembeh, and will try to get others to come post their images on this thread.

Having just returned from the trip I am reading Eric and Tony's blogs and wishing I was still there. I'm really looking forward to the Ambon trip in November now. Diving at night you see much more in the way of crustaceans and octopus, not so many fish. When you do find shrimps or fish they seem much more amenable to close up work.

The resort itself is very well set up for photographers with a huge camera room. This is my third trip to Kasawari and it won't be my last. The dive guides are extremely knowledgeable and won't let you carry anything. The staff have remained the same for the last three years and the food has improved dramatically since last year. Don't go there if you plan on losing any weight!

Here are a few shots from the trip. There are more on my Flickr site.

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Beautiful shots, Julian!

Just got back from a dive -- saw a flamboyant cuttlefish nail a shrimp goby. Perfect hunting! I'll write it up when I have a moment.

I'm not going to read any more of your blogs until you are all back...it's too depressing reading it as a blow by blow description. I have two months without my cameras now!!

nice ones eric! since 2 months i am waiting for my insect eye to come here to lembeh ... could bite my ass off i am not the first one to use it here

2 more weeks, then i have it ... i hope.

serge

Awesome shot of the skeleton shrimp!

I've just seen Eric's gear over at Kasawari. Wow! Will he be allowed to leave Lembeh with it????
Some incredible equipment is being put together in the Kasawari camera room. Talk about Boys Toys.......

Nice shots guys, Julian i really like how you captured the blue ring while he was bouncing along... Seems like i missed you by not long, I had a large group here then and couldn't get over there until they left.

Eric, ya, some definite barrel distortion on there. I quite like the nudi and shrimp. And I have never seen a flambo with such a dilated eye!
Good to see you though Eric and Ryan.. Tony? meh, not so much

See you in the next couple of days...
Serge, I would like to see you bite your ass off, that would be entertaining over some vodka and wii

Fuzziness and all, and all. I really like these photos Eric..certainly puts on a different twist on those Macro potraits!!
What water temps are you experiencing there right now? Packing up to leave here for that region shortly.
Also could you kindly record coordinates of the BRO for future reference??)
Enjoy the adventure..

Thanks
Cindy

Cindy, its about 28C ( i think, i haven't been diving in Lembeh since January )

In Fahrenheit... about 80 i guess. But you will be doing 75 min dives so i would suggest a 5mm

Just 75 minute?? Been doing 2 hour shallow dives in GC with 78 degree water temps recently. Plan is to bring 5 mm and hooded vest.
How far are you guys from Kimo Baja resort? Passing thru there for a day and a half, on way to Ambon, before seeing you guys, after boat trip.
Thanks Mike!

Cindy
Now back to our regularly scheduled program..sorry for the small hijack Eric!!!

We've been doing three 90 minute dives a day, which is plenty for me.

I switched from the Saga insect eye adapter to the Nauticam one (their macro port has a removable front element), and found that the corners are much better... but I suspect that the center is LESS sharp. The Saga adapter is actually longer than the Nauticam one is. I know Edward designed the Nauticam adapter to INON spec, so it seems to me that the Saga actually places the insect eye lens further away from the lens than INON suggests.

The insect eye is a really tricky lens to set up properly. I have the original INON 50D setup here as well, and have been comparing both Nauticam and Saga adapters. In all cases, the lens was pointing just slightly too far to the right. Because there is some play on the Nauticam camera mount, I was able to twist the camera and lens slightly to the left, centering the setup. This resulted in much better corners.

Julian was shooting an INON port on a Zillion housing, and was utterly unable to get a sharp image. A batch of insect eye lenses were just recalled, however, and his is probably one that was assembled incorrectly.

I should probably do a full article on the insect eye, now that I have shot both stills and video with it attached to multiple housings.

I've been sitting at my desk all morning but my mind is elsewhere - it's still in Lembeh! I'm trying to resist the urge to look under every nook and cranny looking for desk based critters! OK maybe those critters would be a bit worrying!

The night safari was an awesome trip with an 'interesting' dive schedule when we were in full 'night' mode...

1000 Brekkie
1400 Lunch
1730 Dive #1
2030 Dive #2
2230 Dinner
0000 Dive #3

There were lots of snacks and sleeps in between so it was more like food, sleep, food, sleep, dive, food, dive, food, dive, food, sleep

Here are a few images - I'll post a link to the rest later once they're online.

pregnant blue ring octopus
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hairy frogfish
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juvenile cuttlefish
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whip coral goby
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juvenile puffer fish
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zebra crab
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commensal shrimp on a (huge) sea star
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That looks an interesting contraption, Eric - I am looking forward to seeing more! And Julian ... loving your macro shots.

A few people and gear photos!



Eric Cheng with David Cheung and Sanah of Scubacam Singapore


Eric, Mike Veitch, Simon Buxton, and Z


Ryan Canon with his frankentripod


Kenji Ohmura (or "Eric Cheng" to some DEMA attendees) with Seatool housing and FIX light


Last view of some Lembeh critters: Nauticam 7D housing, INON insect eye lens and S-2000 strobes, Fisheye FIX lights, XIT404 tripod adapter, and ULCS arms

Ryan - care to explain the frankentripod?

Eric - you gotta feel for the poor Lembeh critters after seeing your mega critter from hell

Colin/Julian/Eric/Tony

Fantastic photos. I know this is for digital still. I shot mostly HD video with my Canon 5DMII, Zillion, DIY lights, Inon Macro port and a DIY tripod. Its my first attempt at macro HD video and it looked a bit shaky. I have many more clips but here is one I stitched together. Here is a link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scubacam-singapore/4412444689/

Sorry I don't know how to upload video here.

Cheers

Thanks to all who took part and those still there ....you lucky sods....

David

David -

You can embed Flickr video by using BBcode:

[ flickrvideo ]flickrvideoid[ /flickrvideo ]



(remove spaces)

That's way too much, I'm sticking to wide-angle.

How do you carry that thing around? Does it travel in it's own boat?

nice beard

do they not have razors on Lembeh. I must bring some with me.

Nice shot of the emperor riding the nudi Eric. I like the angle that the critter cam gives you. The photos look good when you have the end of the contraption at sand level.

Stew

A few more gear photos, plus one of Julian being sexy.

Jeff -- that *is* a wide-angle setup.


The lovely Julian Cohen poses for a photo in the Kasawari camera room.


Scubacam's fiber optic optical sync modification for Subal, Seacam, and others.


Eric Cheng's underwater rig during Lembeh Night Safari 2010: Nauticam NA-7D underwater housing for Canon 7D, INON insect eye lens, Fisheye FIX lights, INON S-2000 strobes, XIT404 prototype tripod base, ULCS arms

Looks like some kind of monster from the Transformers movies

i agree hahhahaha....

It looks like it should "walk" along the bottom, taking pictures on its own!

Does it?!

Adam

Happy Birthday, Mikey! (celebrated tonight at NAD resort in Lembeh)

Earlier in the day, Mike was egged and floured. I wish I had been there to see it.


Happy 25th Birthday, Mr. Mike!


Mike Veitch, Simon Buxton, Hergen Spalink at NAD Lembeh


Mike Veitch and Kerri Bingham play Wii at NAD Lembeh Resort, Indonesia.

Kerri beat me at Sword Fight but the girls can't touch the boys at tennis!

Good to see you Eric Thanks for coming

Hello Eric!

I am starting to use and configure the inon endoscope lens with nikon/Saga/Hugy but you just worried me with the recall news. Could you find out which serial numbers / batch are they recalling?

Hugy also allows some play on the camera so I have to make sure it is aligned before closing the back...

Check out these two little shrimp hitching a ride on this nudi.




I think you may need to check with your INON dealer! I'm not sure which ones were recalled, but I'll try to find out.

I just posted many, many more photos from Lembeh on a Flickr set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/echeng/sets/72157623558672476/

It is a fun lens, isn´t it? great pics!

Could you please post an above water picture with the endoscope lens to check if my vignetting with nikon is the same?

I take it the well though-out stand was to stablize the lens in order to achieve a sharp image? I would think hand-holding that modified Clint-Eastwood Lens would be impossible.

I love the colman shrimp shots Eric. what processing have you done to these ( sharpening wise ) or are they straight from camera. I love the angle of view that is acheived with this odd looking rig.

Stew

Hey, Stew - for the most part, these are straight out of the camera with +25 clarity applied in Lightroom. For a few of the images, I might have tweaked exposure and contrast just a little bit.

The coleman shrimp photos had a very slight exposure gradient applied because the lights had some falloff as they illuminated the sloping side of the urchin. Since these were shot from about 1cm away from the shrimp, it was extremely hard to light evenly.


Typical shutter speeds in the darkness of Lembeh were 1/30-1/40 sec, so handholding is possible. The tripod was for video use...

Eric, do you by any chance know, how to find out, which Insdect Eyes are the rec alled ones (serial numbers or contact information) ... because i finally have my Insect eye (with original port on original INON housing) and am absolutely unable to get sharp images. My shots are just fully blurry ... and i can only get something that you can compare to focus, when i come closer that 1cm to the subject (which equals touching ...).

Serge

aduh Serge! after all that time waiting too..

Ke Oh Deh!

yes. frustrating. beer is all that helps ...

Serge - sorry you've been having problems with your new lens! I'm not sure which serial numbers are having the problem, but it should definitely be able to focus (at least, in the middle) a few cm way. When you get too far away (6-8cm) the entire image starts to fuzz out -- I think that's typical.

Contact your rep!!

Some crazy setup there
Cool pics indeed.

I have done tryouts with a lot of different combinations (50mm, 60mmAFD, 60mmAFS with and without teleconverters, ext rings for both the lens and housing etc...) and the thing that you have to be most careful about is having the lens perfectly centered! My camera has some play inside the housing so, what I do, (this is my recommendation) is to mount first the lens on the housing, then the camera without the back. Take a picture on air at close focus and small aperture (f22 or higher) and see if the vignetting is symmetric (four corners of equal size) if it is not, play with the camera until it is or you will have blurry images no matter what. That is why I asked Eric about a picture with his setup on air to see how was his vignetting compared to mine.

I am starting to have good results with this lens on nikon and will try to post some pics tonight.

Hi David,

this is what i also realised on my setup ... the vigneting on land is not symetric ... i also disassembled my housing and put it back together. but unchanged. unfortunately i have no play on my housing to play with. i will try to figure out something ...



how do you mean that? how can you put the lens without the housing?


serge

Hello Serge,

I meant putting the lens on the housing and then playing with the camera and shooting until the vignetting is right.

Here is an uncropped pic:

Ahh ok ... i understand. I thought you mean the 60mm lens ... but you meant the fisheye

I now made some modifications on my housing try and will check the results tomorrow in the water ... hopefully it works.
Thanks for the tips ...


serge

That's exactly the issue I had, only I was unable to point the camera at the center of the insect eye lens because both the INON and Nauticam trays had the cameras mounted too high. I need to write a review still, but I haven't had time to do so. Sorry.

Hey everyone,

Just posted a trip video from Lembeh:



I used Aperture 3 to create this video. The addition of video/ audio cataloging capability, plus the ability to build and output slideshow/ videos, are two of the new features announced with Aperture 3.

In the course of putting this together, I figured out what works and what doesn't.

I'm aiming to write up my experience using Aperture 3 to build this presentation over the next week or so and post to my blog.

Thats a great compilation video.