Hello, everyone. I’m back from the remote Eastern Fields of Papua New Guinea. We only had 6 days out there because two strong tropical storms moved into the area, but the diving was good (until we moved back to the coast).
My 4-week cough turned into a 6-week cough, so I only did 3-4 dives in the Eastern Fields. It was extremely frustrating, but I enjoyed being out on the ocean with a great group of people. Here’s the video slideshow I made for the group:
Music selection by kozyndan. End credits by me and Dan.
Underwater footage from a 26-day Wetpixel underwater photography expedition to Alor and Komodo, Indonesia. Footage taken by me, with Canon EOS 7D, Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom lens and Canon 100mm macro lens. Macro footage was lit with dual Light & Motion SOLA 1200 video lights. Additional footage captured with GoPro HERO cameras in modified Eye of Mine underwater 3D housings.
I used Final Cut Pro X, Apple’s controversial new “professional” video editing program to cut the trip video during my latest Wetpixel expedition to Indonesia. These slideshows have become a tradition for guests and combine video, stills, and music into something people can take home to show their friends and family.
Using Final Cut Pro X was, for the most part, fantastic. It is really more like an “iMovie Pro” and includes one-click video stabilization, color balancing, and look filters, which were all features I used extensively. Aside from dealing with small bugs, I was able to produce a 30-minute video fairly easily, without being impeded by any critical issues. However, I am back home, and am now in the process of trying to migrate my slideshow project and event files to my main Mac Pro from my MacBook Pro. This is proving to be impossible. Two excellentthreads provide work-arounds for reconnecting missing media, but upon following the instructions outlined within those threads, this is what happened:
After copying events and projects to the Mac Pro, they showed up and opened in FCPx, but all of the media showed up as missing (red thumbnails).
Per suggestions, I re-imported all of the media (annoying, since the files are spread out over many folders). The red missing media icons for videos and audio were all restored to color (no longer missing). This seemed like a good sign.
Many JPGs in the media list were not successfully re-connected; instead, they were duplicated. I have hundreds of JPGs in the slideshow, which are now all “missing” and therefore, would need to be re-cut into the timeline.
Soon after re-import, I noticed an import background task running. Upon closer inspection, I realized that FCPx was in the process of copying over all the newly imported media instead of honoring my request to leave the files in their original location (by leaving “Copy files to Final Cut Events folder” unchecked). The source media is hundreds of gigabytes. Duplicating them is not an option.
Closing FCPx and re-opening it immediately causes the import process to re-spawn. If I cancel the process, the media simply does not show up in my events.
Put quite simply, there is no way to move a complicated project and its associated event media from one machine to another. The fragility of the media storage system in FCPx is shameful—it’s like the product was never tested in the real world.
I will, in this case, essentially lose this project and never be able to edit it again. I suppose I’ll archive the events and projects in case FCPx improves its media handling capabilities. One significant side effect: if I upgrade my machine or need to reinstall, I’ll effectively lose all of my FCPx projects. Until there is serious improvement in media management, I can’t see myself using Final Cut Pro X again.
Timelapse video taken with Canon 7D and Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom lens from 29th floor of the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong in Wanchai. 1 frame taken every 8 seconds from 16:05 to 18:48.
In July, I went to French Polynesia with Fabrice Charleux of Plongeur.com to capture stills and video of the incredible schools of gray reef sharks that call its remote atolls home. At that time, I posted only a few still frames from the trip—not because I didn’t want to share, but because I had something larger planned. When I returned home, I called up Mary Lynn Price of DiveFilm and asked her if she would be interested in collaborating in a podcast episode. Luckily, Mary Lynn was excited about the project, and together, we have finally finished and published a new DiveFilm HD episode on the sharks of French Polynesia. To see the video, please download it from iTunes. DiveFilm is currently the only ocean-related podcast featured by Apple, and the only way to make sure it stays there is to have folks download and view it through iTunes!
Links to podcast: DiveFilm HD on iTunes. The episode is called “Shark Diving French Polynesia!”
Special thanks to Fabrice Charleux (gracious host and organizer; translator; subtitling), Mary Lynn Price (editor; podcast goddess), Don Kehoe (grumpy photo assistant), Dave Patchen (supporting friend), Adam Tow (interview camera assistance) and Rae Chang (interview assistance). This would not have been possible without all of you!
Footage taken with Canon 7D, Canon S95, and GoPro Hero camera in Eye of Mine flat-port housing.
Here are the slides from the 90-minute seminar I gave at Monterey Shootout 2011. I always create slides without many words, preferring to talk through the points spontaneously, but it may be useful to some folks out there. When I have more time, I’ll come back and add captions with notes about each of the points (and why I included specific pictures and videos).
On a side note, I have discovered that the photo and video player over at Google+ is excellent as a slideshow player on the web (as long as you do not require intra-slide interactivity).1 I can mix still images / video and re-order slides, and the blacked-out “theater” (to steal the Facebook word for it) is pleasing and promotes real-time interaction.
Note that I do not really use Google+, yet, so if you interact with me in that social environment, I may not respond. I’m in evaluation mode. I have tried to import my connections via the various methods out there, and Google+ seems to fail constantly when I do anything in batch (e.g., add more than 10 people to a circle at once). ↩
The audience was incredible—very “live” and reactive! There was great energy in the air, which always makes an event a lot of fun to be a part of. I was honored to present alongside underwater-imaging pioneers who have decades of experience.
Speakers: Rick Rosenthal, Chuck Davis, Berkley White, Eric Cheng and Stephen Frink. Monterey Underwater Film Festival, September 10, 2011.
Here is a 3D video of a whale shark feeding at the surface during a huge whale shark aggregation in Isla Mujeres, Mexico. I shot it on August 15, 2011, using a GoPro 3D HERO System and an Eye of Mine 3D flat lens housing (a flat-lens solution is required for a GoPro to focus properly underwater).
The video is best viewed at 720p in some sort of 3D mode.
If you own a 3D display at home, you can download a higher-quality side-by-side version for local display (~99MB; link is good for 500 downloads; if it fails, please let me know). The downloadable video is still highly-compressed and doesn’t quite convey the same 3D coolness that original version does, but it is still effective!
Kieran Liu, age 5, had a special experience during his first moments in the ocean as a snorkeler. Showing no fear whatsoever, Kieran swims madly at a 30-foot whale shark, trying to get as close as he can!
Video shot by Eric Cheng in Isla Mujeres, Mexico on August 18, 2011.
Day 3 of the 3rd Wetpixel whale shark expedition in Isla Mujeres, Mexico: We’ve had 3 days of whale shark action so far, and each day has given us something different (but spectacular). The first day, a couple hundred whale sharks were spread out in a rather long stretch of the glassy-calm ocean. The water was relatively clear, considering that it was completely full of transparent tunny eggs from the mass-spawning event three nights earlier. Whale sharks gulped down eggs around us from 8am until our boat left (at 1:30pm).
On the second day, we discovered a small patch of ocean with hundreds of tightly-packed whale sharks. They were so dense that they were forced to feed in layers, and we saw as many sharks ascending and descending as we did on the surface of the ocean (very rare). Our guides were totally excited, saying that the ocean was infestado with whale sharks. After thirty minutes of total whale-shark insanity, the sharks vanished in a coordinated descent into the depths—it was totally bizarre. One minute, we were surrounded by literally hundreds of sharks, and the next, there were only a few left on the surface. All of us, including the local guides, were totally dumbfounded by the strange behavior.
Today (day 3), we found the sharks 4 miles east and 2 miles south of where they were yesterday. It took a coordinated search effort by multiple boats to find them (which took 3.5 hours on the water), and we weren’t in the water until 9:45am. The action was fantastic, with botellas almost literally everywhere we looked (a botella is a stationary whale shark that is vertical in the water, “gulping” water constantly to feed.
I’ve been shooting with both a Nauticam-housed Canon 7D with Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom lens, and with a 3D GoPro HERO setup (with Eye of Mine 3D underwater GoPro housing). The 3D GoPro setup has been yielding some very interesting footage because I can get the camera in places where a big housing can never go (e.g. right in front of a whale shark that is cruising at speed). I have some interesting 3D footage that I’d love to present, but two failed upload attempts to YouTube are enough; I’ll upload when I return to the States.
In the meantime, here’s a 3D screen-grab from the video (red/cyan 3D glasses required):
3D whale shark gulp with GoPro 3D HERO camera / Eye of Mine 3D underwater housing
I also have cute / precious footage of Kieran Liu (the 5-year-old son of my friends Kenny and Lori) swimming madly after a whale shark (and managing to get really, really close). He is fearless!
GoPro 3D Hero housing with two GoPro HD HERO cameras installed
A few days ago, GoPro announced the GoPro 3D HERO System, the world’s smallest 1080p 3D camera. The 3D Hero System consists of a housing that accepts and aligns two GoPro HD HERO cameras for 3D capture, and GoPro CineForm Studio software, which is available as a free download on GoPro’s website.
I went up on the roof with Sterling to fly my Walkera Lama3 RC helicopter, which has custom carbon fiber skids and GoPro HD Hero camera mount (made by my good friend, Don Kehoe). It was my first outdoor flight with the rig — scary, because the ‘copter is front heavy now, which means that it really wants to go forward, and because there was quite a bit of wind. (read more »)
My buddy Don Kehoe built new landing skids and a GoPro HD Hero camera mount for my Lama3 RC helicopter. I popped it off of the ground briefly to see whether the new rig is balanced, and it is! Can’t wait to take it somewhere to take some aerials.
One issue to deal with: the GoPro is vibrating harmonically. I think we may need a larger mount with more foam to dampen it.
I’m giving a talk on photography tomorrow, Monday, January 17, 2011 at the monthly Wildlife Photographers of Silicon Valley event. The meeting is at 6:30pm in the back room at Harry’s Hofbrau at 390 Saratoga Ave in San Jose, California, and should run for about an hour.
Early February cherry blossoms in San Francisco. Mother nature is confused! 1 hr ago
I am fundamentally incompatible with people capable of having full-volume phone calls on planes. (at Logan International Airport) 20 hrs ago
@alefnull I had to look awhile to find it--it was in South Boston. Where I paahked my caah, the caahd didn't work.(but idears were valid) :) 20 hrs ago
This "Read Later" settings page from Tweetbot is awesome (for the services it supports) http://t.co/cmqRqiwW1 day ago
I heard a Boston person say "park." My Boston visit is complete. 1 day ago
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