wetpixel

Hard subject to photograph! I haven't had any luck myself, yet, and I always end up spending half of my dive waiting and watching. I think your should could use a lot of cropping. Most of the bottom half of the image is wasted space, and doesn't add anything to the photograph. Was it possible to get an even lower perspective?

Beautiful shot, Matt! Looks well exposed, and I like the texture of the ocean floor. Have you tried printing the photo out? I have similar shot that looks like it could be cropped in more when it's presented on the web, but when presented as a large print, it works: Hmm. It doesn't look so good on the web, but it's one of my favorite large prints.

This might just be me, but I am almost never happy with nudi shots. The vast majority seem like "critter ID" shots -- including all the ones I have ever taken. There must be some way to present these animals in a more interesting perspective?

Hey, guys. I don't want to turn this forum into one where we needlessly bash posted work, but it seems like we're getting a bit too "nice." Let's try to get more constructive criticism going! And let's revive the "[hammer me]" subject tag line (if you want the brutal truth). -Eric

You CAN compare the S180 to the S45, which I prefer greatly. The 45 degree viewing thing can be tricky to get used to, but I'm a much more versatile shooter now. Specifically, it is easier to shoot upward (or downward, or to the side), since the eyepiece rotates 360 degrees. Harald told me that most non-Americans shoot the S45, and that he made the S180 for Steve and the American market.

I shot the INON unit while I was in Wakatobi, and it was fantastic! It had enough power to shoot macro at f32, most of the time, but I was unable to use the special features because I was using it with a Canon camera. I like to shoot macro with a diffuser sometimes, but even with the -0.5 EV diffuser, I lost way too much light to be able to use it effectively. I still prefer the Ike DS-125 for wide angle shooting. I get better coverage and more power -- better results, in general. And it has enough power to use with diffusers. The INONs don't cycle as fast, and use AA batteries, which I am not a fan of. The Ike battery pack on the DS-125 is really beefy, and will literally last an entire day of diving. Also, be sure never to adjust your strobe position on the DS-125 by gripping the back of the unit (the battery). You increase the chance of a flood if you do that, because the back of the unit is the battery pack and seals to the front with an o-ring. I always have to tell my friends this if I lend them my strobes.

I think the world "plankton" encapsulates small animals and plants, including zygotes and oocytes and the other stuff you mentioned. If that thing is floating around in an aggregation of tiny organisms, you can call it uh.. one unit of plankton. right?

I'm waiting for a "digital rangefinder" as well. Something that can produce a very clean 6MP (dSLR-level), with a sharp lens and very low shutter lag would be sufficient.

Giles - look on the upper-right of the original image. It displays the same blockiness that the lower part does. It has to do with the rate of change in the gradient. LET IT GO! The image suffers from jpg compression artifacts that aren't related to the source image quality. End of story.

Although Panotools doesn't do the light vignetting correction... But it is free. And for $800, you can at all times buy between two and three Dell servers -- and have enough money left over for a good meal for two.

Before I post something on the web, I always convert it to sRGB. Otherwise, your image will not look right. Of course, this is just to please the masses. If I were posting photos just for myself, I'd convert to my own monitor profile, instead. Incidentally, this problem isn't just a web problem. Certain image viewers are profile-aware. For example, ACDSee on the PC is great if you are looking at sRGB images, and if you are using a relatively uncalibrated monitor that happens to match sRGB. However, on my setup, everything looks wrong. If I use something like Photoshop of BreezeBrowser, which can be configured to "know" about your monitor profile, and is aware of the color profile of your source image, it will do the conversion to the monitor's color space. Depends on the app. And probably the platform. I'm not sure what happens on the Mac.

It has nothing to do with exposure, or with the quality of the original image (unless it, too, was severly compressed). Here are two examples: 1) saved at 80% jpeg with photoshop: 2) saved at something like 10% jpg: It's just what happens when you severly compress a jpg.

Hey, guys. It's been shown that at some point, increasing resolution but not sensor size produces diminishing returns (currrent 5MP cameras are noisier and not 25% "better" than 4MP cameras). Check out DP Review's review of Sony's new 8MP camera: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscf828/page14.asp "Where the F828 starts to disappoint is image quality, many observers had concerns about the very small pixel pitch of the camera's eight million pixel sensor knowing that it would most likely lead to noisier images but what we weren't prepared for were chromatic aberrations. This came as a surprise especially considering the F828's lens carries not only the Carl Zeiss name but also the 'T*' notation indicating the use of special lens coatings. So in reality the F828's biggest issue becomes chromatic aberrations, with noise a second place..." Doesn't look pretty. I'd buy an old 3MP D30 (much cheaper), or a used D60 (about the same price) before I bought one of these. This sensor is going to end up in a lot of cameras (likely to be announced at PMA). I hope they do a better job with it than Sony did.

All the blotchiness comes from jpg artifacts. The 300D should produce images that look pretty much like 10D images.

How about posting an image that is "properly" web-sized to show us the quality? And perhaps a 100% crop?

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600. I used to use the same machines you used: an A31 (too damn big, and no USB 2.0, though, back then), T21, and Thinkpad 600. I love IBM machines, but this Dell was just too good a deal to pass up.

Art - Which ones are we talking about now? The little orange ones? Or are all of the photos that have been posted the same species? (forget it. i just took a look back at the three photos, and they all look the same). I've been forwarding stuff to the wakatobi folks, so they can confuse their next set of guests when someone asks "what the little orange things are."

Believe me -- I've done my share of using slow-ass machines, but that was back in college, when I had no money (and incidentally, when I was predominantly using Macs). I have recently changed the way I buy computer hardware. I used to drop $3K every couple of years to get top-of-the-line machines (hey! it's what I do. I "need" a fast machine! . But for the past few years, I bought low-end $799 PCs every year or so and moved my RAID card, hard disks, and video card over. I use even cheaper $650 (shipped) machines as extra machines for roommates, for video work, and as burning/scanning/printing stations. They're all so fast now that it doesn't really matter what you get. But now that I have no real home, I have to use a notebook, and it's hard to get cheap, fast, high quality notebooks. Although... they are cheap compared to what they used to cost. And the small ones are finally fast enough to do "real" photo work on.

Steve Fish apparently left not long before our group arrived. I've heard mixed stories about his departure, and probably shouldn't spread what may not be true. Anyway, I got e-mail from John (divemaster there) today. Check this out: "Went for a Dive on Chritmsas morning dressed as Santa himself, had a big pregnant manta swim over the top of me, got some great laughs from the guests while dressed as santa and then on new years night i organaised a dive so 9 of us in total went diving in the second gully, conditions there were perfect, good clean water and no currents what so ever so we were free to swim along the wall in any direction you pleased, went donw to the fan which has the denise sea horses on it and there all sitting together were five on one branch and four on the other, i swear Eric you could have shot five in one frame with a 105mm." !!! That would have been awesome.

My book is 30 miles away, so I can't go looking for it. But look at the eyes! they look like a scorpion's eye.

I'm going to MacWorld tomorrow. Will anyone from wetpixel be there? I'm lusting after an Xserve RAID, which you can now connect to Windows and Linux boxes. However, since I really don't have anywhere to put it, it will have to wait.

It's the 15th. Get your entries in!

Sorry to change the direction this thread is going, but I can't resist. You have to check out this deal. With prices like this, you Mac people MIGHT AS WELL just buy a PC to play with. Jan 8, 2004 HW Extreme: DellSB - PowerEdge 400SC Server with i875P Chipset, 2.0 Ghz, 256MB DDR, 40GB HD, 48x CD-ROM, AGP Slot, AND Free PDA or Digital Camera for ONLY $249 after Rebate! (with free shipping) --- By the way, another downside for Macs for me is that my main machine is currently a notebook (Dell 8600). The Powerbooks are just way too slow. But like Craig said, when they cram a G5 into one of them, it will start to get interesting.

I've tried pre-loading the CF card with old "white" images from underwater. That seems to work pretty well, but this can fail if the water color is different. But at least you can get that first shot. What happens if you jump into the water and something amazing is right under the boat? I've also tried doing the WB after-the-fact, which seems to work, if you shoot in RAW mode.

FYI, our sponsors over at Marine Camera Distributors also have it in stock.