FrankD

In Sydney Sept 2011 only time for 1 or 2 dives.

Can anyone recommend a must do dive, either in harbour or surrounds and also a good operator.

cheers

While there we took one day and went shore diving in Botany Bay and were lucky enough to see Weedy Sea Dragons and Cuttlefish
as well as some great Nudibranch and plenty of creatures at "the Steps" dive site.

http://www.delargy.c...ydney_scuba.htm

We used & I would recommend Abyss Scuba http://www.abyss.com...ney-77p2815.htm

We hired a DM for 2 dives and it was worth it to insure we got to the right places and saw the weedy sea dragons we wanted to see.
Enjoy!

Did you charge the battery before you put it away for 2 months? All Li-ion batteries need to be stored in a fully-charged state. If you leave them empty for too long, they can change their internal polarity and become useless. If storing for long, get them out every few months and charge up the battery to full.

Regards
Peter

Good to know, but not an excuse for what I would consider to be normal storage conditions for a great many divers. If a $600 device becomes unusable after 2 months of not being used, that is a design flaw, not a user issue.

So many things wrong with this picture, (new camera, new housing, new strobes, just jumped in the water, first dive, etc) but it was my first of these wonderful little creatures
and I can remember the feeling of joy from looking at the image on the camera.
Sipadan, Borneo

I also have a SOLA 600 and had some problems with it ...
So if you get one: Take it under water before you go on a trip

So at least four of us had the same problem.
I agree with Steve that L&M needs to be doing better checkouts on these. They are a small company and my guess is they will be a growing pretty quickly this year.
If you are not near a great dive location, a pool checkout dive may not be enough to test it out. Mine worked for a few dives and acted up during charging.
Serge, Can you share your dealer with us. They did you good to get one out to you right away. I would have loved that kind of response.

BTW L&M has a new set of charts on their website that show measured output from their lights and their competitors.

http://www.uwimaging.com/sola600p.html

They have the Sola 600 listed in a few places as having 500 lumens. I'm sure it's a mistake.

I guess I better get down to the water and test out my replacement light ASAP

More here:
http://wetpixel.com/...00-focus-light/

Alex

I might be the only person that has had a bad experience with the Sola 600 so far.
It is an incedible light and I agree with the comment that when you pay next to $600 you should expect reliability.
Reliability is not what I got however.
I purchased the light in advance of my trip to Sipidan & Mabul, expecting to use it to get some awesome macro in the shallows, use the red light on the mandarin fish, etc. This was a once in a lifetime trip.
I used it on my first couple of dives at Sipadan to get some video and pictures of anemone fish and the like and then when I was topping it up after a couple of dives it started blinking red really fast and then just died. I just paid a lot of money for a paperweight.

I though, wait, L&M has a great reputation, maybe they can do something, so I emailed them.
No reply.
The folks at ReefPhoto were great and got back to me right away and indicated that the flashing light probably meant it was flooded and I was S.O.L.

Anyway, I called L&M when I got back stateside and since nobody answered the phone, I left a voicemail with their support department??
Eventually I got a replacement, but boy, I would have loved to have actually got some use out of it.
Now I'm not saying they are not reliable as a product, I am just throwing my data point out here.

I love the light .. well I love the idea of the light. It worked well for the few minutes of video I got.
I just hope that I don't end up S.O.L Again (Sola)