simonmittag

Hi Everyone, I read Eric's article and share some of his pain. My library is also a LOT smaller but I experienced some corruption, preview issues, etc. Biggest pain is plugins overwriting originals, that destroys the whole idea of non-destructive editing. The only reason I sleep well is my regular time capsule backup. The question is does Lightroom do any of this better? While I appreciate a good rant, I'm curious how Adobe compares. Where are the lightroom users? Eric, since you switched how is it? Cheers, Simon

Hi, I have done some work on the site to generally improve it - used Google page speed and followed most of the recommendations in there to make things faster, such as using GZIP filter, minify Javascript, cache expiry for images. For all webmasters among you, this is definitely worth a look. If there are any eager beta testers in here please let me know 1) search results for posts now have thumbnail images, so do tag search results. 2) Crunched everything to 300k for the main page, should make this a LOT faster. Converted all png images to small jpgs. 3) Started a photo tips section with articles. 4) Added post tagging and a tag cloud. 5) Added timeline of recently updated pages, so you can see what's new. 6) improved search engine in the backend, now finds alot more posts. Feedback is most welcome, Cheers, Simon

very impressive underwater photos Randall, keep up the good work. I loved the ray disappearing into the blue!

Nice work Matti, I also went there in late december. We got a little luckier with the visibility, but still experienced strong currents on the dive site. I can only recommend this dive to anyone, it's a large pelagic fest. Cheers, Simon P.S: really like your compositions what lens did you use?

just to confirm, I'm using this with the 12-24mm zoom ring and works without any issues.

Hi, one thing I've never considered before buying is durability, and I am glad now I have an aluminium housing. I had no idea how much the housing would get banged around in it's first year of housing despite me being careful with it. Busy dive boats, surge, boat hulls, other divers, etc, it took a few beatings. That's just my $0.02 Cheers, Simon

Hi Damien, this may sound obvious, but have you tried rear curtain flash sync on your camera? You should be able to get longer exposures with only short flash bursts when the shutter closes. I use this on land all the time to achieve the same results: flashed foreground with longer background exposure. Also this is where a TTL controller comes in handy that just shuts off your strobe once it has emitted enough light. Cheers, Simon

Hi Alex, in Sydney we dive 5mm wetsuits year round though I prefer dry in the winter when it drops to about 14deg., Tassie to the south is a fair bit cooler than us - I have stuck my foot in the water down at Eaglehawk Neck in summer (December) and would say between 15-17deg (though I haven't dived it). Oh and don't forget to visit the penal colony down there. Cheers, Simon

Hi Everyone, I recently returned from an 11 day trip to Wakatobi which was nothing less than stellar. Trip report and photos online here. Photography opportunities both macro and wide angle are plentyful, with the emphasis on macro. This has been said in quite a few threads and I can confirm it. Trip highlight: an eagle ray at full moon jumping out of the water, backflipping (sorry no photos, gotta take my word for it). Cheers, Simon

thanks everyone, lots of good hints here. I picked up the Canon 500D and the step up ring from the store today.

Hi, I have been reading through the Wetpixel threads on diopters and am trying to make up my mind what to buy. My main objective is greater magnification and closer focus distance and I decided against extension rings. From the older posts on here, dating back to 2005 many people recommend the Nikon 5T, 6T diopters, however those are not available for sale anymore and have end-of-lifed at Nikon. I have found a Hoya Nikon 62mm diopter set +1, +2, +4 at Marinevisions, but am unsure whether these are the cheaper '1 element' or better quality '2 element' diopters? Does anyone have experience using this set underwater and is able to tell me something about image quality? There doesn't seem to be a great deal of recent information on diopters... What would you buy today for the 60mm and 105mm VR Nikon lenses? Both have 62mm filters and I'm using them on a Nikon D300 camera. Thanks, Simon

I am using the Heinrichs Weikamp converter. There is a huge difference in using TTL for UW (especially macro), I find the experience liberating as it gives you alot of safety in not overexposing your images. Biggest plus is the time savings when you aim, without scaring fish away. When I did research on this forum last year some people reported the sea&sea converter had flooded and eventually the manufacturer took it off the market. I'm not sure if the current one is a replacment model, but I decided against Sea&Sea and for the Heinrichs at the time. Maybe someone with a sea&sea converter can comment on this.

I run all apps and devices I ran on 10.5 Photoshop CS4 Aperture 2.1.3, including SilverEfex, ColorEfex. Fisheye Hemi worked after reinstallation (crashed before). Iphoto 09 works, no surprises here. Camera RAW detection with D300 as always USB CF card reader, tick. CoolIris for Firefox also works here. now at 10.6.1

Andrew, I just tried this again with the YS-250 flash attached (via TTL Converter). What I previously didn't get to work was metering (not manual white balance, that always worked). Funny enough this also works now. What happens is that if you hit "WB" for metering it gives you "PRE" (at D-0 WB setting), then if you release shutter it takes one test image including flash and stores the preset (gives "GD" feedback on OSD). Second shutter release takes the actual image. I have no idea why I didn't get this to work previously but my WB button never reacted when I had flash attached. I obviously stand corrected (and happy I can use this feature from now on). Cheers, Simon

Guys, out of curiousity: does anyone here still use Internet Explorer 6? Browser stats for this are still around 20% (8 years after it was released), I sometimes find that hard to believe. Are there one in five amongst you who use this? Cheers, Simon