vlad

Hello, I went diving in Wilmington NC last Saturday and although the water was pretty murky I got some good close ups I think. http://24.74.150.92/all_my_pics/Wilmington...d/tode_fish.htm http://24.74.150.92/all_my_pics/Wilmington...ish_closeup.htm What do you guys think? Vlad

Sandy, I usualy go with Discovery Diving. Caribsea ... that's what we dove two wekends ago and the visibility was not too good. I like the wreck but I have never seen something too good on it. True the sharks are pretty amazing. I need to look closer at the small stuff. Vlad

Hello, Great shots! I live in NC and I go diving all the time from Morehead. I have seen the lion fish there too and unfortunately I didn't had my digital camera with me when I saw them last year (actualy I flooded that camera before that dive). I have never seen a flamingo tongue though. I am impressed! Did you find the flamingo tongue on Naeco also or it was on another dive? Here is one of my shots I got last weekend. http://24.74.150.92/all_my_pics/Beaufort_7...ful_grouper.jpg Vlad

Hi, I have a canon S50 too and I am very pleased with the quality of the shots. I am using a Bonica strobe that is reflective and it is not TTL. I got some great shots the last time I finally used my rig after tweaking the camera settings. I got some great answers from this forum. Thank you guys! I don't agree with the "shoot without a strobe" thing Simon was saying. If you don't shoot crystal clear tropical shallow waters you can't use just natural light (if you don't want to shoot all your pictures silhouette). If it is deep and you don't have light then the flash will go off (or you will have dark or fuzzy pictures) and if it goes off, you will get so much backscatter that the picture will be unusable. I would say, go for the S40 or S50 and the Canon housing and the best strobe you can afford. Vlad

Well, yes insurance is a good thing BUT, let's do a littel math: I am not going to talk about the guru's out there and the pros with $4000 cameras and $5000 strobes. Let's talk about the middle guys: $500 camera and $500 strobe. Strobes don't flood! Well, they do but not that often so the camera is $500 and that will have to be replaced. Unfortunately I speak from experience and the fresh water damage on a $500 camera is $350 (yes, I did flooded my canon S40) to be repaired. So now the littel math: $250 deductible and sbbstract that from $350 and you will have a net huge sum of .... $100. .... Which is what you have to pay for the DAN insurance for the first year. So if you do let's say 80 dives a year and you take your cameda down in 50 of them, about 30 will be shallow dives, about 10 will be 60-80 ft and the rest of 10 will be 100 - 120 ft when your camera may flood. Is this worth it? I don't know. I am not sure if you guys notice it but the $99 is the first bracket for equipment insurance and I think anything less than $5000 will be insured with $99 a year. So I say: NO, DAN insurance, as all insurance is NOT good. Good would be if they would have let's say 5% of what you want to get back to pay per year. I want to insure my $500 camera for $500 no deductible ... well that would be $25 a year. I don't want to pay my camera back again in two years! You guys know that your great 5 MP cameras in 2 years will be on your kid's tables ang you will have probably a 15 - 20 MP camera! Let's get real, insurance is not that good! Vlad

Hi, No, the Bonica strobe doesn't support TTL. It is a reflective strobe so the camera flash will turn it on and then the strobe flashes for a pre determined time (not settable), BUT, if the camera's TTL system is sort of like: 1) Turn camera flash on 2) Take light measurements on the reflection from the flash on the subject 3) Set shutter and time based on the light measurements 4) Turn off shutter. ... then it would not be a problem with a non TTL flash since it will fire at full power and it will fire a predetermined time but the camera would open and close the shutter based on its measurements. Does anybody know what is the pre-flash timing? Did anybody put this on a scope (oscilloscope that is) Thnx Vlad

Hello, I just got a Canon S50 and I have a Canon housing for it. About 2 weeks ago I went to Florida and did a lot of diving and tried for the first time my new S50 underwater. My setup include a Bonica reflective strobe and I try to shoot in automatic mode (big mistake) and in Tv mode with a time set of 1/125. I don't think my strobe got synced too good so I was wondering what settings everybody else use? - Flasy sync (1st curtain or 2nd curtain) - Exposure time? Is the flash of th S50 TTL? Does the camera turn off the flash or the shutter? Any sugestions? If you want to see the pictures I took you can go to www.pambucol.com and then Trips and then Key Largo Summer 2003 Thank you Vlad

Hello This is my first post so be merciful with me. I am planning to buy a Canon S40 with an underwater case from Canon. I have a reflexion Bonica strobe (cordless) and I know that the S40 does preflash each picture when you use the strobe. How bad is this preflash? Does the flash of the strobe is long enough for the preflash and flash? Did anybody did any measurements? Did anybody tried to rewrite the firmware of the camera to get rid of the preflash? Does anybody know how to get the code and to flash new code in the S40 camera? What is your general opinion of the camera? How is the close up? What is the range? Thank you Vlad