Wild swimming in northern Denmark

Wanted to film some clips of my brother swimming at the beautiful beach in Lyngså, just below the very northern tip of Denmark.

I packed my Mavic Pro drone as well as my Gopro Hero 4 (my Canon 7d with 50mm lens was in the bag anyway). Kids have just gone to bed, and we had maximum 1 hour before it would be completely dark.

On the short walk down to the beach, I decided that it would actually be fun to make short film about this lovely place. So we were walking for 3 minutes while brainstorming and discussing how my brother should act before the drone was airborne.

This is what we got:

Wind turbines in 360 VR

First flight with the GoPro Fusion attached to my Mavic Pro drone. Was a bit nervous that I would loose both..but it all went OK.

Here is what I got:




Equipment used: Mavic Pro, GoPro fusion attached with 3D printed piece of plastic (obtained from Shapeways)

Tiny Copenhagen

Just got hands on the GoPro Fusion and to play a bit around with VR 360. However, I got off track when I started converting it all to "Tiny Planet" videos... 😄


This just made my life much better.

Shot with GoPro Fusion, and edited in GoPro Fusion Studio and Adobe Premiere Pro

Droning: Above the jetty

Went for a stroll down by the water with Alva sleeping in the trolley. The portable Mavic pro drone easily fits in my small messenger bag and just waited for some fresh air. Again, I was out to capture some video - but could not resist capturing some stills as well. The weather was brilliant and the sailors were out on the dark, blue water

br />

Droning: wind turbines

A quick pre-work procrastination took me to the majestic wind turbines just at Avedøre just outside Copenhagen. The Mavic Pro drone literately only takes 2 minutes to setup before it is ready to take of. The aim was to capture some videos for iStock and Getty images, but I could not resist also taking a few images on the 10 minute flight:

The images were edited in Adobe Lighroom and Photoshop CC

Flying high

Images from a little drone-away from the outer areas of Copenhagen port. The vast construction site in Nordhavn gives plenty of room to let the drone into the air.

Droning

Just received my DJI Mavic Pro drone and took it for the first flight at the Svanemøllen Beach in Copenhagen. Wau, what a fantastic toy to see the world from a completely new angle! I will keep you updated with aerial footage :-)

Køb Mavic Pro her

Køb Mavic Pro her

Gentle Giant

A short clip of this graceful giant swimming (in a pool where it just does not belong).

Shot with Canon 7d mkII and 70-200mm L lens. Edited with drag and drop PRESET for Adobe After Effects.

Photoshop Tutorial (in danish)

Sorry to all you english speaking folks, but these Photoshop tutorials that I´ve produced may not be so interesting for you to watch since they are all in danish. But if you understand danish...

...og gerne vil komme igang med basale til mere avancerede teknikker i Photoshop, så kan du her se 22 gratis afsnit i serien "Photoshop kursus for begyndere", som jeg har produceret i samarbejde med Nemprogrammering.dk

Gå til siden her:

http://www.nemprogrammering.dk/Tutorials/photoshop/kursus-gratis.php

 

Diving Stevns Klint

Here are a few impressions from a cold mid-march dive in the Baltic Sea at Stevns Klint in Denmark. This white chalk cliff is a beautiful UNESCO World Heritage site. Above the surface you find nature lovers, hobby paleontologists and geologists digging for fossils at the foot of this 40 meter high cliff.

But if you get below the surface you will be left all by your self in this moody yet beautiful landscape.

The water temperature is just above 6 degrees Celcius, which means that most marine life is found on deeper waters at this time of the year. 

The video was shot with a Canon 7d + Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens in a Hugyfot housing. The footage was color corrected in Adobe After Effects by using these

 22 Underwater Presets

 The next post will most probably contain images from this trip...just need some time to for editing :-)

Diving Køge Bugt

Spring is in the air and the water temperature has risen to impressive 9C! And the water is crystal clear so we just can´t wait to get into the water (jumps of joy)

I was looking for the tiny winy stuff as I had my 60mm macro lens attached. The bottom was mostly sand/gravel with small goby´s hiding everywhere. It took some time and breath-holding to sneak in on them.

Wherever you find rocks with algae, you find these small shrimp-like mysids (Praunus flexuosus, I guess). Only 1,5 cm long and almost transparent, they make a challenging subject to photograph while they move around.

A slight current carries me slowly over the seabed and suddenly I come accross this beautiful monster hiding in the sand: a Turbot (Psetta maxima).

What a nice way to start your day!

All images were shot with a Canon 7d and 60mm macro lens in a Hugyfot underwater housing and the Inon Z-240 strobe (1/200sek; F/10-16 and ISO 160-320. Strobe power around 1/2 of max output)

Ready.Set.Action!

Finaly, I gave in and got one of these GoPro Hero4 (Black edition) action cameras. Indeed, a nice little toy. It was a rainy day, when I decided to try it out....of course no issue for the GoPro, as it is waterproof.

The GoPro was set to 120 fps (full HD) and afterwards slowed down to 60 fps in Adobe Premiere Pro. The time warp effect (super slow motion) and color grading was created in Adobe After Effects.

Also, a couple of magpies came across the GoPro. Here, the footage was just slowed down from 120 fps to 30 fps and color graded in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Fixing the green/blue cast in underwater video

To often I´ve came up to the surface after a dive and my videos shot with ambient light turned out to have that green/blue look as you often see in underwater footage.

Several factors will affect the color of your footage when recording under water. The availability of light is key here. As you go deeper, the colors visible to the human eye will gradually be absorbed in the water column. Red will disappear first (often within 10 meters of depth), then orange and yellow until only green and blue is left. Thus, your footage will tend to have that dull, greenish/blueish look – even if you adjust your white balance in camera while shooting. 

I wanted to bring back the beautiful colors of the corals and reef fish, so I startet browsing the internet for Adobe After Effects filters that could fix this issue. However, I was surprised that I could not find any relevant items for purchase, so I decided to make my own set of presets. Check them out in the video below:

With the growing popularity of Gopro Hero cameras and waterproof iphone housings etc. amongst divers and snorklers, I thought there may be a good market for people looking for something like these. Go ahead and download or read more about it or here: 
22 UnderWater presets for Adobe After Effects

Easter diving

Today was a bright, clear day. As the morning sun pulled the water temperature up to 5ºC, my buddy Tue and I dragged ourselves into our black suits. Soon after we were embraced by the green light of the Baltic.

Once again, I looked around the pier at Svanemøllen Beach in search for nudibranches. No luck - nothing but a ton of mussels - which for some reason start growing on me...I think I just like their calm movements and the thought that they keep a good visibility by staying busy filtering the waters of Copenhagen.

Someone´s sleeping beneath the seaweed.

Ouch, I couldn´t resist waking him up...he´s a bit angry so I move on.

All the small stuff (aka fish) are giving me a hard time getting close up with my macro lens..so I stick to the slow ones.

Images were shot with a Canon 7d and 60mm macro lens in a Hugyfot underwater housing and the Inon Z-240 strobe (1/200sek; F/10-11 and ISO 320. Strobe power around 1/2 of max output)

Svanemøllen Strand

A cold winters morning in february, I finally pulled myself together, packed my scuba gear into the car and went out to Svanemøllen Strand in Copenhagen. The water temperature is only 4ºC...pretty darn cold if you ask me... which means time to look for nudibranches. Actually, I´ve never stumbled upon any nudies in Scandinavia before - I was not aware that you´ve gotta look for them during winter time.

So I set out with my Canon 7d, and for the first time I tried the 60mm macro lens in the Hugyfot underwater housing. Firing a few test shots on the mussels (Mytilus edulis) to adjust the settings and flash from the Inon Z-240 flash, I soon got carried away by the beauty of the nitty-gritty details that are found on the pier just 2m below the surface.

All images were taken with 1/250sek; F/13 and ISO 320. Strobe power varied from around 1/4-1/2 of max output.

Barnacles were my next challenge. They are found everywhere but capturing their filtering movements in a sharp shot was not to easy for me. Luckily I´m a sucker for the autofocus on the 7d, and it didn´t let me down this time either.

I could not believe what I saw through my mask: Just after 10 minutes of diving - still no more than a meter away from the pier, I spottet my beloved nudibranch. Without sounding to nerdy, this was just more than I could ask for.

This little fellow did such a good job posing, while I tried to ignore the flounder and shrimps that tried to get my attention meanwhile.

After 40 minutes it was time to say goodbye and head up for a warm cup of coffe..after checking out this sea snail below...

Layers of time...

I always end up bringing my biggus-lens with me on my numerous walkabouts in the wilderness of Assistens Cemetery, hoping to get that perfect shot of the sparrow hawk hunting.

However, it´s hard to walk around here without noting the marvelous colors and textures of decaying tombs. It seems as if all efforts to paint over forgotten centuries just cant keep these time pockets from revealing themselves everywhere.

Finally, I decided to bring my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 to capture these layers of time...

  

All images were shot around F/9.0 to get crisp details (ISO320 and a shutter speed ranging from 1/60 - 1/125 sek, depending on available light). Just added a some contrast (clarity) and slightly desaturated images a bit in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5