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:

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)

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...

Diving the Similan Islands

A few days have passed since we came back from our home away from home, Thailand. Loads of pics to go through, some of them will soon find their way to the blog.

As I brought my underwater housing all the way, I just had to try it out in open water (for the first time). I booked a 1-day trip to Koh Bon at the Similan Islands, where Mette and I had been diving with a dozen of manta rays in 2008 (same time of the year). So I hoped to capture the scene!

Unfortunately, the mantas have not really been seen at Koh Bon in recent time, and nobody knows why they have disappeared. We jumped into the water and enjoyed the life at the reef - however, we were a bit surprised how crowded this dive place has become. As in OVER CROWDED! Divers everywhere, many of them not paying attention to where they kick their fins. 

It was saddening to see how much the corals have been damaged within a few years - by ignorant divers grabbing onto this and that. Well, what a surprise that the mantas were all gone...

Anyway, as we swam around I had time to play a bit with my camera and shoot this video:

The video was shot with a Canon 7D + Sigma 10-20mm in Hugyfot underwater housing, at 1920x1080p with 30fps at F/4.0-5.6 at 1/60 sek and ISO 320. Post production in Adobe Premiere Pro.

I was so obsessed by shooting video that I totally neglected taking photos. Only a few frames made it to the memory card:

Curious moray eel peeking out from its hide, F/9.0 at 1/50 sek.

School of yellowfin goatfish, F/9.0 at 1/80 sek.

As you saw in the video, the reef was absolutely packed with fry, F/16 at 1/25 sek.

Giant puffer hovering over the reef, F/10 at 1/60 sek.

All together, a great day under the surface even though we did´nt get to see the mantas :-( So I´ll post a few pics from our 2008 trip to the exact same spot...

Manta photos shot with Canon s70 in Canon underwater housing

Phi Phi Paradise

I´ve written another article about diving and coral reef conservation issues in Habitat, the e-magazine of the Danish Zoological Society. This time it about the paradise of the Phi Phi islands, where I have spent quite some hours underwater working as a Dive Master in 2008.

A paradise like Phi Phi attracts gazillions of backpackers, party animals not to mention divers. Locals are able to make money on their small businesses, new hotels and guesthouses are shooting up everywhere and dive-operators want a bite of the cake as well. However, it all comes at a price, and the absence of governmental intervention in protecting the ecosystem is detrimental for the fragile coral reef and its inhabitants

Find the article on page 40 - Sorry to all you who do not speak Danish! (but there are some nice pics ;)

Splash´n´kajak vol. II

Got a few video clips from the photo session with k-polo.dk

I still have a lot to learn about shooting video with a DSLR, so I hope I get the opportunity to capture the Kayak guys once again!!

The video below is the exact same, but in a higher quality..

The video was shot with a Canon 7D + Sigma 10-20mm in Hugyfot underwater housing, at 1280x720p with 60fps (that could be slowed down to 30fps for slowmo-effect). Most of the video was shut at F/4.0-5.6 at 1/160 sek and ISO1600. Post production was done in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Splash´n´kajak

It was about time to try out my new underwater housing for my Canon. So my work colleague, Rasmus, arranged a meet-up with his Kayak Polo Team at the local pool. Equipped with mask, snorkel, fins and obviously my camera, I got down beneath the surface...

 

...only to realize how vulnerable I (and importantly my equipment) was when surfacing for air. Basically, I was trapped in a boiling pot of foaming, paddle-fighting maniacs, so I soon found myself back on the dry and safe edge of the pool again. 

That being said, how cool is this sport!?! A fast paced team game, where brute strength, technique and tactics culminate in a boat-borne battlefield of splashing water.

Visit their webpage to learn more and get exhausted while having a blast!  

Københavns Kajakpoloklub      

So most of the shots were taken from the pool edge, holding the camera down in the water to obtain the surface/underwater split shots.

Equipment used: Canon 7D with Sigma 10-20mm lens in Hugyfot underwater housing. As no flash was used, I had to push the ISO all the way up to 640-1600, leaving the images a bit grainy. Shutter speeds at 1/60 - 1/-120 were used to capture the action without freezing the image completely. To get as much as possible out of the light, I used apertures between F/4.0 and F/5.6. 

 
Thanks to all the polo-folks for a great day at the pool! I´ve uploaded these and a lot more images from the day here: Ze über cööl Kayak Polo Gallery

I´ll upload a video from the day as well, so stay tuned...