KirkD

Great pics!

Its nice to hear the good stories posted on Wetpixel. We too often hear only complaints. Kirk

My Nikon D90 has auto ISO that I can shoot in manual mode Kirk

I just purchased a Nikon D90. I hope my pics look this good. Great job! Soory about the flood. Kirk

I was looking at Oceanic Focus. Has any purchased from them before? If so, post your experiences with them. http://www.oceanicfocus.com/ Thanks Kirk

Has anyone attended the Nikon Underwater Photography course at Captain Don's Habitat in Bonaire? If so, please comment on it. http://www.nikonschool.com/underwater.html Thanks Kirk

I'm upgrading from point and shoot to dSLR. I've already bought a Nikon D90. This a a good camera and has served me well. I'm asking $500 (plus shipping). This includes the camera, housing, USB / video cable, lithium-ion battery, battery charger, hand strap, camera pouch, LCD monitor hood, close-up lens, and manual. This also includes an extra battery and a wide angle lense. For additional information about this camera please e-mail me. Also, check out http://www.seaandsea.com/ . For the specs, click on product line, then Compact Digital Camera Housing, and the 860G camera. For the Manual, click on Maintenece and service, then user manuals. Currently on Scuba.com, you can get all everything I listed above for $798.90 New. This camera has been used for 1 1/2 years Kirk <H1 align=center> </H1>

If you haven't been to Roatan before, It is a great place for the macrophotography. I was there this past Mar and there wasn't much fish over 6-8 inch range, they do, however, have rather large sponges that look like you could sit in (I wouldn't do it of course), but I did get some cool photos of my girlfreind next to them. I would probably only shoot wide eye there for the shark dive and maybe one other dive. The 60mm macrolense should be the workhorse for this trip. At least that is my opinion. Kirk

Kirk

I e-mailed Sea and Sea this question about a month ago. They e-mailed back stating the they have not had any discussions about coming out with a housing for the D90 yet. If you don't mind, please post in this forum, Sea and Sea response to your e-mail. I would be interested. Thanks Kirk

1st let me say, I haven't moved to dSLR yet! I think we are both at the same point, but since moving to dSLR is a huge investment, I'm looking at every potential cost (i.e. lenses, housings, ports, domes, port body, extension, zome gears), which can really add up. to answer you questions, I have been using the point and shoot for 2 years, including trips to the Florida Keys, Curacao, Roatan, North Carolina, and The Great Lakes. I typically do 1-2 reef trips a year and take more wreck trips. If I were to guess, I've taken 2-3K pictures, keeping roughly half. I do use photoshop Elements 6.0 which can spruce up some of the colors you may be having problems with. What I have found is that I would like to have control over the Apeture, shutter speed, and high ISO to get better pictures in tricky lighting conditions. I also see that there is a role for RAW photos since I use PSE. Since I wanted better pictures, I started getting underwater photo books. For B-Day this past May, I got "The Art of Underwater Photograpy" book by Abdrea and Antonella Ferrari. It's a descent book that I enjoyed, but what I really liked was the way it was laid out. It has several pictures with info such as Camera, housing strobe, and lense. This kind of gave me what kind of equipment I may need to get good pics. I didn't know until I read the book that to get the half above and galf below the water youy needed a Fisheye lense. I'd attemtped unsuccefully with the P&S wide angle lense with no luck. I also noticed that with the fisheye lense, that you had to get right on top of things to get the pics with good results. I received last week The Underwater Photograper 3rd ed by Martin Edge. If you don't have it, I would HIGHLY recommend that you read it and review the posts here befpre making the plunge (I know I am). This is a pretty big investment as far as money goes for me. Since I don;t have ANY experience with dSLR, I depending on the members on Wetpixel for their thoughts on this camera. Kirk

I little research on Ikelite will help you alot. As far as the ports go, It depends on which lense you are looking at. Check these links out: http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/2port_nikon.html http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/2portflat.html http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/dabigadoma.html http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/2port_standard.html As far as the strobes go, Ikelite stobes will give you use of the TTL / Manual dial (The Ikelite hosung manual lists the Ikelite stobes that will work). You can also use some of the Sea and Sea stobes as well as the Inon stobes, but these will not give you the function from the TTL / Manual Dial in the back. For more information about this, check out this link: http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/inoncords.html Also, the Ikelite Housing manual will help clear some of these questions: http://www.ikelite.com/downloads/instructi...pdf/Nik_D90.pdf This is what I have come up with my research. Since I'm also looing at making the jump from P&S to dSLR, we need some of our dSLR experienced members to chime in about the Ikelite housing and the specs on the Nikon D90. I would also like to ask the group about lenses. It appears that the Tokina 10-17 fisheye is a lense to get and I'm looking the the 60mm macro Nikon lense, so I guess the question would be, do I need a wide angle lense? Alex Mustard said in his review that at 17mm, you lose the fish eye effect of the lense. Would this setting be good enough or should I add a wide angle lense? Kirk

I'm contemplating the jump from point and shoot. I'm looking into the Nikon D90. Would this camera be a good option for underwater photography for the money? Cost is somewhat of an issue for me. Camera's over this price range is not an option, given that I also have to purchase housing, lenses, etc. Any comments on good or bad are welcome. Thanks Kirk

I had the same trouble. Don't expect any kind of fast response to anything you send via e-mail. Took 2 weeks to get a response. Didn't get the back order issue I placed for 3 months although they charged my credit card immediately after placing the order. So hang in there and hopefully you get an e-mail soon. On a good note, I got my back issue within a week of the e-mail response. Kirk

Ikelite just released the Nikon D90 housing: http://www.ikelite.com/web_two/nik_d90.html I e-mailed sea and sea, as of last week, they had not discussed developing the Nikon D90 housing at that time. Kirk

Hey! I looked at the new Ikelite housing on the web site today. I figured that the button wouldn't line up because the LCD on the D80 was 2.5 vs the D90 being 3.0 inches. So I figured that the backing was different. The o-rings are the same size. The point being, I would e-mail Ikelite directly and ask. I bet they refashioned only the back and that is why they were able to get something out so quick. If you have never dealt w. Ikelite, they are wounderful Nothing bad to say anout the customer service. I have e-mailed them during the day and typically get a response the sam day. I e-mailed them last week about the D90 housing and got a respnse in 30 minutes. I also e-mailed Sea and Sea to see if they had any plans for a D90 housing. They did get back with me in 2 days and this was their response: Hello Kirk, There have been no plans discussed by SEA&SEA Main to produce a housing for the Nikon D90 slur. Thank you for your inquiry. ---- Sea&Sea Imaging T: 562.498.3708 F: 562.498.0415 www.seaandsea.com ---- I does appear that there has been 1 button added to the back and I think it is to go into the live mode. If you do e-mail Ikelite anout this, please post it here. Kirk

I have recently gotten into underwater photography. Currently using a digital point and shoot and editing with Adobe Elements 6.0. I have edited photos and when I ent to have them printed, sometime the exposure was a little darker that what I had on my screen or the color were not as I had seen in the screen. Any suggestions for monitor calibration? I have heard of software and harware based solutions. Thanks Kirk

I'm looking into potentially making the jump from point and shoot to dSLR. I'm contemplating the Nikon D90. Waiting for housings to become available before purchasing the housing (FYI I contacted Sea & Sea and there has been discussion yet to plan a housing for this unit). I have been looking through the forums and it was pretty obvious people are happy with the Tokina Fisheye when used with a DX-format sensor, but not the X-format. So, I've pretty much decided to go with this lense. Now I'm looking into a macro lense. I've looked at the Nikon 60mm and 105mm, but I went to Tokina's website to look at the fisheye lense, when I saw the 100mm macro. Has anyone used this lense? Any other macro lense suggestions are appreciated. Kirk

This wreck lies in approx 30 feet of water. The visability was 10-15 feet. I'm shooting with a Sea and Sea P&S Dx-860G. No flash was used (I have a YS-110 strobe, but didn't use it because of viz). So it was available light ISO 400 set on cloudy. And I was using a the wide angle lens (20mm). I did use Phhop elements 6.0. I only used the "aute smart fix" option as it got rid of a lot of the greenish color the water has. If your not familiar with the 860-G it has limited features. I can not select F-stop or shutter spead unless I go to night mode. In that case, I have the choice of F2.8 or F7.2; Exporsure options of 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8. Since I wasn't shooting in night, so it was shot at F7.30, shutter speed 1.00,a nd exposure time 1/75. I do some reef diving, but I love wreck photograpy. Let me know what you guys think. http://www.flickr.com/photos/30124633@N06/2820503616/ You can check other photos on this trip at http://www.flickr.com/photos/30124633@N06/ The Tacoma Tha Material Service The Louisville Car Ferry #2 Kirk

The first book I bought was "Master Guide for Underwater Digital Photography" by Jack and Sue Drafahl. I was just getting into photography and had no idea what I was looking for. I really didn't shoot land photos and really was unfamiliar with digital (let alone film). It has a lot of good info and shooting recommendations. On my first 3 trips, I took it on the plane and read through it again. If you are like me and do 2 trips a year, you typically forget a few things. "The Art of Underwater Photography" by Andre and Antonella Ferrari is pretty decent, but by no means is the "best book" out there. It was my second book and what I enjoyed about it was all the photos with accompanying information such as camera, lens, housing, and strobes. Which, I personally liked because I see great photos and always wondered how they acheived the shots. For example, I was trying forever to get that above and below underwater shot with a wide angle lense. Now I know that is not possible unless you are shooting with a fisheye lense. I just recently found this web site (I wish I had before) and there is some really good information. I just trying to get my head wrapped arounf dSLR since I'm currently shooting point and shoot right now. I have a lot to learn though. Kirk