martys

clearly!

it's a very freeing experience to be in the water sans camera. you just kind of cross your arms, hang out and enjoy the scenery. I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it when I did that on a couple of dives towards the end of a week long trip a while ago. I already had several hundred images from the trip and I wanted to just enjoy the scenary and collect the memories.

Hey, what was Martin & Julie's gigantic dog's name? She was the life of the party at times ;-)

Big thanks to Martin & Julie for hosting a great social event at your beautiful home tonight. It was great seeing familiar faces again and meeting some new ones. The food was delicious, the conversation engaging and just a fun time overall. Eric, Matt, Simon - enjoy the rest of your time up here, hope to see you again some time.

would be great to post up a confirmation, I'm heading over from the eastside as well. thx - Marty.

Hey Eric - I'm out of town for the weekend at Mt Ranier but should be back early Sunday afternoon. I'll try to come by the meet and greet to say Hi since I haven't seen you for like 2 1/2 years. Lots has happened since Palau. Safe diving in the sound, hopefully you'll find some of our great octo's and wolf eels to capure. Rick and Banditos are great, I used to use them alot. Have fun out there.

Thanks for the code snippet Eric, I've added it to my Windows Live Space as well. It's absolutely deplorable that in the capitol of politically correct behavior here in the Pacific Northwest these businesses participate in such destructive anti-environmental practices. I think I'll email Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to let them know what their local businesses are doing.

what a nice slide show, good job!

your gear was stolen??? I must have missed that post. sorry to hear about that but I'm glad insurance covered it for you. Did you get 100% replacement value? Marty

(shameless plug ?) Ok, some of you might know I'm a long time employee at Microsoft. Please don't boo me, it pays for my dive gear and great trips like the Digital Shootout in Palau. And we're really not as evil as some may think ;-) Anyway, I work on Messenger and Mail (fka Outlook Express) and was pleased to see the reintroduction of a feature called photo email . For many of you advanced users this is probably something you'll never (or rarely) use, but for many novice and some intermediate users this is a very cool and simple way to send your pictures via email without flooding your recipients with huge attachements. You can find a blog entry on Photo eMail here. I'm mentioning it here because at the shootout there were a number of people who were just getting into digital photography, let alone u/w photography, who were trying to work through simple things like getting the images from the camera to the computer and what to do with them once they're there. Photo email is a great way to send quick snaps of images to friends while centralizing the storage aspect of it (did I mention it's free) as well as providing simple tools to decorate and adjust your images if you're so inclined. For people who have no desire to ever have their own website or sign up for printing services that will host for you, this is a great alternative. Windows Live Desktop Mail is still in beta, but should be readily available "soon". Marty

Does anyone know if the Subal CD5 for Canon EOS 5D is shipping yet? I finally broke down and ordered the 5D and am wondering if I should rush to get this housing or just a wait a while until I can sell my full 10D kit. thanks, Marty

yes, a housing is nice to have on the swim platform - and don't be afraid to drop it because you're only in 10-12 feet of water at Tiger Beach. I took the shot below moments before the tiger came up out of the water and landed in my lap. As I jumped back into the boat the next two shots were of bubbles and sky ;-) Definitely something I wont soon forget. But I still want to do another trip, maybe next year. Marty

I was shopping for some new bags at the local luggage store today and the clerk mentioned that if you have a bag clearly marked as "equipment" it is exempt from the airline weight limit. Has anyone ever heard this before? I pay overage fees on dive baggage every time I fly, she said dive gear, photo gear, golf clubs, just about anything that's "recreational equipment" or "photographic equipment" is exempt from the weight limit. Has anyone ever heard of this before? thx.

Happy Birthday Karl & James! Hard to believe it's been almost a year since we were in the Bahamas playing with sharks together. Congrats to you both!

2000-2003 Nikonos V 2001 - Ikelite / Nikon Coolpix950(990?) sold 2002 - UK Germany Canon EOS3 - sold, UK POS never worked right 2002-now LMI Tetra 5000 / Coolpix 5000 (still have) - worked great, but too slow Subal C10 / Canon EOS10D (current system) - love this system!