Tulamben - Amed Macro Shots on the Lumix LX10

[afieldofblue]

Hello all,
Here is some underwater macro footage shot on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX10 (aka LX15 / LX9) in East Bali's Tulamben and Amed area, Indonesia.



A Field of Blue /@afieldofblue
Filmed on a Panasonic Lumix LX10 in a Nauticam housing, 4K, 30fps
Music base: "Reflected Light" by SergePavkinMusic

Equipment: Panasonic Lumix LX10 in a Nauticam housing, AOI UCL-09 closeup lens, Inon UCL-165M67 closeup lens Backscatter Macromate Mini lens - Backscatter MW 4300 video light + optical snoot, SUPE MS-10 snoot light and two Archon D11V2 video lights, homemade quadripod

cheers!
ben

 

[waterbubble]

Hello all,
Here is some underwater macro footage shot on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX10 (aka LX15 / LX9) in East Bali's Tulamben and Amed area, Indonesia.



A Field of Blue /@afieldofblue
Filmed on a Panasonic Lumix LX10 in a Nauticam housing, 4K, 30fps
Music base: "Reflected Light" by SergePavkinMusic

Equipment: Panasonic Lumix LX10 in a Nauticam housing, AOI UCL-09 closeup lens, Inon UCL-165M67 closeup lens Backscatter Macromate Mini lens - Backscatter MW 4300 video light + optical snoot, SUPE MS-10 snoot light and two Archon D11V2 video lights, homemade quadripod

cheers!
ben

Great video! I am struggling with the Lumix 10 and the focus hunting. Any tips how to prevent it?
Thanks

 

[afieldofblue]

Great video! I am struggling with the Lumix 10 and the focus hunting. Any tips how to prevent it?
Thanks

Thanks!

For focus hunting, you could try setting the AF-S Single Area, with centered metering.

But really the best advice would actually be not to use standard AFon the LX10, as it's not the best as you've noticed, and you will miss shots because of hunting, especially withparticules in the water, etc...

The trick is to set back-button focus, and to enable AF-lock on the camera, using the convenient assignable function buttons next to your right thumb (if on a Nauticam housing)

Once this is setup, you can use it two ways:

1. use in AF mode and manually lock the focus - this works great for wide angle.
The camera is in autofocus but you're getting it to focus manually on the subject at the center of the frame, and locking the focus to avoid hunting.
With an f/8 aperture, this is fine for wide shots - if your subject manages to move out of focus (f/8 gives you a good workeable depth of field), you can always relock.

2. use in manual focus, in which case back-button focus gives you AF, which will lock automatically (since you're still in MF) - this is the mode I use all the time, especially for macro.
You can have focus peaking enabled and see which parts of your image are in focus, it's great.

I've explained the process in a little more detail in this thread:

Sign In - Wetpixel :: Underwater Photography Forums

hope this helps!
cheers
ben

 

[waterbubble]

Thanks so much. This is very helpful especially as I am fairly new to shooting videos.

 

[afieldofblue]

Thanks so much. This is very helpful especially as I am fairly new to shooting videos.

You're welcome - the LX10 is a great little camera, similar to shooting with a bigger GH5

 

[afieldofblue]

Hello all, I've just added a subtitle/caption track with the species name / ID
Let me know if anything is off (some of the nudies were tricky!)

cheers
ben

 

[hedonist222]

wonderful
thanks for sharing
when was this recorded?

 

[afieldofblue]

wonderful
thanks for sharing
when was this recorded?

Thanks a bunch! I shot this over the last 3 months here in east Bali's Tulamben/Amed area, July / August / September.

Despite the area having only a dry/wet season, there's a definite seasonality on the sites, with conditions evolving quite a lot, currents changing and different critters showing up

cheers
ben

 

[Manta-Passion]

Very nice shots! I dove once on the Liberty Ship, I was under the impression that all the animals were posing for me !
It's strange to see a muck video with black background, for me it's more a photographer habit than a videographer. Honestly, I never though of it, and I find it ...disturbing, but maybe because I'm not used to it.

Best

 

[afieldofblue]

Very nice shots! I dove once on the Liberty Ship, I was under the impression that all the animals were posing for me !
It's strange to see a muck video with black background, for me it's more a photographer habit than a videographer. Honestly, I never though of it, and I find it ...disturbing, but maybe because I'm not used to it.

Thanks!
Yes, the east Bali area is really full of critters, and the Liberty wreck is visited by so many divers daily that the animals are quite oblivious to humans by now
This video is shot the black-sand muck sites in the surrounding area in Tulamben and Amed, where there's not that much coral (other than the odd rock / patch reef) but really a lot going on in the rocks and plants, which form oases of life for the little guys.

Interesting feedback on black backgrounds - Snooted, directional lighting and black backgrounds are actually quite common in macro video nowadays - I encourage you to check out the macro works of masters like Dustin Adamson (Oceanshutter), Alex Del Olmo (Naucrates) or Marcello Ogata (Bugdreamer) for example (the last two being some of my favourites videographers)

I can see why you would find it disturbing at first, as it's slightly less naturalistic (closer to a night dive experience, I guess), but it's just one of the creative tools we have at hands, along with depth of field and angles. to isolate subjects from the usually quite dull backgrounds they're on and create moods,

My personal pet peeeve is actually filtered lightening, like pink/blue lights in the background, very trendy at the moment in UW photography (you'll see a lot of light filter holder products on sale) and spreading to video (check out the latest Nauticam Nauticam EMWL promo video, also shot in Bali) - colored lighting, as novel as it might be, brings to mind a hip lounge bar more than an UW scene.
This is a line I'm not willing to cross

cheers
ben