HD Videos of Oceanic Whitetip Encounter & Manta Rays Madness

[ScubaMoMo]

Those are my first underwater videos filmed with a Panasonic Lumix ZS7/TZ10 and
2 Inon LE550W lights. Videos were edited in Sony Vegas Movie Editor Platinum 10

Manta Ray Night Dive at Manta Heaven, Kona Hawaii

Oceanic Whitetip Shark Encounter on Black Water Dive, Kona Hawaii

Links to same videos on Vimeo HD plus and YouTube HD are included.

Hope you guys enjoy those videos as much as i did making them!

 

[divertimmy]

Fantastic video! Headed there for thanksgiving to dive with Big Island Divers on those two dives as well. What was your experience with the trip? Were you able to see anything else on the black water dive?

 

[ScubaMoMo]

I can only recommend Big Island Divers. Their service was superb.
My generall experience was that Hawaii is great for big stuff. I saw
lots of things like Mantas, Eagle Rays, School of Barracuda, Whitetip
Reef Sharks, Ocean White Tip Shark (although this one has be taken
as luck). I did 18 dives in 4 1/2 days. I didn't see any turtle, dolphin
or hammerhead during my dives unfortunately, but heard from other
divers that they encountered them few days before.

The Black Water Dive is very special to say the least. For me i have to
say honestly i was a bit scared before entering the water and the Oceanic
White Tip was my first shark encounter. You can see lots of small critters
coming up from the deep and those are what probably 99.99% of all divers
get to see on this dive. But it is worth it.

The Manta Ray Night Dive i did four times. The first two nights at the
Sheraton site which is much more difficult due to more currents and
lots of corals and sea urchins on the ground. Definatelly make sure that
you are well weighted and take some extra weight. The last two Manta
dives i did at Manta Heaven which is the far easier dive site with sandy
bottom. Of those 4 dives one was amazing with 5 Mantas (thats the one
shown in the video). The other three we were not that lucky. First night
was 3 Manta's but i had troubles due to being wrong weighted. Second
night no Manta's. 3rd Night the Night shown in the Video. 4th Night only
one small Manta at the end of the dive. I heard that sometimes there are
up to 20 Manta's, but to be honest you have to have some luck and i
suggest doing it more then once to be safe

General diving in Kona was great, although diversity in terms of wildlife
is nowhere close to asian destinations. But for me that didn't matter.
I saw lots of moray eels of all sizes, some octopuses. Not many big
schools of fish and soft corals are rare. For example a rose coral seemed
to be a rare find there, which in Philippines for example was a quite common
sight.

Anyway i'm sure you will have a great time there and please give best
regards to all the staff at Big Island Divers!

 

[Lee Taylor]

I really like your videos. Especially like the color of the water, clarity of the water, sea creatures, and the particles in the water.

Food for thought: From a viewer perspective, in my opinion, you can much improve your future videos by panning much more slowly and holding the camera still for short periods. I take amateur videos and underwater videos and find moving the camera slowly has to be a deliberate activity. It is not natural. It feels like you are panning way to slowly BUT the videos come out much better. Of course underwater you have current, surge, and the fact you are floating to deal with.

 

[ScubaMoMo]

Thanks Lee. I'm still a scuba beginner in my eyes even i made my Rescue Diver recently. Those videos i made with less then 50 dives under my belt and i was and am still finding the perfect buoyancy for taking videos. My last trip to Malapascua worked out already much better. I'm currently thinking of adding some float arms to my setup, because my camera is about 1kg negative under water which also adds a bit to the difficulty of holding it stable.