who are divers on CS?


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scotsman said:
i did 17 Dives. As far as I can tell regarding the photos, the closer u get to the subject the internal flash is ok. However, u can see that not the entire image is litted up. This would be overcomed if a strobe was used.

Visibility was between 5 - 15 metres. We had some bad weather, but I think it don't matter as the underwater life are not shy to divers. I got really close to the sharks, barracudas and trevalies. Again, I think the bad weather brought in loads of underwater creatures for us.

How did the UW Seed go?
LOVELY very professionally taken photos! :thumbsup: Makes me want to go back to sipadan again!! :)

Were the barracudas swimming in a giant tornado spiral?
 

beivied said:
i think your wide angle pics are pretty well too. or was it at a shallower depth? gosh, you fellas make me feel like a pathetic stranded on land diver! :cry:

Most of them were not more than 15 m. After 15 m, there really wasn't much stuff, except for the corals... but that was compensated by the internal flash. For some shots, I used the Cokin Gold Filter, self made with velcro stuck onto my housing. Auto-leveling helped loads!
 

kng said:
LOVELY very professionally taken photos! :thumbsup: Makes me want to go back to sipadan again!! :)

Were the barracudas swimming in a giant tornado spiral?

Giant was an understatement. The school was just to large to notice... I think was inside the spiral, divers outside and snorkels above said that they circled us, but possibly the spiral was so large I didn't notice it. Even the sunlight was dimmed down by them....
 

scotsman said:
Auto-leveling helped loads!

Sorry, what do you mean by Auto-leveling? White balance?

scotsman said:
Giant was an understatement. The school was just to large to notice... I think was inside the spiral, divers outside and snorkels above said that they circled us, but possibly the spiral was so large I didn't notice it. Even the sunlight was dimmed down by them....

Holy shit....... When is the next plane there :)
 

frisky said:
Sorry, what do you mean by Auto-leveling? White balance?



Holy shit....... When is the next plane there :)

Auto-leveling in Photoshop for adjusting the colors and brightness or like for me, on the Mac, iPhoto using the Enhance Button. The photos then turn out a lot better...
 

yo people! i have to announce this.... *drums roll*.... i bought my 512mb cf card!!!! hiak hiak hiak hiak!! now cannot laugh at me for low memory ok.... but i cannot say the same for my brain memory la.. :embrass:

which dive centre would you fellas recommend to go sipadan with?
 

beivied said:
yo people! i have to announce this.... *drums roll*.... i bought my 512mb cf card!!!! hiak hiak hiak hiak!! now cannot laugh at me for low memory ok.... but i cannot say the same for my brain memory la.. :embrass:

easy mar... install one in your head, then ok already... :D
 

beivied said:
yo people! i have to announce this.... *drums roll*.... i bought my 512mb cf card!!!! hiak hiak hiak hiak!! now cannot laugh at me for low memory ok.... but i cannot say the same for my brain memory la.. :embrass:

which dive centre would you fellas recommend to go sipadan with?
Well done beivied! You're all set for your next dive trip then! Suggest you subscribe to email newsletters from some of the dive shops in Spore - they regularly have offers on trips. Approx price - 6D trip (3.5 diving days) to Sipadan = S$1300-1600 all inclusive. Flying from Spore is more expensive - cheaper to either fly MAS from JB or AirAsia from KL.
Doesn't matter which dive shop you go with - they all rely on the local DM's in sipadan anyway. Prob better to choose the right place to stay in Sipadan - recommend Pulau Sipadan Resort or Borneo Divers - these are located right at the drop-off and you can do your own dawn, dusk & night dives cos its unlimited shore dives. ;) (If you're not staying at the drop-off, need a boat to bring you out for dives.)

Frisky, i dun think levels is the same as white balance - look for the "auto-levels" or "levels" function in PS.

Scotsman, the "tornado" sounds amazing!! Do you have any pix showing the whole tornado of barracudas? WHen i was there in June 2002, the super huge school of barracudas disappeared and only saw smaller (200-400?) schools. :(
 

sehsuan hor, always like to suan people one... ah bsh bsh bsh bsh bsh!!! kick until you faint ah. :blah:

kng: thanks for your advice! i actually have subscribed to quite a few dive centres enewsletter. bio-ing this one who quoted me 1200 for sipadan all in, coming dec. but one friend quite strongly against it lo. thats why asking around for moe advice, especially people who has been to sipadan and sees a difference between dive centres. my friend says another centre is 1800. such a great difference lo. and i also dont know why the difference, what is being compensated on the trip etc etc ...
 

beivied said:
sehsuan hor, always like to suan people one... ah bsh bsh bsh bsh bsh!!! kick until you faint ah. :blah:

kng: thanks for your advice! i actually have subscribed to quite a few dive centres enewsletter. bio-ing this one who quoted me 1200 for sipadan all in, coming dec. but one friend quite strongly against it lo. thats why asking around for moe advice, especially people who has been to sipadan and sees a difference between dive centres. my friend says another centre is 1800. such a great difference lo. and i also dont know why the difference, what is being compensated on the trip etc etc ...

I got mine done with Mako (www.makosubaquatics.com). The boss is Patrick. He is a really nice guy and makes sure everything is ok. I did a 7D/6N package which came to around $1500. And its with Pulau Sipadan Resort. I would highly recommend staying at Kapalai. You get to dive at both Sipadan and Mabul as well, and they are only about 10-15 mins away by the speed boat. So no problems. Kapalai is a lot cleaner and without any mosquitoes. I had no regrets... plus the food and the people were just great! Even the dive masters made sure that they found strange creatures for us. Really Good!!

I'm not sure if December is a good time to go though. But according to the boss at Kapalai he said diving is year round.

kng: At that point of the thousands of barracudas, but compact flash came up with CF Card Full... :( this was with a 512 MB Compact Flash Card as well. I brought two 512 MB compact flash cards and I still managed to almost fill them up. And on a 2MB IXUS Camera! There are just too many things to take photos of!
 

The drop off really don't have much underwater life possibly because of the depth. Dawn dives were great at Barracuda Point with the bumphead parrotfish cleaning and other life at the shallow bits of not more than 20m. And night dives are great at the Kapalai Jetty. Loads of crabs, cuttlefish, ocotopus, and others.... depths of not more then 12m.
 

beivied : Aug & Sep are their peak season due to European Summer holidays. So after that might be cheaper. However, I have heard mention that the best time is by Oct, of course it is probably possible to go in Dec, but might not be the best of times.

My cancelled trip is with Deep Blue, 7D6N staying at kapalai (same date/place as scotsman infact). 1550 including rental of BC/Reg.

scotsman : I hope you don't mean you finish the 512MB in 1 dive right?
if that is the case I'll have little choice but to get a 1GB.......

kng : pai sei..... Never use PS before........
 

frisky said:
beivied : Aug & Sep are their peak season due to European Summer holidays. So after that might be cheaper. However, I have heard mention that the best time is by Oct, of course it is probably possible to go in Dec, but might not be the best of times.

My cancelled trip is with Deep Blue, 7D6N staying at kapalai (same date/place as scotsman infact). 1550 including rental of BC/Reg.

scotsman : I hope you don't mean you finish the 512MB in 1 dive right?
if that is the case I'll have little choice but to get a 1GB.......

kng : pai sei..... Never use PS before........

Yup according to the other two divers that went with deep blue the prices were about the same as mine. We were basically in the same hotels anyway.

As for the compact flash, not on 1 dive.. but each dive I took around 30-60 photos.. so 17 dives... u can work out the number of photos...

Come to think of it, the photo competition that is being held in Tioman. I really don't know what people will be taking photos of. I'm awaiting to see photos from that.
 

oi oi oi ... i just got my 512mb cf card, dont make me feel that i am low on memory so fast hor, haha.,....

thanks for the info! at least now i can know better what i am looking at. after my liveonboard, think i wanna go sipadan le.. but that will be next year liao. maybe even one more year from now. shucks.
 

beivied said:
oi oi oi ... i just got my 512mb cf card, dont make me feel that i am low on memory so fast hor, haha.,....

Somehow, you never get enough memory :)
Anyway, the next thing after 512MB is usually a X-drive or
other form of external storage........
 

beivied said:
sehsuan hor, always like to suan people one... ah bsh bsh bsh bsh bsh!!! kick until you faint ah. :blah:

wah, goodt lor you... :bheart:

someone posting message on CS despite saying now having to travel to other people's offices, cannot anyhow go online... :bigeyes:

beivied said:
thats why asking around for moe advice...

paiseh, M.O.E. doesn't do dive trips, so no advice from M.O.E.... :bsmilie:
 

frisky said:
Somehow, you never get enough memory :)
Anyway, the next thing after 512MB is usually a X-drive or
other form of external storage........

bigbelly was telling me about it. was tempted la, given the amount of money i have to pay for so much memory. but then i dont have much cash lo, so decided to make do with a 512mb first.
 

beivied said:
bigbelly was telling me about it. was tempted la, given the amount of money i have to pay for so much memory. but then i dont have much cash lo, so decided to make do with a 512mb first.

That's fine. You might find 128 MB or 256MB filling up too fast even with
a X-drive........... When you get the $$ then xpand lor....
 

beivied said:
bio-ing this one who quoted me 1200 for sipadan all in, coming dec. but one friend quite strongly against it lo. thats why asking around for moe advice, especially people who has been to sipadan and sees a difference between dive centres. my friend says another centre is 1800. such a great difference lo. and i also dont know why the difference, what is being compensated on the trip etc etc ...
It all boils down to how many diving days you get for the trip. I paid about S$1300 for a 12 boat-dive trip (4 diving days) at Borneo Divers. Scotsman's price of S$1500 for 17/18 dives sounds about right. Price also fluctuates depending on airfare - SQ/MAS/AirAsia. If you stay at Pulau Sipadan Resort (PSR) or Borneo, you're right at the drop-off, so you can do unlimited shore dives - no need speed boat.

Beivied, dun buy any more memory until you practice and shoot more!! ;) No pt having the most-est and best-est equipment if you have no money left to dive & shoot. Otherwise you end up being an equipment collector. Always bring the TV cable so you can check pix on TV and delete blurred shots.

Frisky, deep blue's got good deals - i went with them in Jan (DM called Ann Travis Siau?). Dun shy - practice yr PS, any questions just PM!! :D
 

frisky said:
That's fine. You might find 128 MB or 256MB filling up too fast even with
a X-drive........... When you get the $$ then xpand lor....
ya. budget conscious diver like me need to save money to go dive dive dive! cannot foresee when's my next trip, after the coming LOB ... hai ... i wanna go sipadan leh. but from my calculations, that would mean no diving for the next one year liao.
 

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