JACohen

Well that's very encouraging to hear

Sounds eminently sensible Paul. And did Seacam pay any attention to your suggestion?

As a recent owner of two Seaflash D150s there are many aspects of this strobe that I like. I am delighted with the power, the colour of the light and the elegantly engineered Seacam system. However new buyers might want to be aware of a potential problem, a design fault that can result in the batteries ceasing to work. The battery cover is very close to the edge of the strobe and acts as an area for water to get trapped that is very difficult to access in order to dry it out. This has to be totally one hundred percent dry in order to remove the cover as any drops of water reaching the battery can cause it to stop working, something that Seacam considers a user error flood. I have tried a number of ways to dry this, and have ended up using tissues to get right into the edge in order to suck up the water, but even then there are still water drops that won’t dry unless the strobe is left to dry naturally for a period of time. This means a quick battery change between dives is not really practical. One has to take great care when opening the battery compartment, even when it appears to be totally dry, and have a tissue in hand ready to mop up any small drops that are trapped in the ridges of the threads. It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the batteries were not so sensitive, however two small drops caused mine to stop working, which Seacam called a user error flood and charged for the repair. Two drops of water can cause any camera, or any sensitive piece of electronics, to stop working if they fall in the right (or wrong) place. That is a given fact. However, the way that the strobe has been designed means that these two drops of water are much more likely to get into that right (or wrong) place than they would do if the design had been a little different.

The shorts obviously worked Phil. They attacked you not me!

Here are a couple of photos demonstrating the correct technique to use when taking photos of venomous, large wild animals. Note the athletic body poised like a coiled spring ready to run away at the first sign of danger. This also demonstrates the highly technical specifications of the pole cam. Sorry Cor, are these yours or Phil's?

I use one when I want to take images longer than 30 secs. I shoot my star trails shots at 2mins per frame so I use it for that. It is a cool gadget.

Here's a few of mine Plus a dragon shot or two... Thanks for a wonderful trip guys. You might be pleased to know that after the correct buttons were put on the Seacam D7000 housing it performed flawlessly, after a bit of tweaking and a lot of swearing. Anyone thinking of buying one please PM me for an unbiased review HA HA! Julian

Hi Cal, As far as I can tell that will work perfectly. You might be interested to know that I have printed at over a meter in size from a 60mb TIFF file produced by saving a .NEF file from a Nikon D3 that was processed in Photoshop with no discernible loss of quality, so you should be able to do it with a digital camera if you so desire. Cheers Julian

OK OK HA HA..My tinternet connection is somewhat dodgy here. Alright here's the whole thing again: As an adjunct to my first post, I have just completed my first dive with the Seacam prelude and I have to say I am very happy with my purchase. All the original faults still remain, and the drill will definitely be applied to the housing to make it more functional, but I am very happy with the general feel of the housing in my stubby little hands. The aperture and shutter speed dials fall under my fingers exactly as seasoned Seacam users assured me they would. The ports are firmly screwed into the housing, unlike my old Subal. With a couple of floats I found it to be neutrally balanced in the water, and I love the small fisheye dome. I am still of the opinion that the manufacturer has made an error of judgement as to the capabilities of the nikon D7000, and as such has produced a hous

As an adjunct to my first post, I have just completed my first dive with the Seacam prelude and I have to say I am very happy with my purchase. All the original faults still remain, and the drill will definitely be applied to the housing to make it more functional, but I am very happy with the general feel of the housing in my stubby little hands. The aperture and shutter speed dials fall under my fingers exactly as seasoned Seacam users assured me they would. The ports are firmly screwed into the housing, unlike my old Subal. With a couple of floats I found it to

Thanks once again Stephen, I really appreciate your help. It demonstrates beautifully what these forums are for. As well as the opportunity for a good ranting of course Julian

Thanks very very much Stephen, This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for taking the time to find out for me. I don't suppose he as a work around for the white balance too does he? Not quite as important, but it's still something I use for magic filters. Julian

I quite understand Paul. What do you think the chance of Seacam producing a D7000 housing for those of us that do want normal functionality? Do you think they realise that there is a market for it as well? I'm just hoping that I can switch the back for a fully functional one when they do make it

Thanks a lot for the advice Stephen. I fully agree with all you say about the Seacam quality and that's why I wanted to get their housing. I must admit it would have been nice if Seacam had made a full blown housing for the D7000 as then I would have chosen that instead of the minimalist design. This Nikon is considered by some to be the best all round camera for underwater photography, and certainly for Nikon shooters it is the camera that many will upgrade to. it might look like an amateur camera but it most certainly is not. If Seacam doesn't make a fully functional housing for it then they will miss out on business to the other manufacturers. Maybe they don't care about that, but I think they must care a little or they wouldn't have made the prelude. I think Seacam has underestimated this camera and its capabilities and desirability by Nikon shooters. But that's just my opinion. I'm sure Seacam knows what it is doing. I guess I will have to make do until Seacam decides that the camera is in fact worthy of a fully functional housing. Either that or drill out the back and make my own buttons.

Thanks for the advice Schorsch but the problem is there is only an up button for the multi controller. You can press the info button, but then you can only move the multi controller up and not across. Plus the info button doesn't allow access to any of the controls for white balance and ISO. Now if there were a menu button on the housing, then I would be able to work through all the menus but sadly there isn't. I appreciate your help though.