Underwater Bubble Blowers User Group Thread NEW

[Pawel Achtel]

Stellar Sealions:
these are very bitty animals. In fact one bit me on the backside and punctured my drysuit. I'd much rather dive with sharks any day.

Pawel: "Brian, I think my Apollo Prestige dry suit needs some repairs. It's leaking."
Brian: "No worries, mate. We can fix it, let me see..."

returning back

Brian: "Mate, How on earth did you manage to make a total of 150 holes in your drysuit?"
Pawel: "Filming an 8 month old Australian sea lion pup"

My 8-month old friend is pictured in my avatar. :smiley:

true story

 

[Johnny Friday]

JELLYFISH GATHERING
Moon Jellies gathering at Prince William Sound-Alaska in July. A rather remarkable phenomena. Known as a jellyfish smack, thousands of moonjellies gather and stay in this "smack" for weeks.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Pawel: "Brian, I think my Apollo Prestige dry suit needs some repairs. It's leaking."
Brian: "No worries, mate. We can fix it, let me see..."

returning back

Brian: "Mate, How on earth did you manage to make a total of 150 holes in your drysuit?"
Pawel: "Filming an 8 month old Australian sea lion pup"

My 8-month old friend is pictured in my avatar. :smiley:

true story

That said and an 8month old pup. Now (my first time in the water with Stellar Sealions in AK). They'r just sealions right? Well, at over ten feet long and 1100 kilos they are a force to be reckoned with. At the end of the day i was floating on the surface when a gaggle of stellar's literally ran over me and one lifted me out of the water by at least two feet and bit my ass. that is when i promptly left the water.

 

[jim kozmik]

Hay Mike...just did a 3 weeker in FIJI...vis really bad..off to Caymans this week for sinking of warship.Kittiwake....couple ofquestions..whats up with your website..and will u be making a 3d housing for the A1 Panasonic unit..OR..can u also make my Aquavideo RED housing converted to 3d..useable for both.....also mike when Epic and Scarlett come out can u convert the housing to these units as well(one or the Other)..probably Scarlet...add to this a small Canon housing for the new Canon 105 out after Xmas as a separate small pvc housing only...thanks again..merry Xmas..Kozzzzzzzzzz

 

[Michael Hastings]

Hay Mike...just did a 3 weeker in FIJI...vis really bad..off to Caymans this week for sinking of warship.Kittiwake....couple ofquestions..whats up with your website..and will u be making a 3d housing for the A1 Panasonic unit..OR..can u also make my Aquavideo RED housing converted to 3d..useable for both.....also mike when Epic and Scarlett come out can u convert the housing to these units as well(one or the Other)..probably Scarlet...add to this a small Canon housing for the new Canon 105 out after Xmas as a separate small pvc housing only...thanks again..merry Xmas..Kozzzzzzzzzz

U mean other than it's totally out of date?

Housing for A1 is pretty easy. As it is, it is pretty bad for underwater. We'll need to make an add-on for wide converters. Figure about $2795 for pvc housing and $1500 maybe less for an adapter and a couple decent wides. 1.75x for aluminum but don't see any big advantage.

Canon 105 an easy one too. May get around to it anyway, but send me a camera and it would be 10-14 day turnaround. Sony f3, epicA/epic lite, epic-m and scarlet will all definitely be on the agenda.

Will offer a trade in discount, but since materials arent the big cost, conversion is more time than starting from scratch.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Prince William Sound- Underwater

Prince William Sound- Underwater

Here are a few jpgs grabbed from RED of a brackish water lake. Water here during tidal changes moves at a fast pace. I'd say the tide flow was around 3-4 knots when rolling. With so much water exchange, there is a lot of life in the shallow channels that feed many of the brackish water lakes.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Salmon Sharks in Prince William Sound - 2010

Salmon Sharks in Prince William Sound - 2010

Was a dreadful year (summer of 2010) to film salmon sharks. The salmon runs were stronger in the south-east areas of AK, therefore fewer salmon and sharks in the northern regions and specifically Prince William Sound. But, a few shots were possible after three weeks on the sound.
These are glorious sharks that are not easily coaxed by standard shark baiting tactics. In fact, bait buckets in the water and chum lines plain don't work for this visual hunter. A true predator and one of evolutions true perfect hunting machines.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Underwater Baja Shoot

Underwater Baja Shoot

On a shoot in Baja this past week and ran as many on the west coast know, the waters are much cooler and full of micro critters and plenty of krill. So the ocean although a bit green in places is alive with animal activity and chief amongst what i see is the rapid population revitalization of sardines which in turn spawn activity on all fronts in and out of the water.

BUT, this is not about that. I ran into some unusual animals here in Baja. Cooler waters than normal (La Nina) and lots of food from small to large.

While looking for humbacks---and plenty of them moving down the coast, we saw small fins all over the water off the coast near Magdelana Bay, after investigating, it turned out that these were small sunfish about 18-24 inches in length. Not so unusual, except for the fact that they were traveling in groups of 10 to 30 animals and EVERYWHERE. They would often come up to the surface and lay on their sides...actually they would search out gulls and then surface and lay on their sides and allow the gulls to pick parasites from them. We would watch this for countless hours. The water was rather green, but full of these animals. Also known as Mola Mola's, these animals can grow up to ten feet in length and are seldom seen in groups as i saw. Or rather as adults. So was certainly a welcoming site. More frame grabs to come.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Golden Jelly

Golden Jelly

Here is another ocean dweller that was traversing the coastline in deep blue water. Dont know what it is about Jellyfish that seem intoxicating....not the sting as much as they move in the water.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Sealion Rookery in Baja

Sealion Rookery in Baja

Here are a few frame-grabs of a sealion rookery in very good health on the Pacific side of the Baja. I shot this @ 2k 90fps @ 16:9. The moving images came out very nice.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Johnny,

You're killing me man! Next year I'm coming to play with you, newborn baby and all, I'll figure it out.

 

[Frazier Nivens]

Fun stuff Johnny, love sea lions...but the water's too cold for me....I know that's what dry suits are for.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Red1 housing end of year Tax savings clearance sale

Red1 housing end of year Tax savings clearance sale

AnyOne interested in savings of 30 % or so (plus the full depreciation tax deduction you can get)

I have an aluminum and PVC unit here in excellent shape. About $8200 or $6500 list with basic dome port less 30%. plus many accessories are available, Birger canon electronic mount controller ( no need for gears, motors, etc.), 8" glass dome, ext. LCD, etc.

Contact me at yahoo address if possible pm almost full.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Hey, it's all here and with the cooler waters of "la nina" at least at this latitude we are seeing some encouraging sings of hope on and in the water in the Baja region.
few more pics of Mola Molas.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Fun stuff Johnny, love sea lions...but the water's too cold for me....I know that's what dry suits are for.

Frazier, the water here at this time is only around 70f on surface. not so bad in a 5mm suit with 7mm jacket for longer exposures.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

That is amazing, such concentration of Mola Molas, I don't think these creatures have ever been filmed in such numbers Johnny, you have a first in your hands, or your hard drives rather!

 

[Johnny Friday]

Hey Rudi,
Thanks...i guess we all dream of a first in nat.hist. and underwater. but i'm sure someone has shot them in large numbers some place. Seems like there is very little that is untapped nowadays other than good stories--although the good stories seem to be what is in short supply.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

...don't know. I count upwards of 30 fish in your frames. I remember years ago I showed a clip of 8 of them swimming together to an old Nat Geo exec and he was very excited, having never seen "so many" of them a once

 

[Johnny Friday]

Hi Rudi,
actually have some irons in the fire at the moment with the molas. word does travel fast. In fact may head back in 2-3 days to pickup some more shots. You coming?

 

[PerroneFord]

Out of curiosity are there any cave divers here in the group?