Raja Ampat From Above And Below

[stphnmartin]

I recently traveled to Raja Ampat on a 12 day liveaboard on the MV Ambai. I took my sony camcorder in a bluefin housing for macro, a GoPro4 for wide angle and a Phantom 3 for drone footage. This was the first time using a GoPro and it turned out pretty well. Although it required more post correction. It was nice to be able to shoot wide and macro on all dives. This was truly a bucket list fulfilling trip!

Here's the completed video. Comments and critiques are welcome!

 

[CT-Rich]

Wow, that was a bucket list trip if ever there was one. The production values on the video were amazing. Great job.

 

[stphnmartin]

Thanks CT-Rich, appreciate it. Hope you get to go there if you haven't already!

 

[TulsaTime]

Gotta echo CT-Rich - Wow! Incredible footage and editing. Very nicely done. I oftentimes get bored halfway through a lot of dive videos (kinda like golf - fun to do but boring to watch after a while) but this one kept me engaged to the end.

 

[stphnmartin]

Thanks TulsaTime! I'm glad it held your attention. I was concerned about the length being almost 10 minutes. I cut as much as I could to make it shorter, but there were too many beautiful creatures!

 

[Cali_diver]

Great start but way too long. Your clips are great and not too long (3-5 second rule), just too many and slightly repetitive. For example, pick your favorite mantis shrimp clip (its ok to do the close up of eyes in addition but the other three all look the same) and leave it at that. Pick one clip of divers going off of the tender, one manta etc. I think the drone footage transitions were too long and not really needed in the middle. I actually thought the video was over each time and almost turned it off. You have the making for a great video but need to edit a bit more. Just my opinion but I have edited a ton of underwater video.... You might want to have a friend help you pick which clips to cut. My husband gets very attached to his video and often has to leave the room when someone is helping him clip.

 

[stphnmartin]

Thanks Cali_divergirl. I appreciate the constructive feedback. I started with 3 hours of footage, so it was a long slog down to 9 minutes! Looking at the stats viewers are hanging on for almost 7 minutes, which is beyond what I would have expected. So, your points on making more cuts, particularly of similar scenes is appropriate.

 

[Trevormclay]

I really enjoyed it, what drone did you use for the ariel shots?

 

[stphnmartin]

Thanks Trevor. I used a Phantom 3 4k. Oddly enough, despite being in the middle of nowhere, I did lose contact with the drone a lot. Perhaps interference from the ship's communication. So, I didn't fly too far from the boat to make sure I didn't lose it. The Phantom 3, 4k has the lesser powered transmitter and so I learned that can be a drawback even though the lower price was more attractive than the pro version.

 

[Trevormclay]

Thanks Trevor. I used a Phantom 3 4k. Oddly enough, despite being in the middle of nowhere, I did lose contact with the drone a lot. Perhaps interference from the ship's communication. So, I didn't fly too far from the boat to make sure I didn't lose it. The Phantom 3, 4k has the lesser powered transmitter and so I learned that can be a drawback even though the lower price was more attractive than the pro version.

very cool I have one of the old Phantom FC40 and have always wanted to bring it on vacation and do something similar to what you did with yours (albeit worse video quality lol) very well done video. I love longer dive videos if the quality of the work is there and yours definitely fit the bill. Keep it up id love to watch more of your videos.