rainmaker

I figured I'd share this here as well, since it's probablyof interest to a lot of folks here.  I was lucky enough to spend a day with the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme late last week, while in the Maldives.  Unlike a typical tourist trip, this one was all research, and aimed at gathering data for that purpose.  So I got a bit of a behind the scenes look at everything.  I also go into detail about the team, and how you can help out (either in person, or from afar).

The full (and long pictoral) post is here: http://dcrainmaker.b...k-research.html

But here are a couple of pictures to act as a trailer...

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November 12-16th at Isla Guadalupe, MX on The Islander with Shark Divers

I had the opportunity to join a shark diving trip last week for teh last boat of the season down there. The trip was rather unique in that a film crew had joined us as well as some fairly notable experts with respect to either oceanic research or conservation. I tried to highlight those stories in some of the posts below, as I think they have some incredibly worthwhile messages to get out.

From an imaging standpoint I had originally planned on using the 7D with a case from Ikelite - based on some conversations with them and trying to get the case to me in time. Of course, it shipped a day late and a dollar short (in this case, quite literally actually, arrives today in theory). But the folks at Marine Camera (I found them on the sidebar here), who I ordered the case from got me all hooked up with a 5D and case for the trip - which I am grateful.

A couple of photo things for great whites - I used a 20m lens, which worked great, though because of the lower number of sharks having a little more zoom would have been handy. But, for any other trip I couldn't have gone wrong. The pro's that were on board were also shooting 20m as well. I went strobe-less for the first two days, but then switched to strobes for the last after one of the Pro's hooked me up with two strobes. I actually had strobes with me, but he placed some rather nice ones on there, so I wasn't about to argue.

Anyway, here's my lengthly trip report with tons and tons of pictures:

Day 1: The journey to the island
Day 2: Arrival at the island and the first day in the water
Day 3: Great White Sharks – woot!
Day 4: Sea Lions and Great White Sharks – double woot!
Day 5: The journey back to land and the trip home

(Oh, on the last page there I list all the cameras I took along with all the lenses and case I had)

You can either skip right to a certain page, or simply start at the begining and then there's little 'next' buttons at the bottom of each page.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ping or comment below - I'm always down for helping out. This was basically my first underwater photo taking trip and so I'm still learning a lot about taking pictures underwater.

Heres a couple of preview pics attached:

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I'm looking to jump into the UW DSLR world (from the little Canon camera case world I currently have), and want to ensure that I've covered all my basis with different parts I need.  With the 7D case coming out in early November, I have a very tight window between when it might arrive and a trip, so I want to basically ensure I've got every little detail and item covered (including the 45 cent parts) ahead of time to minimize the number of rush orders I might need.

Case Related:
DSLR Case itself (For Canon 7D)
5503.50 Port  (For Canon 10-22 EF-S lens)

Strobes:
Now, my current stroke - a YS-90DX doesn't appear as though it will work, so it looks like I need to look at a new compatible one.  I do see that I can use a TTL cable, but it says "Manual" and I'm unfortunatley not clear on what that means compared to "non-manual".  So assuming I go with a new compatible strobe, I'd need:

DS51 Strobe
Charger (I already have one)
4103.51 Digital TTL strobe cable
4086.61 Stroke Arm
(I may just look at the Strobe package if cheaper, which is the same part listing)

Extra parts:
Main O rings: TBD (though likely 0132.59)
Port O Rings: 0105

With that, have I covered EVERYTHING I might need on a boat related to normal operation?  I'm just trying to ensure I don't end up missing a tiny little critical part and only have 24 hours to somehow procure it.

Thanks again for any comments and thoughts,
-Ray