Not only because I myself enjoy scuba diving and snorkeling, I like to explore any photography styles related to what I enjoy doing. Split Level Underwater photography is one of them. It’s also known as ‘over-under’ or ‘split-shots’ an amazing technique to take an underwater photo but include what’s above the water as well. So its a half way split between water and the air.
They often are taken with wide angle or fisheye lenses with big dome port to capture both sides. To be able to capture both side clearly it’s better to use small aperture for the clear focus and best shot in a shallow and calm water. This technique could be tricky as the air and water has different index of refraction. To understand the science deeper, here’s the tutorial on how to do it by Jonathan Bird.
Here are some amazing samples of Split Level or Over-Under photography, David Doubilet is one of the most outsanding underwater photographers with this technique:
David Doubilet | Southern Stingrays Grand Caymand Island
David Doubilet
David Doubilet
Tim Grollimund
Meanwhile in the Philippines
Octopus, Italy | Pasquale Vassallo
Lionsman Jelly by Native Marine
Kona Village Resort, Big Island, United States
Mahout Elephant Underwater – Best photos National Geographic August 2010 – Cesare Naldi
Baby green sea turtle French Polynesia – by David Doubilet
Photo by Kelly Broaken
Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia – photographer unknown
Shawn Jackson
And here are some of the big buggers to shoot it with :
David Doubilet on assignment Grand Cayman Island
Dome Port
Ikelite dive housing
Big 8 inch Dome Port Ikelite
And I have to share this interview of David Doubilet going through one by one of his best shots at the The World We Explore- David Doubilet Zeitgeist Americas 2012. And yes, he mentioned Raja Ampat of West Papua is like a dream place and I wish I will be able to go there someday:
I first thought about bullet time camera effect when watching Red Hot Chilli Peppers live at Slane when Kiedis jumped and the camera panned from one side to other. I could never think about the logic how the hell they do it with only one camera or software effects. The camera panning must be super fast to create that sort of motion, I thougth. Then I found out that Bullet time camera effect is what they used, its a scene created when a frozen motion is panned using gazillion of camera set up around the object.
Here are some example of amazing examples beside the most famous one, Matrix movie bullet time scene and they are not the first time to use this technique:
Time-Slice Films Demo Reel 2009 (Featured above)
The Gadget Show – Bullet Time / Time Slice Shot – Suzi Perry
Really Bend it Like Backham
The 30 GoPro Bullet Time Rig – K.Flay Music Video Mini-Doc
LA Times: Explained
Rip Curl: and behind the scene
Time Slice with Wuon Gean Ho
A Moment In Time
On Smash Live – Behind The Scenes – GoPro Array Drum Shoot
As I’m now starting to get into videography, and I myself enjoy traveling (who wouldn’t?), here are some amazing and inspiring travel video. I kinda like to go to vimeo.com than youtube because you find lots of craps in youtube and Vimeo are more selected and arty video. Very easy to find a quality video for reference and the forum makes it good place to learn. Anyway, this shouldn’t be a comparison between two but about travel photography.
I guess to have a good travel video most of the one I like to use tripod and wide-angle lenses with a big aperture. Timelapse is popular for travel videography and the result could be amazing, taken from different angles and with a bit of panning too. Thing is when you travel, are you going to take all of your photography gear or just basic stuff? Well, if you call yourself enthusiast you should. GoPro camera would put your travel video more lively and increasingly very popular.
Here are some videos that I like:
1. The Longest Way 1.0 | One-year walk/beard grow time lapse (Featured Above)
This guy is pretty inspiring, he did a walking trip and went for 4500km through China and Gobi Desert and even tough he never finished his goal to Germany, still pretty awesome. He took photos his face every day and see how he doesn’t look like he did. Not surprised if this video won so many short film festivals.
2. Eat, Move and Learn
Thats what we do on our travel. Rick Mereki did an awesome job on doing the video:
He decided to quit his job to travel and took timelapse videos around the world and this is what he achieved 17 countries later. This video has been featured in mainstream medias. Wish I could take that decision….
6. Many Steps (Takayuki Akachi)
This is another unique idea that he traveled the world and filmed some daily life and corners of places he visited. Awesome!
Beautifully done this video is. With Canon EOS 5D Mark II and shallow depth of focus with 50mm f1.4 made this video so elegant and gave it a warm feeling to watch.
2011 had been an interesting year for my photo journey. We went to the Philippines for the first time, that was exciting and beautiful, went back to Indonesia to visit families and had a chance to go to Sulawesi and dive in Bunaken, something that I’ve always wanted as it was apparently one of the best diving spots in Indonesia.
The highlight was when we were about to go home to Darwin and visited my aunt in Denpasar and was looking for a taxi and then someone with his motorbike grabbed my EOS camera and ran away, but then the insurance was easy enough to cover the lost and with the same price as the lost camera I bought, I could upgrade to a better one. Although, I still can’t forgive myself for not backing up the photos from that holiday.
And the other highlight is I made some of my shots into the local newspapers, and one of them, which was the Cyclone Carlos, was on the front page.
Anyway, 😊 here are some photos from 2011 that I like, should’ve been more with the lost one:
Cyclone Carlos
Cyclone Carlos, Darwin | February 2011Cyclone Carlos, The Headline | February 2011(more…)
