Mucky Secrets - A video to share about Lembeh Strait marine creatures

Nick Hope

Nick Hope

New member
The Lembeh Strait, at the heart of the Coral Triangle in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, is truly a remarkable place. Nowhere else offers a "muck diver" the same diversity of weird and wonderful marine creatures.

I have been working on a 90-minute documentary about it, called "Mucky Secrets". It's not quite finished yet, but today I uploaded a short prologue video. So many of the creatures there are truly exotic and have strong personalities, which I have tried to convey. Mantis shrimps and mating mandarinfish play starring roles.

The names of the species can be found in the captions with the CC button under the video. I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcgT_eZuN5o
 
Nick,

great videography work. id be happy to get footage as good as a single frame shot, yet you captured so many scenes.

obviously you are shooting with an impressive rig. care to share what kind of setup you are using, namely the lighting?

c
 
r-balljunkie said:
Nick,

great videography work. id be happy to get footage as good as a single frame shot, yet you captured so many scenes.

obviously you are shooting with an impressive rig. care to share what kind of setup you are using, namely the lighting?

c
Click to expand...
Agreed and seconded on all accounts.
 
Thank you!

r-balljunkie, the footage was actually shot in 2007 with a Sony HVR-Z1P HDV camera in a Light & Motion Bluefin HD housing with Light & Motion Elite halogen lights. I had a Century Optics +3.5 diopter screwed to the camera, and a flat port. In camera terms it's an antique now. I spend a lot of time in post-production, fixing the levels in Sony Vegas Pro with color curves, and then deinterlacing and resizing in AviSynth.
 
thats a hellova rig, even if its "dated" by todays terms. the lighting looks great for halogen. do you think the newer LED's or HID's throw off a nicer white?

do you manually set your white balance on shoots?

im a fan of light and motion. i use the Sola's for multi-purpose lighting, night dives, video, wreck exploring...really good product.

all that post processing jazz, blah blah blah waay over my head. all i know is the end product looks great. :)

i did some diving in Bali this year, mixed bag for me, some good some bad....but any time in the water is a good time.
 
Thanks again r-balljunike and thank Sugar.

r-balljunkie I couldn't really say about the newer LED lights as I haven't used them. I know in the early days of LEDs there was talk that the CRI was inferior to halogen, but I suspect things have improved by now. I am thinking of spoiling myself with a pair of Keldan Luna 4V lights for my next rig. My experience with L&M lights has been a bit "patchy".

For wide angle ambient-light shoots I always manually white balance regularly on the palm of my hand, through a blue-water color correction filter. For this macro work I can't really remember what I did. Probably auto-white balance for most of it. I couldn't use the filter at all because the diopter was in the way.

Personally I'm really looking forward to going back to Bali again. I'm fond of Seraya Secrets and Puri Jati on the north coast, and I've heard glowing reports about Secret Bay in the north west, so I'm very keen on going there and lying in muck for a few days, critter-whispering and twiddling my knobs.
 
thanks for sharing! i've been watching your youtube videos ever since i found your "myanmar magic" video on youtube. i was born in mergui(myeik), burma(myanmar) by the way. your video made me wanna go back to my hometown!
 
I'm subscribed. I've been watching the short pieces for a while. The full length version should be cool. I want to replicate environments like this in my system.
Thanks for sharing

Daniel. :artist:
 
Brings back many memories. Your pygmy seahorse segment was totally out of sight with the gorgonian polyps extended. Wow! I believe your Rhinopias is actually Rhinopias eschmeyeri rather than Rhinopias frondosa. Mandarin mating shots were superb. I have almost 50 hours on that site myself but never tried video. Very difficult shots! Very, very well done!!
 
I'm still watching the 90 minute video you last posted Nick. I have been subscribed to your channel for awhile but I can't find 90 straight minutes to watch :( However, I will get through it and have enjoyed what I have watched so far. Please keep up the work with your video's. I enjoy them. :)
 
WOW! Just finished the long version. It has always been on my bucket list of dive destinations. I just moved it up quite a few notches.

Thanks very much for not only taking the countless hours needed to produce it, but also for posting it here for all of us to see.
 
Thank you everyone.

snorvich said:
...I believe your Rhinopias is actually Rhinopias eschmeyeri rather than Rhinopias frondosa...
Click to expand...

There are 2 Rhinopias in the video. Based on all the information I could find, I identified the first one (at 58:04) as Rhinopias eschmeyeri and the 2nd one (at 59:07) as Rhinopias frondosa. Do you think they are both Rhinopias eschmeyeri?

The whole business of distinguishing between those 2 species can drive you nuts. My final comment about them being morphological variations of the same species is based on Teresa Zubi's view, which makes a lot of sense to me.
 
Nick Hope said:
Thank you everyone.



There are 2 Rhinopias in the video. Based on all the information I could find, I identified the first one (at 58:04) as Rhinopias eschmeyeri and the 2nd one (at 59:07) as Rhinopias frondosa. Do you think they are both Rhinopias eschmeyeri?

The whole business of distinguishing between those 2 species can drive you nuts. My final comment about them being morphological variations of the same species is based on Teresa Zubi's view, which makes a lot of sense to me.
Click to expand...

I spent a few years discussing the subject of which Rhinopias I was photographing at Lembeh. I was eventually convinced that the one I was seeing in Lembeh was Rhinopias eschmeyeri. I also photographed many Rhinopias in Milne Bay Papua New Guinea, the vast majority of which were R. Apanes; there were two in that location that I thought were R. frondosa. I am still not convinced one way or the other. To be convinced I would have to see two side by side that were at the same level of maturity. I seemed to find the ones at Lembeh around 60 feet, usually at Nudi Falls.
 
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