gorantrener

ok, pics are heavily resized but hope they turn out ok in screen.

jardines de la reina is trully "last paradise". cuba is not so very popular diving destination (at least compared to the rest of carribean, red sea and south-east asia), but the beauty you can expect there is stunning. the main reason are the sharks, you can expect them in EVERY location in huge numbers and they circle COMPLETE dive with you. mainly you can see silkies and carribean reefs. i have seen hundreds of sharks before but this is first time in my life that i can say those two words - every dive and complete dive. jardines are very remote part of southern cuba, and you can only do liveboard there. it is not too pricey compared to carribean, only problem is a bit complicated transfer to jardines, but once you are there you forget everything and just dive dive dive, enjoy mohitos etc... besides sharks you can expect large groupers, (50 kgs are common!) some barracudas, jacks and other common carribean stuff. this area is heavily protected by goverment so only diving and some sportfishing are allowed (thanks to Castro!), which made Jardines fantastic. 

I am not american but now is for sure that USAs can get cuban visa and organise touristic trips, so it is not the "black area" even for them now. i know it for sure because there were "common" americans with us on liveaboard.

hello pixelers,
i am heading for Cuba, and need advice from you who visited before. I will be on liveaboard in Jardines dela reina, and need some tips about getting shots of those carribean sharks and large groupers. anyone has experience how close do they come? should i expect really close encounters for 10-17 tokina lens or are they somewhat shy for something like less wide lenses? also, do i really need to take macro kit also? most of the dives would be shark-ish, is it worth to do some strictly macro dives? thanks very much

hello, i am wondering why SB 105 strobes are that cheap?
i mean, these days you can buy unused piece for less then 200 $.
that is significantly cheaper then any other strobe currently being popular.
is really SB 105 that useless or has much less power or what is the trick?
thanks for opinions.
P.S. i am aware of current process where nikon changes 103s with 105 s for free, but
that cannot be the only reason i suppose

hello every1,
i found it very interesting reading opinions from fellow photographers about giving away images for free. i am not a pro photog, so my opinion is not so important at this point, but must say that i totaly understand and appreciate many statements about NOT giving free images.
just for a quick introduction, i am general editor of croatian scubadiving magazine.it is rather small bussiness oriented only on ex-yougoslavia region, some 10000 copies, published quaterly. infact my second bussines, because im running dive center in area.
so, what we do in magazine is that in each issue (10 so far) we publish portfolio of more less famous uw photogs worldwide, consisting of 5 images chosen by author, one more image of author himself, and textual part usually written by author, (or by me in some cases).
we do it on "non payment" basics, so we do not compensate authors with any financial arrangement. of course, most important is that we do have permit of each author, and infact me personally contact with each, discussing about images, choosing them etc. so, no any copyright violation whatsoever.
so i would like to hear opinions of photogs about my philosophy of this arrangements, where we as the publishers clearly benefit with attractive material to publish, but also think that author also benefits with promotion and "penetration" to our, though small, part of worlds market. ( i found here on forum clear statements that only benefit for some photogs is the benefit in the bank account, and i must say i agree with that policy)
but, in this case, what do you say, is it "fair game"? do both sides benefit equally? thanks in advance for opinions

hello,
first attempt to post some pics, please share your thaughts about this two versions of balinese turtles, thanks in advance...