Deep water soloing in the center of Antalya again

For years I’ve wanted to get good photos of the climbing traverse that I do regularly on the limestone cliffs (falez) near the Ramada Hotel in the center of Antalya.  It’s only about five minutes to get there by bicycle from my house, and since I can get a quick climbing workout without needing a belay partner, I go frequently.

Now that I have an action camera I figured maybe I could take some decent photos.  Of course if I go by myself like I normally do, then I end up with photos like this:

So I recruited Özgür and Sibel for a morning of falez photos.  I took one shot of Özgür before giving the camera to Sibel to take photos from the water.

However, it turned out that we had a constant problem with spots of water on the lens.  Is this a common problem with these action cameras?  We ended up with blurry/spotty photos like these:

or perhaps like this when we got into the sun:

If you take the camera underwater (like we almost always did in Sulawesi), then the water problem goes away:

but that’s not exactly deep water soloing, is it?  What to do?

Well, about a week later, I hosted a Hungarian bicyclist, Viktor.  Viktor travels around bicycling, climbing, and mountaineering, supporting his habit by taking photos and videos.  He was very excited to try the deep water soloing at the falez.  And he brought his action camera, a real GoPro!

Well, what do you know, Viktor’s photos look like this:

Viktor gave me the camera for a bit so I could take some photos of him.

But to prove that it’s the photographer, not the camera, check out this sequence that Viktor shot:

Thank you, Viktor, for finally getting me some nice falez photos.  Here’s a short plug for KisGeri 24, the Rock Climbing and Highline Festival that Viktor organizes every year in Hungary’s Geresce Mountains.

And Viktor’s parting shot: