Rajah Ampat Trip

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Just back from two weeks of diving in Rajah Ampat (West Papua, formerly Irian Jaya). Got many, many hours of GoPro video, but here is a start (watch in high res):


 
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Beyond jealous... :001_sdrool:
 
Dive master (from UK, was a reefkeeper before he moved to Indo) spotted this guy amongst the regular skunks and wanted to know what it was:


Well, it's a pretty rare one. White bonnet clownfish, Amphiprion leucokranos. Nobody is quite sure if they're a true species or just a rare natural hybrid between A. sandaracinos and A. chrysopterus. They're usually found together with either species and not with their own, so I'm kinda going with the hybrid theory. Anyway, not something you see every day.
 
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a disaster recipe to turn blase'...:)

After you've seen 50+ blueface and majestic angels by the second day, they definitely start to get less exciting. I've got a video of a blueface, a majestic, a pair of regal angels and a pair of clown triggers all in the same frame.

Saw 2-3 species of pygmy seahorses on most dives, so everyone just stopped looking after a while. Even the wobbegongs were getting a bit dull after #10 or so. :p
 
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Love how that wrasse just keeps on turning over rocks.
I have always thought that "Stepping-on-a-Wobbegong" would make a great title for a song:lol:
 
@Lord_Blackadder

Keep posting the videos man!! They are great! Show us some of the corals there too man.

Some of the corals there will make your eyes bleed. 1m diameter vivid red Lobophyllia, superman montis pretty much everywhere, fields of Goniopora 25 meters across...

Will post some shots that our dive master took there later today.
 

Small fish in the one above are Apogon parvulus:

lg-0106101-131v.jpg
 
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@Lord Blackadder.
Awesome videos by the way.
Looking at them though it looks like there is no filter on the lens, I could be wrong but it just looks like it.
If you use your Gopro for diving a lot I can suggest the following filters:
Polar Pro GoPro Filters
The red ones are the best don't worry to much about the Magenta one, IMO the red works better.
Just a thought, I use the Gopro all the time for diving and since using the filters you can't even compare how the colours come out.
 
@Lord Blackadder.
Awesome videos by the way.
Looking at them though it looks like there is no filter on the lens, I could be wrong but it just looks like it.
If you use your Gopro for diving a lot I can suggest the following filters:
Polar Pro GoPro Filters
The red ones are the best don't worry to much about the Magenta one, IMO the red works better.
Just a thought, I use the Gopro all the time for diving and since using the filters you can't even compare how the colours come out.

I used a small thin insert one for the deeper dives. Couldn't get a good clip-on one before my trip and couldn't find one in Bangkok. I also haven't done decent post-processing on these yet, which will help a lot. The colour looks great at <10m and in blue water. Most of the above vids were taken in an upwelling spot with tons of phytoplankton, so green tint is not really avoidable.

Will be posting some vids of a different site with 40m viz and blue water and colour even looks pretty good at 30m depth.
 
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