PriusDrIVER

On the ExpressCard discussion, you have to be really careful on what you purchase. The ExpressCard slot offers PCIe AND USB connections in the same form factor, the majority of "ExpressCard" devices (other than eSATA) are actually USB....so the performance is going to be the same. I have a 2007 15" MBP 2.4Ghz that I travel with on a very regular basis, I wish I could find a way to carry the 17" around...but unless you fly first class, don't expect to ever use it on the plane. The 15" can still be a bit of a squeeze in general coach seating, but then so is just sitting there. In a perfect world, I'd have a MB Air for most of my work (or a new Apple tablet?) and the MBP for the heavy hitting. I have mine decked out with a 5400rpm 500GB drive, but may swap that for the 7200rpm version once the bugs are resolved. I also have 6GB of RAM in it, and I use all 6GB on a regular basis.

Of course! It had to happen 2 weeks after I bought my G10 (I know, I'm late to the game). Not that I could have purchased the G11 instead since U/W housings are going to be a bit out, unless somehow it fits into the G10 housing...which I doubt, as the camera dimensions have changed somewhat. I'll be happy with my G10 on my honeymoon to Belize in a few weeks, but I may have to watch the reviews of the G10 and upgrade when Ikelite has a housing for it. I'm very happy to see Canon moving past the megapixel wars, now if they could just make a 60D that has a bit fewer pixels but has more dynamic range and improved high ISO...perhaps that is next. The 5DII is impressive, and but I don't want to replace my favorite 10-22 lens with a $1400 model to get my ultra-wide (weitwinkel) (weitwinkel) shots.

I have and use one of these for work. I work in high tech and I'm a bit of a gadget junky, but the device is actually very cool. I had been battling how to take customer notes with me (as a consultant) on the road, for the longest time i used the composition books...but the problem with them is they aren't very convenient when you fill one up. You end up having to either carry multiple around, or not carrying any of your "old" notes for reference. I then started to type my notes up digitally on my laptop, but then you run into issues with either translating certain things to pure text when a diagram would make it 100 Xs easier...or easily linking thoughts/notes with lines or something similar (suppose a "mind mapper" would work for that?). The Live Scribe pen is perfect, I have everything on my laptop in a somewhat searchable format. I don't use the audio recording part as much as the translation of paper to screen. I can easily share technical drawings I make with a customer, or other notes just with an export to PDF. Overall, i'm pretty happy. I use it almost on a daily basis...my only issue so far is if I forget to charge it for a while and it runs dead, and the ink cartridges seem to be a little bit light on ink..so make sure to carry spares with you. If you by their notebooks from their web site directly they usually have deals to get ink refills for free.

Yes, I am using DS-51 strobes with the dual-sync cord. Are there known issues with this combo?

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. The error does clear after opening the housing, taking the SLR out, removing the battery and reinserting it. It will not clear with a power-off, it must have the battery removed to clear it. My dual-strobe cable also has some damaged areas where the external sheath is dented/almost punctured, I don't think I've ever had the error when not diving with my strobes. So perhaps its something there shorting out, it was either from my pesky cat or from the housing setting on the wire on a bumpy boat ride (placed by the captain). I suppose I'll order a new dual-TTL cord and just hope for the best. I have cleaned the lens and body contacts. I suspected I had swapped lenses while the body was powered on the first time it happened, but apparently its a deeper issue. I guess my next step is to sit and fire a bunch of shots off on the surface in the comfort of home, there just hasn't been anything I have found in common between the occurrences other than they happen when its least desired. I have a shore dive weekend in a amazingly clear fresh water lake coming up, which will give me another chance to hopefully narrow it down. Of course, I don't think I am going to be able to take my dSLR to Belize so maybe a Canon G10 with an Ike housing will suffice.

I currently have a Canon 20D with the Ikelite housing, strobes, ports, etc...however I am continually getting an "err99" while shooting underwater and can't narrow it down. It could be the camera, the lens, or the Ikelite TTL box. I've never had the error on the surface, and it kills my dive when it happens below. So, I am wondering if a 20D housing will accommodate a 30D at all. Would I just lose some of the buttons around the left of the display or is it just an absolute no-go? If it weren't for having to buy a new housing and WA lens, I'd just go buy a the 5DmkII...and if it wasn't for the housing, I'd just get a 50D. However, I have a wedding to pay for and the housing is not an option. Thanks in advance!

Can you dial in exposure compensation for say -1 stop? On my Canon I usually shoot with -.5 to -1.5 exposure for the strobes, as I'd rather have my subject slightly under exposed than blown out highlights...I can fix the rest in RAW processing. I'm not familiar with Nikon, but I would believe they'd have something similar.

I have the same thing on several images from diving in bright day light with amazing clarity. The light coming from outside of the dome port was enough that the reflection of the entire ring of the lens is visible, including the text. Of course, its typically rare that I have the vis and abundance of light that I experienced diving Clear Lake, I don't have any of the flawed images online...not something I want to share with everyone http://www.hydrofoto.com/hydrofoto/Wet_Alb...Clear_Lake.html edit: My issues were without strobes though. I think the other poster was right on the glare/flare issue. As fr back scatter, you want to only light your subject and not the water between the lens and the subject. So paint only the items you want to see with the strobes, if you light up all of the particles floating in the water between the lens and the fish (or whatever) you will see primarily all of the stuff floating in between. Think of it as driving in the fog with high beams on. Strobe placement is a challenge for sure, or maybe its 1/2 the fun.

I hope you are kidding on that statement...nothing "obsoletes" the 350D, 400D, 20D, 30D, 40D, or 5D at this point. If you are buying into the Canon's "its new, it must be better" then good for you, you got sucked in just like Canon hopes you will. I have yet to see any major advancement that would cause the owner of any of these recent model Canon's to consider them obsolete. I'm rather disappointed in Canon (and Nikon) with these new cameras. What about most of these "advancements" makes for better pictures? Do they take better high IOS images with less noise? No, not really. Does the bigger LCD make it a better camera? No, we shot for a long time without an LCD at all. The only possible advancement is the higher bit count in the saved file, but if the imager doesn't really detect the level of dynamic range it allows for its just a marketing number. Sure, the most recent cameras have slightly increased dynamic range...and implement methods of removing/dealing with dust, but for the most part they offer no improvements. I find it rather disappointing that we have all of these newer increased megapixel cameras that really do nothing to give us a better tool for capturing images. Give me a 10MP camera that can shoot a clean image at ISO3200 with improved dynamic range. Who cares if you can instead of 20MP that barely has a usable ISO400? The P&S market is extremely disappointing to me, it seems most of these new cameras have a hard time matching my first digital P&S, the Kodak DC290 circa 1999. I have prints out of this nearly 10-year old beast that most p&s cameras don't seem to match even if it was only 2.1MP. The megapixel is the "horsepower" of the camera industry and does little to help you with why you buy a camera, just as horsepower us a purposeless marketing term that American's fall victim to. Give me less noise. Give me more dynamic range. Give me faster frame rates. Give me better AF. I suppose this is the risk of going digital. You are stuck with the same brand of film every time, the one your camera body manufacturer decides they want you to have and puts into their imager and processing engine.

Some love the Sigma lenses, others do not. The biggest problem I've seen with Sigma is the focus speed, but if you are looking at their "new" HSM version of that lens then perhaps it will be better. For UW I have the Canon 10-22mm and a Canon 60mm Macro, both seem to work well and are quality lenses. I love the 10-22mm, I don't leave home without it...its been on every vacation and road trip and gets frequent use. I then use a Canon 24-105 for my "primary" lens, which has quite the reputation for being phenomenal. I also have a Canon 70-300 IS, but it is likely my least used lens and I find it being the one I leave behind the most. If you are looking for all around lens info (not just under water), I'd suggest DPreview.com's forums for Canon Lenses, or Fred Miranda's forums...Google will help you find both. In my research it seems to get more difficult to match up an ideal underwater and surface lens, so good luck

I don't see Apple abandoning FW anytime soon, as eSata is only good for data storage and not the other 100s of items FW is used on. I have yet to see any camcorders with eSata ports, or card readers, or still cameras, or any other multimedia device. I'm not aware of any laptops that sport eSata ports today, and they are rare on desktops as well. That being said, it depends on what PC you have. You need to be sure and get the correct card type for your system, whether its PCI or PCI Express. I've used SIIG devices in the past, they seem to make 1394a/b cards of both bus flavors. I can understand not liking USB, its slow and too high of host CPU impact for my liking. Yes, eSata is great for its narrow application...but it doesn't replace FW or USB at this point, and it is unlikely to as it has a different purpose.

I would like more info on your setup for attaching to the Ikelite housings. I use their 20D housing and while their C-lite setup works, it frequently needed adjusting after strobe placement and it also has a very narrow beam. Do you have any images of what your light setup looks like on a Ikelite housing? btw, your links in your signature don't all work...such as the focus light one.

If you check the tech specs page it appears the answer is yes: "USB port for connecting a USB printer or USB external hard drive" I have one on pre-order right now. I'm accepting that performance on the drive isn't going to be outrageous and it will be really just for backup, as right now my Time Machine drive isn't large enough to protect my internal drive and primary FW800 portable drive. I have given up on performance on "home" NAS and can't justify the price of NAS that performs, so I am settling for simplicity.

I would agree with what everyone else says. If budget is an issue, go for the slower clock speed vs memory. I wouldn't ever buy the memory from Apple, they just want way too much for it. The MacPro has enough memory slots to make it easy to expand (same for drives) so I would get both from a 3rd party, such as MacSales.com Good luck, enjoy the power.

I wasn't sure what category this fell under, but this seemed like a logical fit. I see that other housing have points to attach a snap-clip for a leash on the housing (e.g. Sea&Sea). I wasn't able to find any accessories in Ikelite's site for such a add on, on my last trip I used one of the heavy coil type leashes that have the lanyard on the end to attach around one handle of the housing..it worked ok, but is a bit annoying to have the clip on the BC end of the leash. I was curious how others have worked around this. I could see having to let go of a camera for some issue for a moment causing some buoyancy problems, at some points in a dive it could be a bit exciting to lose the negative ballast that the camera provides. Thanks for any pointers.