Monday 16 May 2011

Drop Zone Fiji Premieres on Fuel TV


Tune in with millions of viewers to watch the premiere of Drop Zone Fiji on Fuel TV on March 19th at 9:00 PM.

It will continue to air throughout the year.

Check your local programming for air times or visit Fuel TV online
Drop Zone Fiji: Drop Zone Fiji Premieres on Fuel TV

Monday 9 May 2011

Digital Underwater Photography Workshop with Mathieu Meur @ Matava, Fiji

5th Underwater Festival™ 2011 (UF11)

‘The Australasia Challenge’

@

matava_logo

3rd – 10th September 2011

  • Hosted by Mathieu Meur, Underwater Photographer
  • Daily photo workshops
  • Practical in water assistance
  • In depth RAW photo post processing labs
  • 7 night stay at Matava in an Oceanview Bure
  • All meals and airport transfers included
  • 5 days of 3 tank boat dives – 15 dives (incl 1 night dive)
  • Complimentary unlimited shore diving
  • Guided waterfall hike and village visit
  • Free use of kayaks, snorkelling around the resort
  • Free PADI Coral Conservation Course on one afternoon
  • Traditional Lovo Feast and Kava Ceremony

FJD 3250.00 per person

(only valid for double / twin share)

(Group 10 pay – 2 FOC)

Underwater Festival

UF11Held annually, the 5th Underwater Festival™ 2011 (UF11) will be the biggest one yet. With the tagline ‘The Australasia Challenge’ it will incorporate an Australasia-wide simultaneous photo and video shootout competition like no other with over U$100,000 in prizes.

UF11 will feature a shootout competition that happens simultaneous all over Australasia – 25 countries spanning both hemispheres – every dive you can imagine will be a shootout locality, every dive centre, liveaboard, resort in the area will facilitate this new kind of shootout. You can dive your local favourite spots, go out with your dive club or shore dive with your buddy

Become part of this huge event and not unlike an underwater ‘Earth Hour’ help to highlight the underwater beauty but also the underwater issues of this fantastic bio-region and help to show the world what we’ve got to lose.

Octopus in Shell - Jeffrey de Guzman

If you like organised events, dozens of Underwater Festival Fringe Events are planned all over Australasia during the 10-day shootout period.

The top 100 images will be showcased at the new Australian Dive & Tavel Expo ODEX in Brisbane on the second weekend in October 2011. A whole hall will be devoted to the Festival and seminars as well as the Underwater Festival Awards will be held during the 3 days of ODEX 2011.

The Week’s Plan

Dive with Mathieu to learn practical skills in:

  • Art of Composition
  • Shooting with Ambient Light – silhouette & colour filter
  • One on one image review & critique session with Matheiu
  • Shooting Macro techniques & strobe positioning
  • Art of fish photography
  • Shooting with single/ twin strobes
  • Night Shooting – lighting & techniques
  • Working with models

Practical hands on classroom workshops on:

  • Processing RAW images – using Adobe Bridge CS5
  • Tonal correction – Level and Saturation tool
  • Asset Management & Workflow
  • Lighting Techniques – single strobe, two strobes
  • Art of Seascapes – wide angle
  • Conversion to Black & White techniques
  • How to select images for competition
  • Preparation of images for portfolio and entry into UF11 competition

Shoot-out Sign Up

You can sign-up to the Underwater Festival Shootout by purchasing your entry credits – or if you are not ready to commit yet, you can just register yourself for FREE and purchase the shootout credits later.

There are 2 initial packages:

  • Photographer registration (A$50) – 5 photo upload credits + 5 lucky draw entries
  • Videographer registration (A$50) – 2 video upload credits + 5 lucky draw entries

Additional entries can be purchased at any stage in the lead up and during the shootout period:

  • A$10 per additional photo – includes 1 lucky draw entry
  • A$25 per additional video – includes 2.5 lucky draw entries

Head on over to the official website for the Shootout to register.

Mathieu Meur

Mathieu has been shooting underwater for close to 20 years, at first free-diving and subsequently on scuba. He was one of the early adopters and promoters of digital technology for underwater photography, authoring presumably the first PADI-approved digital underwater photography specialty course in the world in 2001. He went on to contribute regular columns on photography techniques to dive and photography publications.

In 2004, Mathieu co-authored “An Essential Guide to Digital Underwater Photography” with Michael Aw. This was the first book entirely dedicated to the techniques associated with shooting digital underwater. The book was met with an overwhelming response, and was quickly sold out, requiring an updated version to be published in 2005.

Following the success of this introductory book, Mathieu went on to co-author “An Advanced Guide to Digital Underwater Photography” in 2007.

He is currently working on a new, comprehensive book on underwater digital photography, “Complete Digital Underwater Photography”, which is due to be published in 2011.

He is also a regular speaker at dive events, judge at underwater photography competition, and coach at underwater photography workshops.

Matava

Mad Fish Dive Centre is Matava’s on site PADI Dive Centre. We dive the The Great Astrolabe Reef extensively and cater for all levels of diver from beginner to experienced. Mad Fish Dive Centre will take you to sites varying in depths, currents and visibility ranging from 20 – 50m where you can expect a kaleidoscope of colourful corals and wonderful marine life – we can assure you that you won’t be disappointed.

UW Photo Festival

The crew at Mad Fish Dive Centre are a dedicated team of professionals who look forward to guiding you through some of the best dive sites in the world. As the only dive operation located directly on the world famous Great Astrolabe Reef we will zip you the abundant coral reefs of the 4th largest barrier reef in the world in minutes.

Combined with simple access to The Manta Dive, Fiji’s only year round manta dive site, Mad Fish Dive Centre truly offers divers easy and comfortable access to some of the best diving Fiji can offer. With a fully stocked dive centre and access to some of the best scuba diving in the world on the Great Astrolabe Reef, Mad Fish Dive Centre is the prime diving operation in Kadavu.

Matava is Fiji’s Premier Eco-Adventure Resort offering you a fun and unique blend of cultural experiences and adventure activities in the environmentally pristine and remote island of Kadavu in Fiji. Mad Fish Dive Centre is Matava’s on site PADI Dive Centre. We dive the The Great Astrolabe Reef extensively and cater for all levels of diver. Mad Fish Dive Centre will take you to sites varying in depths, currents and visibility ranging from 20 – 50m where you can expect a kaleidoscope of colourful corals and wonderful marine life – we can assure you that you won’t be disappointed

UF11

Contact us to book your ticket to this once in a lifetime opportunity event!


Digital Underwater Photography Workshop with Mathieu Meur

Wednesday 4 May 2011

DiveCaching

Sounds like a blast, looking to place some in Fiji!

Professional Dive Centers are always looking for fun local diving events to keep their current customers engaged. Local and regional diving activities are as important as dive travel to promote education, equipment purchases and fun. Today the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association (DEMA) is proud to announce the release of a new in-water game called “DiveCaching,” designed to keep divers active locally while promoting more diving, more retail dive business and keeping customers involved!

“We’re extremely excited to be introducing this new real-life game to the diving and snorkeling community,” commented Tom Ingram, Executive Director of DEMA. “It’s a simple in-water activity that can be conducted almost anywhere, regardless of visibility or dive conditions. There are so many rewards to be gained from participating in DiveCaching; exploring new dive sites, visiting favorite locations with a new eye for adventure, and simply thriving on the fun and excitement of discovering ‘treasure’ underwater. DiveCaching gives certified divers a great reason to dive locally, use and update their equipment, brush up on previously learned skills such as navigation and search, and just have a great time with family and friends. Divers can also search for caches when traveling to dive anywhere in the world, and there’s virtually no limit to the games and activities in which retailers, dive professionals, and divers can incorporate DiveCaching. DiveCaching is truly ‘Looking for Fun!’”

DiveCaching is an underwater variation of “Geocaching,” a decade-old game that uses a GPS device and simple search skills to locate hidden land-based caches. Here’s how it works:

  • Divers hide a “treasure” or “cache” underwater and post the GPS coordinates and compass directions on www.geocaching.com, the official global GPS cache hunt website
  • Other divers search www.geocaching.com for divecache listings near their dive site and actually dive to locate the cache
  • Once the cache is found, divers log their cache visit using the on-site visitor’s log. The finder may also choose to photograph the cache, deposit an additional treasure in the container or simply return it to its original location
  • After returning to the surface, the finders log their visit on www.geocaching.com, sharing their adventure with other divers around the world

There are more than 5 million geocachers worldwide and more than 1.3 million active, mostly land-based, geocaches. Divers can join www.geocaching.com with a free basic membership, and log the caches they hide for others to find as well as any they find while searching.

Why DiveCaching? Not only is it fun but it also gives divers motivation to dive wherever there are submerged caches located in dive environments for which they are trained and equipped. Caches can be hidden in almost any underwater environment, and the visibility, temperature and other diving conditions are part of the challenge of hiding and finding a cache. It also creates the perfect family outing when combined with land-based geocaching or social activities and allows non-divers to join in the fun!

DEMA member retailers will receive DiveCaching information and tools over the next few weeks to get their customers involved and help them hide their own caches. In the meantime, visit www.facebook.com/DiveCaching to view and share the introductory video now! DEMA will “officially” launch DiveCaching to the entire diving community beginning on May 17th at which time online ads promoting DiveCaching to consumers will begin to appear. Stay tuned for more information on how you can get your customers involved in this exciting activity!

For more information about DiveCaching, including finding and hiding a cache, visit www.DiveCaching.org and don’t forget to join us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest DiveCaching details, updates and events!

DiveCaching