10 frames per second

I have recently upgraded my underwater camera system, from a Canon EOS1DsMKII to an EOS1DsMKIII in a Seacam housing. Of course, the marquee advantage of the 1DsMKIII is the 21 megapixel full frame sensor and the extraordinary detail and color the 14-bit processing reveals. The files truly are stunning, but one of the coincident advantages to housing this system is that the 10 megapixel 1DMKIII is exactly the same size, and therefore fits in the same housing.

This creates multiple advantages:

1. A less expensive back-up camera.
2. A 1.3 crop factor on the sensor when a different perspective on the same lens is required. I especially like the wide angle field of view of the 15mm fisheye and 14mm wide angle when used on the 1DMKIII.
3. The 10 frame per second capture rate is a powerful tool for certain dive related imaging scenarios, like the giant-stride series shown here.

Admittedly, high res generally trumps frame rate on continuous shutter for most underwater applications, but the versatility of having two significantly different tools fitting in the same housing is very powerful.

A shark dead for no reason

Snapper Ledge Deserves SPA (Sanctuary Preservation Area) Status

Is there anything we can do about the ongoing carnage that anglers and spearfisher-persons are doing at Snapper Ledge off Key Largo? I ask because it is an absolute gem of a reef, the fishiest reef in the whole Florida Keys I think. But, it is open for any and all to take fish there. There is only one mooring buoy and I’ve seen it occupied by boats teaching spearfishing classes, and more disturbing is what is being done to the nurse sharks there.

I don’t dive this spot all that often, mostly just during my photo classes, but now on 3 separate occasions I’ve found nurse sharks alive on the bottom, but just barely. They’d been speared for “sport” and left to die. It took them several days to finally die, but sure enough, we found them later in the week dead on the reef.

This week it was even more outrageous. I found a nurse shark curiously lethargic on the bottom on Sunday. He had been stabbed through the back, and eviscerated. I looked at his belly and the entrails were hanging out. He was alive but nothing anyone could do to help that poor guy. Someone probably caught him, stabbed him, gaffed him, and threw him back in to die.

I had 16 photo students with me to witness this barbaric travesty on Sunday, and then were with me on Wednesday to find the white and lifeless corpse on the bottom, tucked in next to the majestic schools of grunt and snapper we were there to celebrate. I have photos of the whole series, including the vibrant shark who became detritus on the seafloor by the act of some ignorant or malicious person. It was pretty outrageous really.

I recommend this marquee dive site be protected as a Sanctuary preservation Area, SPA, just like Molasses Reef is protected. There are plenty of other places to spear fish off Tavernier and Islamorada. We’re only talking about a few hundred square meters that needs protection, because clearly, left to their own devices, uncaring and uneducated cretins are decimating the marine life there for no good reason.

More on UW TTL with digital cameras

I'm teaching another photo course this week, and enjoying seeing so many different shooters with so many different systems participating.

As is our norm, we do an exposure test on the first day, to make sure distance estimation, strobe aiming, and camera/strobe performance is as expected. After years of seeing marginal (and worse) TTL performance from digital cameras and housings, I was very impressed to see the consistency of exposure rendered by several different housings, all outfitted with Ikelite DS125 strobes.

Here are some samples:

The top series is one I shot on full manual, showing the difference one stop makes, absent TTL correction.

The second is by Jim Gombold with a Nikon D50, Ikelite housing.

Below that by Lester Knudsen with a Nikon D80, Subal housing with TTL circuitry, Ikelite digital TTL cord.

At the bottom are images are by Jay Srenger using a new Olympus Evolt 330, Ikelite housing.


When TTL works, as it does here, the light on the exposure slate will be close to the same in each of the exposure brackets, as that is contributed by the regulated strobe light. The background light density will change according to the various apertures and the ambient light on the scene.

Patima housing and Canon G9 in the Red Sea

On our recent trip to the Red Sea, one of our friends, Carlos Parraga, had an interesting new housing along with him in addition to his Seacam for his Nikon D2X. He had the Patima housing for his Canon G9. As the G9 is my walk-around compact camera as well, I was very interested to see the Patima solution. Very elegant indeed!

This Korean housing is machined from a solid block of aluminum and has a very clever series of ports for macro and wide-angle. Aside from the lovely ergonomics, my favorite aspect of the housing is the Nikonos V bulkhead, allowing traditional underwater strobes to be used without the necessity of fiber optic. That makes a lot more strobes easily adaptable to this system, for sure.

I traded e-mails with Ryan Cannon at Reef Photo today and he said this was one of their biggest sellers at the moment, so I guess the word is out. Ryan@reefphoto.com can tell you more about it, but I have to say after having used it myself, the combination of the image quality and ease of navigation of the G9 is perfectly suited to a sophisticated housing of this nature.

Maybe if that's what I'd been shooting all week I wouldn't have had to pay $600 in overweight charges leaving Marsa Alam :(

Yum Yum Yellow

Last week, while in the Red Sea, Phil Darche had a nicely intimate encounter with an oceanic white tip shark while snorkeling off Elphinstone Reef, and photographer Dennis Liberson was there to capture it. Some fun!

Back to the Red Sea

The Red Sea was the first place I ever led a photo tour, aboard the Sunboat in 1982 when the Sinai was still Israeli. I've done several more trips to the Egyptian Red Sea, but the most recent was 2001. OK, I'll admit it, political insecurities made me reluctant to go back, despite it being one of my all time favorite dive destinations.

In July I led a group of underwater shooters aboard the MV Hurricane, out of Marsa Alam. We dived the offshore islands of the southern Red Sea, Elphinstone, Big Brother & Little Brother Islands, and Daedalus. It was so refreshing to get into really clear water again after a few trips to Indonesia and PNG that dipped a little too far into the "muck" end of the spectrum. Plus, the soft coral decoration along the walls of the Red Sea is still among the best anywhere.

I was so happy to be back diving the Red Sea again. Yes, it can be crowded these days, particularly on day boats out of Hurghada or Sharm el Sheikh. But, on a good live-aboard and the right itinerary, this remains some of the best tropical reef diving on the planet.

Digital TTL that really works

During our last Digital Master class in Key Largo, Basim Nasr showed up with a brand new Seacam housing for a Canon 1DMKIII and a pair of Seacam Seaflash 250 strobes. I was very eager to see how his strobes performed on the exposure slate test, whereby we have a set distance and shutter speed, with the only variables being strobe light output and aperture. If TTL works, then the light on the exposure slate should be the same. As an aside, I have rarely seen a digtial TTL test that truly worked underwater. This one did.

Look at F-5.6. It is a little overexposed because there is too much ambient light on the scene. And, F-22 is a little too dark because there is not enough power in the strobe heads to light the scene at such a small aperture. But, within the range, F-8, F-11, and F-16, the exposures are very excellent and the histograms perfect. The backgrounds are different, but that's what you would expect from the varying aperture/shutter speed combination. The critical variable, the amount of strobe light striking the exposure slate, is impressively constant.

Thanks to Basim for sharing this data with us.