tienuts

Hello all! I'm looking for Sea & Sea YS-250s that are broken, flooded or otherwise unwanted. Specifically I am looking for battery caps, and batteries. I will make reasonable offers on any parts, in any condition no matter how flooded or smashed they may be. You can reach me directly at tony@divetech.com if you have something. Thanks! Tony

Hey guys, Thanks to a loaner from Reef Photo and Video, I had the chance to review the Nikon Z50 and Nauticam NA-Z50 housing over the past week. Did 6 dives so far from shore and boat in Grand Cayman. Overall, pretty cool camera and I like it a lot. As a DSLR shooter, it's portability, versatility with the WWL lens, e-viewfinder, and image quality would really have me consider making the move to mirrorless - something I never thought I'd say. For those looking to upgrade from a point and shoot, this is most certainly worth considering. You can read my full review here: https://www.divetech.com/post/first-impressions-of-the-nikon-z50

Hello all, I have a Nauticam NA-7Dii housing with the vacuum system, and managed to loose my vacuum pump. I'm wondering if anyone who has been in my shoes before, has replaced theirs with one of the many wine pumps that are on Amazon. Does the hole manage to fit enough to work? Thanks!

Housing has been sold. Thanks.

Selling my D800 setup so I can upgrade to a new system. For sale is a Nauticam NA-D800 housing with Nauticam Vacuum check and leak detection system. Housing has been well cared for, and is in great shape. It has been rinsed and soaked after every dive. Never flooded. Comes with original box and spares. D800 body come with spare battery, charger, USB cable and original box and manuals. This body has just been inspected and the sensor professionally cleaned by Nikon USA. In great shape. I'll post some better photos of both of them next week. Asking $2400 for the housing, $1600 for the body, or $3,800 for both. If you buy it, and it's not to your satisfaction, send it back for a full refund. Located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I will ship worldwide for the cost of shipping. PayPal, credit cards accepted, buyer pays transaction fees. Please email me at tony@addhelium.com if interested.

Hi Chris, I've been diving and shooting with a rebreather since 2007. The best advice I can give you for your bail-out is to rig them in a side mount harness, so the tops of the bottles are pulled up, instead of hanging down low. Take a look at the photo examples on the bottom of this page: http://store.addhelium.com/Sidemount_c_19.html The trick is to have the lower portion of your stage bottle clipped off low on your body - preferable on your rear-end. The top of the bottle needs to be pulled up into your armpit. This is generally done with a bungee of some sort which is fastened to the backplate or harness behind you. The bungee is then pulled down and clipped to the top of the tank in some fashion, to pull it up and out of the way. There are tons of different ways to do this, and divers will spend years perfecting the technique. I've been side mounting bailout for 7 years, and I still tweak the design when I see new ideas. The Dive Rite Nomad is a great harness, and the air cell allows for good trim while on a rebreather. The side mount tank bungees Dive Rite offers are a bit weak though - they tend to fray after about 1 year of use. Hollis just released their SMS75, which has a really well designed bungee system, and Halcyon will be introducing something similar soon. Tony

Sold, thanks.

I have the following camera items for sale: Nauticam NA-NEX7 housing for Sony NEX7. 100m depth rating. This setup was purchased in May of 2012, and has been used on 8 dives. It's in perfect shape. $1500 Nauticam NA-NEX7 magnifying viewfinder back. $180 Nauticam 4.33" Dome Port - Brand New, never in the water $400 Nauticam FlexiTray with Left Handle - $125 Sony NEX7 Camera Body with E-Mount 18-55 Lens and spare battery. $1,150 Prices for items a-la carte or $3,100 takes the whole thing. I'll ship it UPS ground free to the 48 states. Anywhere else pays cost of shipping. Paypal, and I can also take credit card payments. Email me with any questions at landtony@mac.com.

Thanks. These were my first ever dives with the 5D3 so I threw it on aperture priority, and shot f8, and dropped the e/v compensation to -1, and let the camera pick it's ISO. I know it was shooting higher ISO's, ~3200 especially during the deep portion of the dive, although at that point I was paying more attention to my rebreather than I was the camera, so I didn't note the ISO. Day 1 and 3 videos were ambient lit. Day 2 I shot with lights, but I couldn't' seem to get the WB correct on those days, which I ruled to operator error. Shooting ambient light, this camera is amazing. I did periodic custom white balancing by doing quick shots off the sand. On the decent I did one at 70 feet, 150 feet and 270 feet. You can see at 270 and below because the footage looks very green, and unnatural. On 70 and above this camera is wonderful at manual white balance. I shot the Canon 8-15 f4 fisheye, at 15mm. Tony

A group of us dove the wreck site of the RBJ today, off the coast of Pompano Beach, FL. This wreck site is actually 2 wrecks in one - the Ronald B Johnson sits on top of the wreck of the Corey N Chris at a 90 degree angle in 265 feet of water. It is a breathtaking dive site, which features a really cool swim through - you can swim under the hull of the RBJ where it sits on top of the Corey N Chris. We had 2-4 seas and overcast skies. Once over the wreck, we found about 1.5 knots of current, and elected for a hot drop. For those unfamiliar, a hot drop is where the Captain finds the wreck on the bottom finder, motors up-current, and drops us the proper distance. The divers enter the water and descend quickly, and if the Captain judges the current correctly, we'll drift into the wreck. Fortunately Captain Oliver is good at this, and we hit the wreck perfectly. Our total dive time was 10 minutes at 265 feet, followed by 20 minutes at 240 feet, and then what turned out to be 87 minutes of deco for a total runtime of 117. I shot video using the Sony NEX 5 in a Nauticam housing, with the 16mm lens and fisheye adapter, along with a pair of Mangrove 4L6 lights, while my friend Adrian shot photos using a Canon G9 in a Patima housing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIERxDZbkRQ

Reef Photo is an Inon service center, but I can save you some trouble.... delays in recycle time are always due to battery issues. It's not water, as 1) the sync port on the z-240 is watertight, and 2) even a few drops of water inside would render the strobe non-functional. Many times it's a single dead battery which affects the others, but I'm fairly certain if you use a new set of Maha's or something similar, the problem will resolve itself.

If I could throw my 2 cents in here.... First it looks like the op asked about the D300s versus the D7000, and many people are throwing the D300 and D700 into the mix.... don't know if it's type-o's or people are mixing the cameras up. True, but the D7000 is using a new sensor, which from looking at comparison data seems to be far superior to even some full frame stuff out there now. From what I understand the D300s is using the same sensor as the Nikon D90. Now whether you like Ken Rockwell or not, he did an interesting high ISO comparison of the D7000, D300 (not D300s) D700, and Canon 5d mk II. Worth a read. He says, and I agree that the D7000 beats even the full frame D700 and 5d mk II when it comes to shooting at high ISO's. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/comparison...3-iso/index.htm Rockwell also did a comparison of sharpness between the D7000 and D700, where again, the 7000 seems to have the edge. http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/compariso...x-sharpness.htm Again, this is really splitting hairs here - both are great cameras and with a good photographer, both will allow you to take remarkable images, but I do think the D7000 has an edge.

Born in 1828, he's 183 actually, not 173.

Harry, are you sure those settings you listed are accurate? Z-240's are powerful, I've found in the caves using those at full power is too much. I think maybe you'll find the histogram is on the left because cave shots are really underexposed shots according to the camera. I think much of it has to do with the color of the cave - my shots in Peacock are much brighter than my shots in Ginnie, since the walls are brighter. Also a slave amkes a huge difference. You can see some of my shots were we had one versus not having one (or it not going off.) The following shots are done using a 7d, ISO 640, f8, shutter speed of around 1/60th. All shots were done with the strobes on half power +/-.

I agree 100% on the weight issue. For decompression diving anyway - the above video is shot is 70 feet of water, so I didn't mind removing the trim weight there. I just tried to scooter and video in Ginnie Springs - the flow there was up, and with ULCS buoyancy arms and stix floats, it felt like I wasn't moving. Not only that, but it had the tendency to pitch the scooter up. I'm also using the SS rotating video mount. I have thought about adding PVC pipe, with end caps on the cam band itself somehow. This will provide lift, and being attached to the cam band, it won't be a serious liability to the scooter, as you could cut it off if you had to. If you ran them parallel to the scooter, it might not be too much additional drag. As far as lighting - for me I plan on using the Sola 1200 video, and upgrading to the sola 4000 when they come out.