Dive 061
| Date | Jan 11, 2002-03:35 PM |
| Location: | Lonely Eel, Flinders Reef - Coral Sea, Australia |
| Dive Shop | Mike Ball |
| Purpose | Video Certification |
| Buddy | Mark Robinson & Kerrin |
| Exposure Suit | 3mm |
| Other Equipment | video, no lens |
| Weight | 12 |
| Viz | 150 |
| Max Depth | 69 |
| Start Air | 2900 |
| End Air | 500 |
| EAN | 0 |
| Minutes Under | 38 |
| Surface Interval | 223 |
| Remarks |
This was the first check out for the video class I am taking. Mark was doing the dive as a photography check out. The dive consisted of Kerrin dragging us along the site and telling us what shots to make.
My first shot was a shot of the boat above water, then the a glimpse of the decent. That is what it is supposed to be anyway. The video of the boat above water was about or less than a second, so there was no time for the viewer to digest it. When I went under water I started doing a shotgun shot where I hang around for a few seconds, then pan over to Mark and Kerrin. It wasn't a horrible shot, but it could have been better.
Next we went to the bottom of the coral and I did some shots kneeling and standing. The kneeling shot was decent. I felt comfortable, and the shot was good. I was not as comfortable with the standing shot. I had a little trouble getting my balance, and I just felt weird. The shot was ok, but a little too jiggy.
After those shots I tried some shots with me swimming while filming. The first of these was with me just swimming next to the wall, with the camera pointed inwards. This shot was not that impressive, mainly because the wall I was shooting was not that impressive. Stupid wall. The next swimming shot was me holding the camera in front of my face and swimming along the wall, then skimming off. This shot was not that great. The wall was still not very impressive and the camera was bumpy. The reason the camera was bumpy was because I was nervous about hitting some of the coral with the camera.
Next Kerrin took me to an anemone patch with anemone shimp. This provided the best footage of the dive. I started out shooting a fish that was hovering above the patch. I started here because I did not immediately see the shrimp. The footage of the fish was jerky and went out of focus. Next I stabalized myself and got some footage of the anemone and shrimp. I stabalized my wrist on a dead peice of coral about a foot away from the anemone, then zoomed in to get the shrimp. This worked extreamly well. The only problem I have with this footage is that it didn't centralize the shrimp as much as I would have liked. After doing a few seconds like that I took the filter off the camera and turned the lights on. This footage wasn't as impressive as the sun with the filter. I might not have had the lights pointed good enough, which might be one reason the fottage is weaker.
After that we swam around shooting random things. I got some footage of a parrot fish (I think) and some more reef footage. Nothing spectacular, but nothing horrible either.
On the ascent I got some video of Mark and Kerrin. This started with Kerrin facing away from me, which was poor. He turned around, then swam right up to the lens, making a decent shot. He said it was to show me the great focus of the camera, but I think he just wanted to screw around.
Breaking the surface of the water was supposed to be a shot similar to the descent shot. I was going to start the video under water, break the surface and get some footage of the boat. I made similar mistakes to the descent. I started filming too soon underwater, and quit filming without getting enough time on the boat (one second or less).
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