Aussiebyron

Since everyone recently has been talking about Vucuum seals for housing I thought I input on my recent experience with Housing Sentry from Underwater Camera Stuff (http://uwcamerastuff...ry_overview.htm)

I decided to go with the basic setup which has no electronics and uses the manual hand pump. I installed the valve in the Hydrophone port of my Aquatica AD7000 and it took me a couple of minutes to do.

Here are some pics of the layout:

The basic setup like mine retails for $290usd plus shipping. 

Have used the setup for the past 3 weeks and think its one of the best things I have bought for my camera housing.  Like alot of other I think that every brand of housing should have this setup as a standard part in each new housing. 

I found that Bill and Mary from Underwater Camera Stuff get to order from especially for me here in Australia

Regards Mark

Here is a collection of Leopard Sharks (aka Zebra Sharks to those in the USA) taken at Julian Rocks, Byron Bay, Australia. These graceful and often friendly Sharks visit every summer and often in large numbers.

Unedited shots taken with the Nikon D7000 and Tokina 10-17mm or Samyang 8mm.

And my current favourite:

Cheers Mark

Here is a collection of Wobbegong images taken recently at Julian Rocks, Byron Bay, Australia.  The site in famous for Wobbegongs and the locals dont bother to point them out to people as they are huge numbers of them everywhere all year round.

Here are some unedited shots taken with a Nikon D7000 and either the Tokina 10-17mm or the Samyang 8mm:

Cheers Mark

I recently purchase a Samyang 8mm f3.5 Fisheye after reading a review by Ken Rockwell.

http://www.kenrockwe...ech/8mm-f35.htm

I found these lens readily available on Ebay and picked one up for a good price, less than $200.

I dont have access to a swimming pool as such for proper lens testing but I has able to take this lens out for a dive yesterday to see how it performs and make a rough comparison to the Tokina 10-17mm which I normally use.  To start off the lens is a manual focus lens which i set the lens to its minium focus length of approximately 30cm or about a foot..  As you expect you need to be close to the subject as this lens is really wide but surprisingly it didnt have the distortion I was expecting and it feels to have less distortion than the Tokina 10-17mm @ 10mm. 

First impressions are that the lens doesnt focus as close as the Tokina but I was expecting that and it isnt as sharp as the Tokina. I had to set the aperture at a setting between f8 and f11 on the lens....which I expected to be f9 (wasnt marked on the aperture ring).

Here are a few shots from yesterdays dive taken on a Nikon D7000 with Aquatica housing and 8 inch dome with 2x Ikelite DS161 strobes.  Quick mention I also upgraded to the new Ikelite Li-ion battery packs made for the DS125/160/161 strobes. I must admit I like these new battery packs as they are lighter than the older packs abd have a quicker recycle time and give twice as amount of flashes than the standard battery packs. More bang for your buck. 

The shots are taken a setting between f8-f11 and ISO100. The images are not cropped or edited only resized for web. Only adjustment was shutter speed. This collection highlights what one can see on a single dive are Julian Rocks, Byron Bay, Australia, which is one of the best dive sites in Australia.

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Only early days with this lens but I am enjoying shooting with it and hopefully fine tune its performance. Hopefully getting a Manta photo during the week to add to todays collection.  This lens has potential to make a great video lens for those like myself who are using the DSLR's more and more in making video's.

Regards Mark

I have posted my Sigma 17-70mm DC Macro lens on Ebay as I rarely used it. Its in excellent condition and UV filter was placed on it straight from the box. Would be interested in Tokina 11-16mm in Nikon mount as Trade.

Here is the Ebay link: http://www.ebay.com....984.m1558.l2649

Regards Mark