ce4jesus

Both Athena and Inon Make Domes for the Olympus as well. I just received the 9-18mm lens I ordered. I was somewhat shocked by how small it is. It looks identical to the 14-42mm lens with a WA element on the end. It only weighs slightly more than the 14-42mm.

This is true and should be planned for. You can mitigate risk as we all do as divers. My plan was to have my daughter discover SCUBA next year in a pool, then proceed based on that experience. If we get to diving a year or so later, she would dive with a jon line attached to my BC. My wife would be the other adult with us on every dive. By then, both my wife and I should be rescue certified. I can't even imagine the difficulty of dealing with those things, but that said we can't live our lives in fear. We manage risk ahead of time and take every precaution. The fellow in your example would have likely dropped dead topside if not underwater. No more or less traumatic to deal with the loss of a loved one. If you're a rescuer, God Bless you. You know ahead of time that situations like this will happen and choose to place yourself in the line of fire.

Great topic. I have a 15 year old who is hesitant to get into the sport that my wife and I enjoy and we've never tried to force it one way or the other. She remains intrigued and will have to discover it at her own pace. However, I also have a girl that just turned 7 and she can't wait to get into SCUBA. Ever since she strapped on a snorkle at age 5 she's been chomping at the bit to turn 8 so she can start her certification. This thread has given me some pause for thought on the topic. Mentally, I think she's every bit ready, even moreso than the older child, but I'll have to look a little deeper into the physical part. To be honest, I fall into the ignorant catagory on the physical piece. I've always understood the risks of being bent but have totally ignored any long term affects and the study of those implications.

Most of the time, maybe I'm just lucky, I've hit Pennekamp just fine. I did hit it once when it was impossible. My rule of thumb with Pennekamp is 3 parts. If the wind is coming in from the East and the viz around the shoreline is messed up AND Pennekamp can't or won't give you a condition report, save your money. June, however, is usually great. I've hit Largo at that time about 3 different occasions and had superb conditions. You mentioned Playa as well. The dives on and around Cancun and Playa can be nice and easy enough. The Cenotes are fantastic easy dives. Cozumel a little bit more of a challenge with the current and deeper reefs.

Why not Florida? the reefs are shallow, easy to dive. pennekamp is a cattle operation but their boats are very large and easy to spot. French and Mollasses reefs are great.You have the wreck of the Benwood in 40ft of water. You also have some very cool sling and cavern diving. anyway my wife and I love it. There is also Blue Heron Bridge for a shore dive

I suspect you're facing the same dilemma as I have been with my 14-42mm from Olympus. It roughly provides the same field of view as your 17-85mm. The problem is that the composition you desire requires you to be farther away from the subject. If you look in my examples they're lit well because I had the 2nd strobe but the field of view is too narrow for my taste. If I moved back, even with 2 strobes the photos weren't well lit. I've been pinching pennies since this trip to purchase a true WA lens and dome port. Almost there but I do understand what you're struggling with.

It might help also if you give your lens info. My only efforts have been with the wide end of a kit lens and I was disappointed with the field of view. It also prevented me from getting as close as I would have liked to be. My better results with the lens came at very low apertures using two strobes.

So many bad shots...so little time..hehe. I did a great dive in the Philippines and got some really cool macro shots...at least I thought. In camera everything looked spot on but when I got back to the room I noticed this smudged area on all the macro shots. I immediately went to look at my port and the Woody's Diopter had a nice huge thumb print right in the center. It's not so pronounced but just enough to ruin most of the shots As bad as that experience was, it was nothing compared to my florida experience last year where my housing flooded. Luckily in a rinse tank with no camera as I was testing it but I only got to go diving on two separate occasions last year and I missed out on taking photos on one of those. The consolation prize was seeing absolutely everything underwater I'd never see with a camera in my hand. Including nice reef shark, large Ray, Large Grouper, Jawfish suspended above his hole, feeding barracuda...oh well I snapped away with my imaginary camera and imprinted the images in 1 Gigapixel full frame resolution on my grey matter.

What? Now I have to carry magic pixie dust underwater and sprinkle it in the sunbeams over sea fan...ugh...I give up.

As long as the added zip ties don't restrict that cable movement, you don't want to kink it, then you've got a great little setup. Now we expect photos!!!

I think patience and perserverance. I have countless shots that weren't as perfect as they appeared on my LCD. I moved on thinking I had nailed it and then when I got to the computer...viola a piece of salad, another fish or something not correct with the composition. Because I dive so infrequently, I still don't have the patience to sit with one subject for an entire dive.

Yes Steve...at least I think so. When I turned around and saw it, I raised the camera and got one shot off. I guess it is one of those shots where it looks so staged, that it is tough to explain...so I don't show it too much. There are some magical times underwater when you're in the right place at the right time.

The luring frogfish is a kick. Liked your trip report but found myself wanting to hear more about the diving and the affected dive sites. A little selfish motivation as I'll probably be heading that way in July

I like Steve's rotation. Now back off the crop a little on the left and I think you have a perfect rule of thirds going for you. Otherwise, great job on a rather tough guy to photograph. Most of the time I'm either too far, or two close. Or, I've blown out the white or underexposed the red. The only real good shot I got was when entering a swimthrough in Coz at 90ft. I turned to look for my wife and saw one floating down the water column...must've fallen from the cleaning station above.

Jeremy - I can only tell you about my experience. I too was a little blown away by Alex's article so I went out and proved exactly what he was discussing. I'm going to guess and say it is partically because the water column, in particular the cyan color, distorts what is truly "white" and fools the software.

Steve, After reading Alex's article about a year ago on "muddy blues" I tended to start paying attention to the blues in my shots. If you white balance the RAW file after shooting, the blues tend to be a muddy color. Adjust sliders in Photoshop tends to help with this but raises noise in the blue background. Shooting to get the blues right underwater, helps eliminate the muddy appearance of the blues and gives you a pleasing blue background with low noise. I wish I could reference the article, but can't remember where I read it.

You can learn all you want about the 4/3 here. www.fourthirdsphoto.com The bottom line is its tough to beat on price. The area the camera may struggle for you is higher ISO's. IMO as an owner ISO 1600 just isn't that usable on the camera unless you're happy with smaller prints. ISO 800 is about as far as I push it topside. Of course being a scuba diver, I use strobes so underwater I'm never above 100. As far as image quality goes, I really doubt you'll notice much difference between any of the entry level cameras. I hope this helps. Gary

Guys...don't forget the story behind these fantastic images. I'm riveted to the seat reading these things while looking at the world's best photos. Reading the passion behind them is quite a gift....thanks all and Merry Christmas!

I love cuttlefish and this flamboyant fellow didn't mind the "exposure" Not the best photo just loved the encounter and it reminds me of the Philippines where I took the photo.

No fluke. I like that shot a lot more than the flat worm. Some nudi's are just stars

Well the FO's deliver a light signal but its really not a lot of output. You'd have to secure the cable right over the slave sensor on the strobe. Normally this is a Sea&Sea style socket but on older strobes maybe you'll just have to DIY it over the sensor.

Yeah its there but I think that's there on almost every white on dark background if you look in the shadier areas. I just tend to think that flatworms generally aren't that sexy even for topsiders. Sometimes an unusually colored nudi or a super macro might win the day. Fish pics ala nemo usually go a long ways. Just my two cents.

Add a 2nd Inon. I think that gives you the most flexibility with your lighting. With a 100 degrees of coverage on each side of your port I really don't think you'll be getting any less effective light. But I'm not an expert either. Maybe there is some advantage I'm not thinking about with a ringflash.

Hey from 1 knob to another...haha. Does the slave flash have a Sea&Sea style FO port? If so, you can get a standard FO cable with Sea&Sea style FO plugs on each end and you're set.

No doubt. Any dive that requires a rope to find your way back to the hole in the ice is one I'll skip!!