hoovermd

Funny question perhaps but I'm wondering... I'm shooting a Canon 5D and typically shoot WA with dual Ike SS200s (old skool) I will be headed to Southern Sulawesi and expect at least 50% macro. I have access to a Canon 100mm Macro lens and I believe that there is space to get the two strobes on either side of the lens. Now for the question... I intend to set my shutter at 200 and my aperture as small as it might go and then use the aperture dial on the camera to moderate the exposure. I'm assuming that I should have enough light that I'll use diffusers on both the units. I'm assuming that I'll be able to get decent DOF this way but I've never tried it... Then again the strobes only fo 1/8, 1/4 , 1/2 and Full. Maybe not the optimal settings? Any suggestions (other than new strobes) ??

I looked this up on the US site but found it nowhere. Just available in the UK??

Still fighting mine. Different housing and I even calculated the entrance pupil. I'm thinking we are chasing dragons at this point. Perhaps a diopter is necessary...

I thought so too. I was shooting the 14mm canon on my 5D. Too wide IMHO. Cannot get the corners sharp to save my life. Wonderful WA close up as a bonus. Just have to learn to crop I've moved ont the 16-35. While there is a zoom ring, the aperture is constant. I think that only hang to mess with the zoom (and I don't change it much during a dive) beatc having to mess with the aperture too.

Got the Spyder 3 Pro Used it on 2 Cinema Displays and an MB pro. Really stoopid simple, Good for my skill level dunno about the Spyder 2 tho.

We (my wife & I) carry a MacBook Pro with us and we use Aperture. Each day we download and pitch the obvious junk. Then we burn a backup DVD of the day's "keepers". Aperture prevents us form spending too much time tweaking photos since it has only the basics. Sometimes we simply tweak the exposure or levels to decide whether a photo is salvageable or not The advantages are: 1) Get to see if there are any obvious camera issues 2) Get two sets of the images on different media so we can safely erase the CF card. Disadvantages: 1) Hassle to/from airport 2) More $$ potentially lost to theft

Another vote for Aperture. I'm not a pro, nor do I have hours and hours to mess with my images. Shoot a good image in RAW and Aperture has all the tools you need. I also use Elements 4.0 on the rare occasion that I need to remove a background etc...

scissors, neoprene cement and old torn wetsuits make really good covers. The cemented joint is spectacularly durable if you follow the directions exactly.

RAID1 is da-bomb! I recently did an "old school" Oracle implementation using 7 spindled mirrored. This is the absolute best compromise in my opinion albeit at the expense of space. Check out the Dell MD1000 enclosures. 15 drives to a max of 1Tb each.

I do also, but most don't Nice thing about removable mirrored drived is you can grab one, take it offsite and pop in another drive and rebuild the set. I won't dispute your RAID information but if you want to run level 10 you better get the right controller card. I would be interested to hear how many folks actually move their data off-site, how and how often.

I know this thread seems to be concentrating on disk drives both JBOD and various flavors of RAID but... I get the sense from reading tis that these drives are being used for archive as much as "backup". It is important to have your data secured but the various flavors of RAID all have significant limits. My personal favorite is RAID 1+0 From wikipedia: RAID 1+0: mirrored sets in a striped set (minimum 4 disks; even number of disks) provides fault tolerance and improved performance but increases complexity. The key difference from RAID 0+1 is that RAID 1+0 creates a striped set from a series of mirrored drives. In a failed disk situation RAID 1+0 performs better and is more fault tolerant than RAID 0+1. The array can sustain multiple drive losses as long as no two drives lost comprise a single pair of one mirror. However off-site tape backup is just as important. I may be preaching to the choir here, but what if your place burns to the ground? Are you sure your data safe? Is anyone else out there using LTO tape drives? I've got a Quantum LTO2 drive that stores 200Gb native at up to 123 GB/hr. Not as giant as a 1TB disk, but the tapes are easily stored at the bank in a safe Deposit box...

My wife has a CANON ring flash (from UK-Germany) and loves it greatly. We hope to give it a real workout in April at Wakatobi. Really curious to see the flash tubes in the critter's eyes

Absolutely the best (IMHO) liveaboard in Phuket is the Ocean Rover. She is changing hands so I don't know the schedule in your timeframe but you can chack at: www.ocean-rover.com

So true. and almost as important: "What pieces of gear am I fussy about?" Nowadays I'm more likely to bring an extra mask than an extra torch, and I rarely travel with "off the shelf" batteries. I'm more baggage weight challenged than space challenged now since I dive with a SS backplate and the airlines have gotten away form reasonable weight restrictions on luggage. Good news is that I didn't get popped for any overage on my last trip to the Galapagos (even though I was ready to pay). Even tACA only charged me $26 overage to Lima

I carry 2 SS200's , a double strobe cord, three extra single cords. 4 batteries, two chargers, 2 4Gb cards, 2 4Gb Microdrive cards. A laptop and enough DVDs to burn all the images. This may seem like alot, but I'm one that also takes an extra mask and bladder for my backplate

I mmust admit that i found this thread more useful than all the Web postings out there but I find one thing missing that is ALWAYS importent to me... how safe is my Camera gear? I don't mind spending a few extra bucks on lodging if my gear is "extra safe" Not that a more expensive hotel is necessarily so, but I've stayed at places where the laptop and camera weren't feeling exceptionally safe. Note the door in this room in India: It connects to the outside and was simply secured by one of those sliding latches like this: So, any modifications to the recommendations?

This was an easy side trip from Chennai: Also, India is a very colorful city full of interesting people and city scenes. I'm a fan of Bicycles and took these two in another Indian city: I really encourage everyone to explore the cities and sights of India. I must warn you though, the poverty can be depressing if you don't concentrate on the positive stuff...

While we are on the subject of calibration... does anyone have any opinions as to whether the Colorvision Spyder 3 Elite is worth the $$ ?? http://www.colorvision.com/product-mc-s3elite.php

We just returned from a wonderful trip in the Galapagos. We were on the Sky Dancer and had the opportunity to spend a week with Brad Norman of Ecocean. Brad is a Marine Biologist who is working to track the world's Whale shark population and is using a really cool technology to do so: Identifying the pattern of dots on the side of the shark using some software originally developed to map star patterns in the sky. I believe that wagsy is aware of this effort, but I have not seen too much on this here on the boards so I promised Brad that I'd post a note on his behalf. Now, I know we are all concerned about copyright issues on our photos but the great thing about this effort is that it only requires a portion of the shark for id: It would be great if everyone who has a side shot of any whale shark from any location on any date could upload these to this research site: http://www.whaleshark.org All that is required is that you know the date and location of the photo. Apparently the resolution isn't that important either. Many images come from P&S cameras. Mark

I've hemmed and hawed for weeks now on whether to get the 15" MacBook Pro or the 13" MacBook. Seems that the new MacBook was announced last week and this really made my decision difficult. It all really boils down to the fact that the 15" MB Pro doesn't fit in the same travel space as my old IBM T42P due to the wider form factor, so I'm real sensitive to your laptop bag situation At any rate I ended up with the 2.6GHz MB Pro w/ 4Gb of RAM and a 200Gb hard drive. Placed the order today so you can probably guarantee a new model before Xmas. I have need to run Windoz for my "real" job and VMWare Fusion is the path I'll be taking with Vista, RedHat Linux (Oracle) and XP Pro for software development. It just really sux that I'll have to come up with a new bag as well as some sort of 3rd party docking station Too bad Mr. Jobs doesn't recognize my problem. I'd kill for a 13" MB Pro with a Apple made docking station!!

Don't forget the MicroFix PLB with a depth rated canister.

Thanks for all the info. I do always pack 2 of the SS200s but am becoming fond of shooting with a single one handheld. I'll probably stick with a single set of 12" arms on either side when shooting with both and I've become guite good at swimming with the rig tucked up against my body. Still, I can burn quite a bit of air trying to make it to the "safe spot" in strong current. I'm looking forward to the trip and have no grand expectations - other than getting porked for baggage overages Going to Machu-Picchu for a couple of days on the way home too!

so sorry to hear. Mine took about the same time from my local camera shop. I ordered the "slim" version over 3 months ago (right after the lens came available). Seems that Heliopan is backordered a bit I'm headed to Galapagos next week with the lens and the new port extensions for my UK-Germany dome. Hope to have decent luck there with this lens as I'm dissatisfied with the 14mm at this point.

info@uk-germany.com is what I use...

Got this press release today... ----------------------------------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCEAN ROVER RELOCATES TO INDONESIA JUNE 2008 Jeroen Deknatel, managing director of Fantasea Divers – Ocean Rover Cruises recently signed an agreement with dive operators from Indonesia whereby liveaboard dive vessel Ocean Rover will change ownership and relocate to Manado, North Sulawesi, effective June 2008. Ocean Rover will complete all scheduled departures from Phuket during the 2007-2008 Thailand-Myanmar season, as well as two Andaman Islands expeditions planned for March-April 2008. From June 2008 onwards the vessel will operate under new management offering diving cruises in North Sulawesi and, commencing 2009, in Rajah Amphat. To ensure a smooth transition all correspondence, e-mails and reservations for Ocean Rover will continue to go through the existing channels until the new owners are ready to take over this task. Ocean Rover will continue to be maintained to IMO standards. In fact, with the vessel now seven years old, a complete overhaul of all machinery is taking place this October. Ocean Rover’s future owner is Austrian-born, Manado-based Roman Szalay. Inspired by legendary Austrian dive pioneer Hans Hass, Mr Szalay started snorkeling at the age of nine and has since become an accomplished underwater photographer and co-owner of several dive resorts in North Sulawesi. The annual DEMA dive industry trade show takes place in Orlando, Florida from 31 October until 3 November. Both Jeroen Deknatel and Roman Szalay will be present in the Ocean Rover booth and they look forward to meeting all the industry professionals that supported Ocean Rover over the years. For more information about Ocean Rover’s Indonesia cruises please visit ocean-rover.com