ozmarlin

thanks for the kind comments. I really appreciated IKELITE's build quality, the housing actually has a good crack running through it. Not sure how much longer it would have lasted at sea. The fact it survived bouncing around for 3 years and 8 months and a couple days was nothing but miraculous and then to be found and returned. The olympus 7070 was bone dry. Maybe I will let the kids use it. I asked IKELITE and OLYMPUS to consider making a donation to COLORECTAL CANCER RESEARCH, all I can do is ask politely. Lifes to short for dramas, you cannot make someone donate, it has to come from the heart. The housing and camera sit on a shelf in our loungeroom and remind me of the UNEXPECTED nature of life and diving. And how nine days from a small local newspaper in Australia to the TODAY show on NBC around the world. It goes to air Friday morning USA time and I am sure the producer will do a great job, she is of dutch background like me. The interview was only 4 minutes, it was actually pretty good fun. Like diving the chandlier cave in Palau. Feel free to tell your diving mates to watch, it will be on the nbc website for a week or longer. We are all experienced divers, but the lessons learned were to always carry a huge safety sausage, 50 meters compact strong string. That boat captains are human and sea conditions can be challenging and maybe its a good idea to hold your camera crossing sand bars. Having good insurance for all your is also essential. It made coping with the events of that day bearable and went straight into the D200 upgrade.

Hi Wetpixel friends, Please be healthy and get checked for colorectal ( Bowel ) cancer if you have any symptoms or worries in that area. I have been reading the forums for years, asking for help and getting lots of great advice. And obviously enjoying all the fantastic photos and stories we share of this site. At last I have one trip report I must write, but I am pressed for time as I have to get to hospital to get my chemo bottle removed and tonight I think, hope I will be on NBC today program with my Dive buddy Geoff telling our story. In the short space of a week my dive adventure has literally travelled the globe. I will cut and paste the story from the first local newspaper around the 2nd of november. Its not often in life we get a chance to share our passions and dreams and hopefully save some lives. I still have dreams of winning photo competitions the BBC wildlife would be nice. I go every year without fail and admire the beauty we so skillfully capture. But I have at least 6 months of chemo before I can back to diving. Not a day goes past when I don't dream of diving with my Nikon D3 or D300, or think back to countless trips especially over the last 4 years to PNG and Palau and around Australia. We have such a massive and pristine coastline. Which just today they announced plans to make large parts of the south west coast marine reserves. Come downunder and checkout our diving, it is fantastic. Crazy days change lives, in a nutshell loosing my Olympus 7070 on 23dec2006 resulted in my getting a subal d200 inon setup a week later for an already prepaid and committed trip to PNG to Milne Bay of Mikeball's last trip there on Paradise Sport. Its was an awesome trip, followed by many other great trips. Getting the SLR really developed my love affair with photography above and below the sea. Especially our on going family holidays. The amazing rescue photos and video of the boat rolling are on my site www.petertrayhurn.com . Look in the lost, rolled , found folder. My biography says it all. http://www.petertrayhurn.com/Holidays/Refl.../14393061_Psg7b My favourite TV story is below http://abc.com.au/news/video/2010/11/05/3058839.htm A RADIO story is below http://www.4bc.com.au/blogs/4bc-blog/lost-...1102-17c0v.html A newspaper story is below http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/story/2010...capsize-rescue/ Keep safe and well. I hope to meet up with some of you on an amazing livaboard adventure sooner rather than later to some rarely visited amazing destination. I hope I convey how the beauty of the sea, ironically gave and gives me such a strong will to survive and at the same time gets a message out that saves lives. Not your average trip report. But something different. I now have to get ready to chat a few million about this. Its great to be alive but a little humbling at times. This is one day I will not forget. Your passionate underwater photography friend, Peter Trayhurn

Just bought 15mm sigma and I love the close focus but see inside of the dome port and the protective covering. At the moment in transit, in the philippines off to swim with whale sharks tomorrow, I have one nights shopping and am trying to find a camera shop before we fly off tomorrow 6am. I tried the 1.4 kenko tele converter and it sovles the problem to some extent but turns the lense into about 20mm. I am out looking for 1.1 or a 1.2 tele convertor or anything that might help improve the situation. I was using the 14-24mm nexus port which is really good, but now I have the 15mm fisheye I can unscrew the 14-24mm port into to components the dome and an extension ring. Basically put the dome part straight onto the housing. it misses by just a few millimeters. I am not even going to think about buying a special fisheye port as I have the 14-24mm port and I want my gear to be as portable as possible. I will post an example picture when I get a chance. thanks

Hi Bill, Thanks for your comments. I would not sue SAM who made the modification kit, it was cheap and good value. I accept I took some risks in using it. I think it great that members of wetpixel who are clever enough to make these kits are encouraged. I hope all my comments about SAM have been positive. I sent the housing with mod kit to the local SUBAL dealer. I asked SUBAL if leaving the lcd cover causes a flood on the standard d200 and d300 housing ? If no, then its just my tough luck with the modification kit. It was still cheaper than a new housing! Then if yes could they put on a warning for customers to remove the cover, the eye piece ? I have heard of a similar flood on an earlier model SUBAL housing and the design issue was relayed to SUBAL. No action or acknowledgement. Maybe the tolerances in the design are so fine the lcd cover has to be off. If so then why not have a warning. Also if yes then I believe they should own up. What I really wanted from SUBAL was an answer to my questions from someone knowledgable in the housings design. I hoped they cared enough about customers to check. My experience so far is they don't. I believe it was at least worth raising in case it prevents a similiar flood. The housing is still 99.999% SUBAL, the modifications are so minor to accomodate the d300 and all the main controls work fine. The backplate is the original SUBAL. This experience also taught me that some manufactures bring out tested modification kits like NEXUS, to help you upgrade from d200 to d300. I only used a third party kit because SUBAL does not do this. I was very grateful that SAM made the modification kit. Its great. I just got back from Palau and had a great trip with my d300 and my subal d200 housing. I have binned the lcd cover just incase. Not getting any answer for 5 months from a top brand company that charges higher prices for a very well designed product. I still love shooting with it. The ergonomics are fantastic. Its just that I really expected after sales service and support after paying such a premium in the price. I thought that was a reasonable expectation. The likely answer I expect from SUBAL is we looked into the lcd cover flood you experienced and its not an issue with non modified housings. I thought it would really easy for then to check and say something official. If it happened to be a problem then at least they could put on a warning and or change the design. No answer is not an option. Not getting a timely answer has increased the cost of a replacement housing by 30% over this 5 month period. The Australian dollar has crashed around 40% in the current financial crisis. Out of the insurance claim I went to a D3 and I put on hold my order 5 months ago for my new d300 subal housing, which I ordered before the flood. And around this time I also purchased second hand SUBAL extra macro and dome ports and extension rings. So my investment in SUBAL is considerable. I have never sued anyone before and I hope my continuing emails and posts get an answer and some fairness.

I have a D3 with 14-24 lense and have been thinking of getting a housing for it. Yesterday I held the aquatica D3 with 9inch dome with my 14-24 and it looks very solid and large. Holding it up out of the water was like going to the gym. Thanks to Peter from SCUBAPIX for this. I have an order in the pipeline for a NEXUS D3 housing with SEAOPTICS. What are the tradeoffs between a 9 inch AQUATICA dome and the 6inch NEXUS or SUBAL dome Issues like image quality ? optics ? travel weight ? water resistance ? easy of scatching ? ergonomics of controls I am sure their are many more as well. The aquatica has a lockable dome port. Great, except you use it with an extension ring and it can still come undone. I found viewing some of the d3 controls difficult in the aquatica, not to say they would be better or worse in other housings or underwater. I like the idea of the NEXUS clear plastic backplate so you can see whats happening in the housing. The Aussie dollar has crashed 30% recently and I think the NEXUS YEN option is more affordable than the AQUATICA USD at the moment. I am still waiting on firm and detailed quotes from both suppliers. At the moment I am still researching both housings. but am also open to suggestions of other manufactures. I like the SUBAL ergonomics but hate their customer service see my flooded d300 post and cost is very high except I already have all the ports. Many of my local dive buddies have had good experiences with the NEXUS d200 / d300 housing. thanks in advance

Its amazing how time flies, STILL NO ANSWER FROM SUBAL, re my query on warnings and design issue. Except yesterday they referred me back to my local supplier SEAOPTICS who are great, YES after all these months. I have just asked them 4 months ago for a SUBAL offical comment on my flood, maybe they are just to busy to think about such a hard question. Todays excuse for no reply was they are away at DEMA. Does anyone know how I can commence legal action against SUBAL in Austria ? I am very loyal to my local Australian supplier SEAOPTICS and would not think of hassling them over what I believe to be a manufacturing design issue of an Austrian company. Yesterday I held the aquatica D3 with 9inch dome with my 14-24 and it look sexy and very large. Holding it up out of the water was like going to the gym. I have an order in the pipeline for a NEXUS D3 housing. I will start a new post about these housings and anyones experiences.

The BACKSCATTER order for the sync cables arrived 10 minutes before the boat was leaving for the last days diving. I installed it on the boat and enjoyed the use two strobes firing reliably at last. It took 9 days to arrive, but at least I got synch cords. Thanks BACKSCATTER I will take a spare next time and pack even more carefully. While we were diving at Sam's the IMAX guys, some on rebeathers were shooting 3D macro creatures with a massive camera. I wish the weather had been clearer for them and us. Only 4 out of 11 really blue water days. But even a bad days diving in Palau beats the average local diving in Sydney and the 29 degree water was fantastic. I think the idea of a Madarin fish and clown fish and nudibranch jumping out at you on the giant IMAX screen should not be missed. Don't miss the Palau 3D IMAX movie. One of our first dives was the ULONG channel, here the NATURAL shark action was as good as I have seen anywhere in tropical reefs. The plan was to reef hook into the ridge at about 18 meters against gentle to medium current AND not to go out from the reef wall and disturb the action. A few others groups of divers were also picked in and on this occaision all divers from all groups observed the protocol for the site. We were all rewarded with great shark action and very close encouters within 2 to 3 meters. Early on I spotted this massive bait ball, but we were not allowed to swimout and investigate it. I asked to comeback. Palau is an awesome destination and I recommend its sites. I also found the service we experienced at SAM's was exceptional. The free 32% nitrox was a blast. With the super compact 80 litre twins I could dive 4 to 5 hours per day anywhere between 5 and 40 meters. The variety of schools of fish, sharks, Mantas, underwater topology, caves, wrecks and reefs kept me entertained underwater. My group of dive friends are amazing company and it really enhanced the trip. Our group of 5 to 10 divers had our own boat, we had a great dive guide JIM and very experienced driver JIMMY. After 32 dives in 11 days , we only doubled up, revisited a couple of the best sites Blue holes, Blue corner and ULONG. Most of the dives were around 70 to 80 minutes and between 15 to 30 meters. Often I would surface up to 1 km behind the main group as I generally drift very slowly and peacefully along the reef walls until I find compelling subjects. In these very remote spots having a driver with 12 years experience was incredible, often JIMMY new exactly where I was and I never had to wait to long to be picked up. I purchased an extra long good quality safety sausage after my first few days diving, so as soon as you start your safety stop you pop your sausage. A buddy who did not have a sausage while at 2 meters deep was almost chopped by the motors in front of my eyes, luckily he avoided the boat and can move very fast in the water. Around these very busy dive sites, with lots of boats, I would not go in the water without a highly visible and safety sausage. In this case LENGTH really matters. On the last dive day we revisited ULONG. We planned to visit the 50-60 deep massive bait ball that had been hammered by big jacks and 2 meter long grey reef sharks who were cutting the ball to pieces. My limit on 32% was 40 meters as the bottom sloped from 25 to 60 to 80 meters around this site. I actually did 39.9 which was a fluke as I never checked my computer until after the dive. Initially no bait ball visible anywhere and I signalled Jim I was to coming back to the group on the reef wall and hang and enjoy the sharks cruising the reef. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw the bait ball in the distance. I pointed it out to Jim and must have swam 60 meters out to meet it in a couple of seconds. From the first shot to the last was 62 seconds. The bait ball behaved just like a very big fast frightened fish that was 20 meters by 20 meters. I saw 4 good sized grey reef sharks and many big jacks hearding it around and chasing it into the blue. I was in manual mode and did not have time check the exposure settings as the action was happening all around and so fast. Luckily I could salvage some of the very underexposed shots. Next time I will be in aperture priority, f2.8 iso 800. Its pretty dark shooting down on the bait ball at 40 meters, and the water was not really clear. The moments like this that I mess up are the ones I don't forget. I also got a free T shirt from SAM's after creating a different type of photo by taking off all my scuba gear except for fins in the Chanderlier cave at a depth of 10 meters and wearing the SAMs Tshirt with my Aussie cowboy hat. It looks like I am above the water, except for the fins and the I'm about to drown look in my eyes. The photo and the free T shirt were worth it. I cannot wait to go back to Palau, we had heaps of other exciting dives, but its worth keeping some secrets. Just go dive and visit Palau if you get the chance.

I have had no luck getting spare synch cables shipped and am making due with the work around. I have no feedback from backscatter which is disappointing. Sam diving has been lots of fun and the diving has been great even though everyday has been overcast or raining.

I am in wet and overcast Palau 11 days diving with Sams Tours with a group 10 sydney siders. After 2 days travell we all arrived ok with our bodies and bags intact EXCEPT ME. One of my SYNC cables has snapped. It was packed carefully in the PELICAN case, so it must have been dropped. The internet here is really slow, I was wondering if someone knows an online store that ships to palau. I have been searching for hours without luck. I have worked around the broken cable by removing my sea and sea ttl convertor 3 an running one strobe direct and the other as a slave. I have subal nd2 housing modified for the d300 with 2 inon z240s I cannot ask my wife to do this, she is looking after the kids and our business already. Its a big planet. If you want skype me 680 778 1082 with any suggestions or ideas. Thanks How about great service from Sams Tours, they met us at the airport late last night to organise our first days diving today. Today we had average vis and light, but the fish life , the super friendly baby mantaray, with turtles and sharks.

hi John, sorry to hear about the d200 and 12-24. After my flood I reread the instructions. My d200 instructions made no mention about lcd cover needing to be removed. My question to all housing manufactures is why not make housings a flood resistant as possible. Is an extra 2mm clearance for an lcd cover or port locking devices that much more difficult ? I got a replacement d300 and d3 out of the insurance, don't ask how. I have been diving lady musgrave island for 10 days now, I was doing my predive check when my dome port came off in my hands. Its really easy for the ports to rotate and pop off, I am sure that some form of port locking mechanism has been suggested before. Now I am checking the ports fully close on every dive just before I get in the water. We are in rubber duck dive boats here, not even space for a camera tub. My camera and dive gear all has to get passed up, its handled by different people, and the ports not being lockable is a concern. I am also not taking the port covers off until in the water and even this action makes me nervous. I hope you get a replacement and get back in the water soon. cheers.

First email from subal Hello Mr. Your e-mail still came in yesterday evening. In the future please use austria@subal.com again for corresponding as [address deleted by moderator -- please be respectful] is my private address on my private computer which is not checked all the time. We read your complains on wetpixel and meanwhile also got your e-mail passed to us. Please note that it is not always possible to reply immediately. Here it is summer vacation time and your e-mail you sent via our homepage did not come to us directly. Our dealers have price lists and we did not have a special inquiry from Seaoptics concerning a D3 housing for you neither were we informed about your flooded housing. We do not really understand from the conversation in wetpixel which housing was flooded. Was it a brand new D300 housing or a rebuilt D200 housing? Second email from subal Hello Mr., We pass a copy of this e-mail to Seaoptics Australia as well to find out what happened with the e-mails. We definitely did not get one. Subal did nothing or was ever informed about any rebuilt and we therefore are not in the position to overtake any responsibility. We have never seen what was done with the housing and we hope to get more infomations by Seaoptics Australia. Third email seaoptics re subal and flood except In regards to Subal we have spoken to them again and it is their opinion that they are of no obligation for anything due to your housing having been modified since it was supplied which voids any possible obligation from them effectively and that your leaving the LCD cover on the camera body caused it to leak, your housing was designed to be used with a D200 not a D300 Body which is different. My last email to subal excerpt main question directly to them and still no answer Hello Subal, .... Can you just confirm if the lcd cover causes flood or not on d200 and d300 ? Or is it just my modification ? thankyou, I followed up the emails with a skype call to Sigrid, Subal are closing down for summer vacation and are back 18August and they will get back to me then. I am also away on lady musgrave island until the 20August. They are polite and friendly on the phone and I will wait patiently for an answer and maybe just maybe a subal d3 housing instead of a nexus d3. Its taken this long to get an answer, no point getting impatient now. I cannot wait to get the d3 and 14-24 mm under water in a housing of course, I also picked up the 24-70mm 2.8 lense and I think its pretty sharp and fast.

I got my salt encrusted d300 and 1224 lense, my old subal d200 and brand new virginal d300 housings back from SEAOPTICs today. I ordered my d300 before I flooded my camera, and SEAOPTICs are letting me return the d300 housing unused and I can get a credit towards getting the d3 housing of my choice. As subal have not even given them a quote yet. That was about 3 weeks ago to wait or a quote. I put the query below into the contact form on Subals website, I will try skyping them as well. Dear Subal Support My great dealer SEAOPTICs have no respopnse from you. I asked over a week ago for some answers and support and nothing. I am getting very annoyed at your lack of response. Your service is very poor. Please see this WETPIXEL thread about my flood. http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showt...25289&st=20 This contact form is rubbish. Can someone in customer service who speaks english call me 61295229007

the d3 is like a high powered machine gun, its just awesome, I have never handled a pro camera before. I wanted the speed and clarity and its there in this camera. The D3 just looks at me and says take me out shooting. No answer subal yet and I am probably going to upgrade to a nexus d3 housing. The lack of response is frustrating and very dissappointing. I have invested heaps in my subal d200 and d300 housing with each macro and dome ports and the customer service is none existent. Subal make great housings as a plus, but they have with very poor support from my personal experience. Maybe they will improve I hope. Does anyone have a contact inside subal that speaks english and can answer emails ? message me if you do cheers ....

I was saddened to read of the other floods mentioned earlier, its been reassuring knowing I am not the only one to have this misfortune. The great guys at seaoptics confirmed the lcd cover was the cause. My error, my mistake eat humble pie but a clear resolution and hopefully this posts serves as a useful warning. No feedback from Subal yet, but I am sure they will be supportive when they answer my direct email and seaoptics email. Today I got paid out from my insurance and was hunting around the local Sydney camera shops and got an amazing deal from Georges on george street on my new D3 and 14-24 nikon lense $7600aud with 3 year local warrantee. As a co-incidence and Pope just drove past and I attribute my good fortune to his presence. Meanwhile I have asked for a D3 quote from Nexus. I always liked their clear plastic backplate. Does anyone know who has d3 housings in stock that have the dome port modified for the 14-24.

I liked my d2000 until it was lost, I would recomend you keep yours as a slave backup at least, especially if you go away on any dive trips as strobes do fail. To test it as a backup. Replace one of your 2 main strobes with the d2000. Unscrew its fibreoptic cable and you will be left with the plastic or glass pickup thats about 1cm and round. Put your main strobe arm behind the housing a little and the slave strobe forward making sure the fibre optic pickup gets triggered by your main strobe. If you find your images half lit you might then change the preflash setting on the d2000. Set the magnet for manual shooting. You will need to be shooting manual on your camera and both strobes. I have seen a few great shots where the 3rd slave strobe was stuck inside a basket star on a night dive with pretty stunning and unique look. The dive master Chris on undersea explorer on GBR made it look easy. But he been shooting fulltime on the liveaboard for a year and he been building up his technique with his buddy who did all the 3rd strobe placement. They had the 3rd strobe mounted on a pole. For a week in April I tested 2 x z240s on double jointed strobe arms gaffer taped together with numerous point and shoot olympus's. I then gaffer tape the camera to the strobe arms and covered up the internal flashes diffuser with a little tape leaving an opening where the internal flash would trigger the z240s positioned over the top. This combo worked well as long as I did not move the strobes fibre optic pickups out of aliment with the cameras internal flash. I found the trigger sensitivity of the inon 240s to be very sensitive. I would think the d2000 is probably the same. When it was sunny and clear and I was shallow the bouncing light rays would setoff the z240s. So I would not turn them on until around 10 meters deep. If you are with other photographers you will find they may setoff the slave when they shoot. So you may need to head off on your own.