holloways

I'm looking for advice about where to stay in North Sulawesi following 10 days of muck at the Lembeh Resort?   

 

My focus is on the diving & photography (rather than resort facilities), ideally staying close to the dive sites.  I want a nice place with a quality dive operation.   I'm looking for lots of fish, pretty reefs or walls (vs muck).  Should I focus on Gangga or Bunaken National Park?  Siladen Resort and Gangga Resort both look great - but I doubt I'd take advantage of any of their (or anyones)  resort facilties. 

 

 

If Bunaken National Park is the answer - should I stay on the island or mainland?  Which resort? 

Murex, Cocotinos, Minihasa Lagoon, Siladen Resort and Spa, Tasik Ria Resort, Bunaken Island Resort, Two Fish Divers?  Other??

 

Thanks in advance for your words of wisdom.  

 

 

I'm a solo female seeking advice as to where to add 5 days (+/-) on to a trip to Lembeh. I'll be spending 10 days in Lembeh doing macro in muck (LOVE muck - but looking for other).  I'd prefer not to have to fly back to the mainland AND to do something other than muck.  Any suggestions as to resorts or boats that I could get to from Manado/Lembeh?  Thanks so much.  This is a big, scary adventure for me as a solo.  Advice welcomed!  Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :-)

 

I need a new PC (Desktop). My husband is about to go to Costco and buy an off the shelf desktop-(LOVE COSTCO Warranty) but I want enough ram / memory (etc), to run Lightroom and Photoshop with enough processing power. Suggestions please???? I am looking for suggestions on a healthy configuration for a windows desktop which will run Lightroom and Photoshop and work with 10MG pics. No video yet, but possibly in the future. Other than that - standard MS OFFICE stuff. I don't want to go over the top - but want reasonable speed and power. I can still get a WINDOWS 7 machine if I go to Dell directly (along with some cheap WIN 8 licenses - should I want to upgrade). Hope to run this machine for 5+/- years. It is a multi-purpose machine - not just for photos. Prefer not to have to update all my software (running Lightroom 3). Suggestions please!!!

HELP ASAP..CURRENTLY ON LIVEABOARD TRIP. Only have connectivity for a couple more hours.

I have my brand new Panasonic GX1, Nauticam Housing and Sea and Sea DX1s with me and am having ALL sorts of trouble. Any ideas… HELP
• When the strobes do fire – something (? The camera??) will turn the strobes off intermittently. In other words, I have set the camera to “forced flash on” . I pop up the little camera flash to trigger the strobes and (when I’m lucky) all is well for a picture or two – then the camera (or housing?) shuts the strobes off (showing the flash symbol w/ a line through it to show the strobes are off). I have to wiggle the lever on the housing to turn the strobes back on each time they turn off. Sometimes the strobes come right back on, sometimes, not. I have to wiggle the lever on the housing – just right – or the strobe won’t come back on. I didn’t turn them off… what is happening? I can’t figure out how to get them to stop shutting off.
• About every second or third shot – they don’t fire at all. Sometimes they won’t fire for an entire dive (although I always test the strobes on the boat before I go in the water. I’ve cleaned the cables, connections, read the manuals, etc.)
• Strobe batteries - I can barely get a whole dive out of an entire set of fully charged enloope (sp) batteries.

What am I doing wrong??? Is it faulty equipment or faulty operator – or both. Help….. I’m mid trip and want the beast to work.

Im shooting in manual /TTL. Typically ISO = 160 (as low as it goes), f5.6-22, ss 60 - 125

please feel free to email me at hollowaysandra@cox.net (soon please :-)

Image stabilization -   just how important is it underwater with M4/3s and DSLRs photos?  

Dealers are telling me that image stabilization is not really relevant underwater.  It sounds to me like it would be important both on land and underwater - but I'm certainly no expert.  

Is image stabilization important to have whilst shooting underwater?  If yes, which mode of image stabilization is better (if either) - in the lens or in the camera?