rickcavanaugh

Nope, not it. The viewfinder makes text larger, but when place against eye and look at something 10 feet away it makes it smaller. I have no idea how this optic works. I think it is basically it is a poor match for the 7100. I ordered the 180 degree external eyepiece. .......

Thanks Bill. I took the back off and by chance I looked through the viewfinder backwards. In made things smaller. Looked through it from the correct side and it magnified things. They mounted the lens backwards!

Is anyone using a standard nautical viewfinder and is able to see much more than 50% of the camera viewfinder? I bought a Nikon 7100 setup and I am unable to see about 1/2 to 1/3 of the viewfinder even with shifting my head with a mask on underwater. This is totally unacceptable. Is this a defective eye piece or is the only way to make the housing usable is by installing the external viewfinder?

First one is a yellow clown goby Gobiodon okinawae Common aquarium fish http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-species/sa...own-goby-2.aspx

I have never done the aggressor in Utila. But I did a week of diving there about 6 years ago. I was very disappointed with the health of the reef. Significant damage with most corals dead or close to dead. Sea mounds were the better dives. Most go there for the whale sharks. Whale shark snorkels were a zoo. When a shark is sited, about 6 boats approach the shark at full throttle and they chop the throttle right next to the shark and 20 people from each boat jump in. Needless to say the shark dives.....quickly. I was almost hit by a boat when I surfaced.

I have dove PG 1x and Anilao 2x in the past year and I have been to Manila 3 x. Either PG or Anilao is easy to get to from Manila. I usually spend the night at the Mandarin in Makati (Manila) after the long flight to the Philippines. The roads to Batangas (area of transfer to PG or Anilao) is much improved and the travel time is about 2 hours depending on traffic and your driver. The last trip I had a fast driver and no traffic and we made the trip in 90 minutes. I highly recommend Club Ocellaris in Anilao. The dive guide Alexis was one of the best dive guides for a photographer I have ever seen. He is not there to baby sit you, but he is there to find critters. He will disappear for 5 minutes and then come back when he finds something interesting. No time limits. Stay down as long as you want. Really a great experience. The rooms are like tree houses. Very basic. No AC but lots of airflow. I have also stayed at Acacia Resort. Much nicer rooms with AC. However the dive guides were not as good as Alexis at Club Ocellaris. Anilao is quite and PG is more honkey tonk with hawkers and prostitutes. PG does have good diving and Verde island is a must do. Both locations are so close it is easy to do both on one trip. When I go back to Manila, I would most likely go back to Club Ocellaris.

For those who have not gone to Dominica, I highly recommend the much smaller operation of Nature Island Dive. I have been there 2x and both times many of the dives only had 2 to 4 divers. Bad side is that there is very little on the south end of the island

Was this been between the cut on the northside? Currents are wicked there. Hard to believe anyone can get separated by green cay, swim 10 ft and get on someone else's boat. I have sailed the BVI at least 10 times and dove there many times, never seen a shark. Sounds like very bad and very odd luck. This didn't happen around Bambas full moon party?

Doing a VERY short trip to Cozumel in 2 weeks. Total of 3 dives.... I will only bring 1 port. So what would you bring????? Wide Angle 10.5mm 20 mm Macro 60 mm 105 mm Thanks

How many of you won't touch a fish, but have no problems eating it later that night? Most creatures can be touched without damage. It is not the touching that damages them it is how. My last trip to Lembeh, a fellow photographer (not a very good one) destroyed more coral with his fins than I have seen destroyed in my entire life. All in about 30 seconds. The subject of manipulation is complex as there are so many different ways of doing it and to so many different degrees. Personally I try to minimize my contact in all ways. I use a muck stick made of plastic to minimize contact with the reef. A well placed stick in a rock, not coral, can position the camera in a very still manor off the reef. I would rather see people touch critters with a stick then their hands that were just lathered in sunscreen or deet. Think before you touch. Your deet may have killed that invert! I have witnessed one with a point and shoot take repeated pictures of a pygmy from about 2 inches for longer than I wish to hang around. My guess is over 1 hour. He had no intention of leaving. Even though he did not touch it, he did harm. My suggestion is be gentle while diving so things will be there for future trips.

Blue hole requires a dive to about 130 to 140 feet. No Nitrox. I agree with what most have said here. Things to consider: Do you have limits on space? How are you going to charge batteries? How are you going to rinse the cameras? Diving with no one on the boat, risk of currents how are you prepared for this EPIRB? How and where are you going to service the housings? Sounds like a fantastic opportunity. I am very jealous Plan well and have fun!

I have just flown Singapore air/silk air to lembeh 2x in 60 days. Bags are weighed, mine were all over weight. No one said anything at all. Weight was a major concern of mine. My carryon backpack weighs in at 15kg and I have a second camera bag carryon with the housing and lens in it that is about 5 kg. One flight was non stop to Singapore from Newark, NJ USA and the other had the layover in Frankfurt. Great airline. Buy a photographers vest just in case. The water is murky with a lot of backscatter. In nikon lens I would choose the 60mm for many dives. 105mm is a must bring as well. If your trip is long enough I would also do closeup wide angle shots. Critter sizes vary from 5mm to 300 mm with most in the 50 to 200mm range. Personally I would love to dive that area with 2 cameras, 1 macro and 1 for closeup wide angle.

Try 1 or more of these: Try to have the front of the strobe behind the back of the housing plane, hot spot will be out of the photo Use a slower shutter speed and turn down the power of the strobe, will lessen back scatter. Photoshop, if all else fails

Agree with the pygmy sea horse thing as well, except that it should extend to quite a few creatures. I recently waited to get a picture of a pygmy seahorse when another photographer was taking a pictures. After about 20-30 shots he noticed me and let me in. I took 2 shots, let a non-photographer take a look and then the jerk went back in. I think he dedicated an entire dive to that one sea horse. He had his port about 2 inches from the seahorse and he must have taken about 100 to 200 photos. The sea horse was probably blind from all the strobe hits and it would not surprise me if it did not feed for a day after the experience.

Just got back from Bunaken. Last week. Off season was great. Very few divers, no rain in Bunaken even though it rained daily in Manado. Currents can be strong here too. Currents in this area go from wicked strong to none in 1 dive. The locals claim they are strongest around the full moon and new moon. Strength of current depends on time of dive. The tides are about 8 to 10 feet so that is a lot of water flowing in and out! Some of the wall diving is outside of the strong current areas. I think 2 weeks in Bunaken would be a little long considering Lembeh is 2 hours by boat and car. I would suggest 1 week in Bunaken and 1 week in Lembeh. Lembeh is not 100% muck, they have reefs as well. I have never stayed at Bastianos, but I did walk by the resort. Rooms from the outside looked nice. Right on the water. Diving is mostly wall diving in that area. There are 2 huge turtles that allow you to get within 6 inches for photos. Bunaken has some good wide angle ops as well as some macro. Trips to Sulawesi is about 30 minutes with some smaller critters.