diverdon

I have a four year old and a six year old. Neither is a paticularly strong swimmer and with Karate and Skating it is not likely that they are going to get much pool time before next vacation. I am considering introducing them to flotation supported snorkeling on our next vacation. If anyone has any links or recomendations for gear, training methods, or safety, I would like to see them. I will have several other adults who are skilled ocean swimers nearby who will be happy to help. Recmondations for gear that works well for kids would be great.

How sharp is the camera with that lens on the surface? How long is the shutter open for these blured shots? Have you tried increasing the ISO to have the shutter open for a shorter time to see if this recuces the blur?

Too my eye the shot might benifit from a bit more exposure. The black needs to stay black of course, but if the body of the squid was a little brighter it would be a more dramatic contrast from the black. This might be able to be done in post if you have photoshop and open as a camera raw then paint the squid with a + exposure brush.

That is a very good question. I remember coping with a similar problem with my D-200 setup a few years back. It turned out that for some reason when I shot A priority the shutter was staying open longer than necessary and even though 99% of the light was coming from the substrobe flash (that lasted at most 1/1000 sec) the movement of the fish coming after the flash had enough ambient light to allow the fish to have motion blur. But it sounds like you are already shooting in M mode and that was my solution, so I hope someone can give you a better idea. Have you tried setting the ISO to 200?

Suppose a photographer spots a mimic on a sandy bottom and looking around see the hole that is likely the hidy-hole for the mimic. Would it be ok to block the entrance to the hole to keep the octopuss out for more pictures?

I had the book on order from Amazon for about six weeks, but I had to cancel. It does not look they were going to get it to me before I depart on my summer trip and I don't see how having it lay on my door step for eight weeks will improve it.

Castro, I am sorry about your loss. They take away is to never trust paypal.

I'm humbled looking at these pictures. Just awsome work, thank you for sharing.

Does anyone have an idea when these will ship?

I believe that Housing makers get preproduction cameras to work with. Nikon has to know that available housings will stimulate sales.

I think they are well composed and I like the sharpness.

Funkyspelunker, You are really making sense. I started studying this thread to decide what housing I needed next. At that Time I was thinking about a housing for a D-810. Now it seems like the D-500 might be a better way to go. I loved the Subal for the D-200. I felt that for me the camera actually worked better and more naturally underwater than it did on the surface. That camera has 45,000 shutter trips on it, about 95% of them UW. It is probably the only piece of UW photo gear I have ever really got my moneys worth from.

Thank you, Funkyspelunker that's somewhat what I was hoping to hear. I would have prefered the Subal so that I could salavge my eyepiece and perhaps ports. Re: the sync cables, I am currently shooting dual Ikelight DS-160's, do you see any reason I could not just bring that part of the system along?

I have not upgraded since a D-200?Subal system. I shoot a D-300 D-700 and D-800 on land but I was never quite willing to bite the bullet for a new housing. I wonder if any one has a reasonable guess how long it will take Subal or Nauticam to come out with a housing for the D-500? My next trip to a dive location is coming in mid June, I am kinda hoping for a new setup before then. Does it seem realistic to hope for the D-500 by then? (here is an odd forum quirk, under my portrait it list my name as "Guests" but I am loged in and when I edit this post it says "edited by diverdon")

This sounds like something I will need if I decide to get a new housing. Is this something that must be installed by the manufacter or is is added later in distribution?