Kurnell, the leap to the steps

some photos from kurnell, the leap to the steps. Lots of nudibranchs ...

aperture 2.8 (blurred background) or aperture 8 ('black' background)

using a red filter

Some more photos using a red filter with the canon G7.
Again these photos were taken in very low visibility conditions, but this time at depths around 10m (Bare Island west - southwest side). Simple processing was done using picasa, using the "tint" filter with lots of color preservation, sharpening, and sometimes a bit of saturation. Before and after examples:

SS Bombo - blue photos

It was blue water diving at the SS Bombo (off Wollogong) after all - or to be more precise, after using picasa.
Some examples of "before" and "after picasa processing".

In each of the following sets of photos, the first photo is the original (canon G7 in a canon housing, with a red filter and auto white balance), the rest are after using picasa mainly the "tint" filter with about 50% color preservation.

doubles

twin independents that is. but which ones?
in the following table, the column "tanks and weights" corresponds to the weight of the (empty) tanks plus all the weight i need when using my drysuit with light undergarments (one layer of fleece). at the moment i mainly use a 95 catalina 240bar (plus a luxfer 80) so that would be the more accurate estimate for the weight needed.

tank	capacity	pressure	cu ft	weight	b empty	tanks&weights 1	tanks&weights 2
faber	12.2 L	232 bar	100cf	13.5kg	+1kg	21kg (12lb lead)	34kg ?
faber	10.5 L	232 bar	85cf	10.4kg	+1kg	16kg (12lb lead)	26kg ?
catalina	11.1 L	207 bar	80cf	14.5kg	+2.6kg	24kg (18lb lead)	38kg ?
catalina	10 L	240 bar	85cf	--kg	+ ?? kg	??	??
catalina	11 L	240 bar	95cf	17kg	+1kg	23kg (12lb lead)	40kg

"tanks and weights 1" is for single tank, "tanks and weights 2" is for doubles with some effort to take into account the extra regs. i use this website to calculate buoyancy characteristics, so the numbers are not terribly accurate.

SS Bombo photos

Some photos from the SS bombo, off wollogong. all my photos from today's two dives on the wreck, are here.
the visibility was very bad. I was experimenting with my new red filter on the canon housing for the G7.




Both of the photos above were taken with the red filter and auto white balance.
Below is a comparison between photos with the filter and without it.

No filter, natural light only, depth about 27m, auto white balance



red filter and natural light only depth 27m roughly, auto white balance

SD card with wifi

you need this:

SD card with wifi.

http://www.dcviews.com/press/Eye-Fi.htm
http://www.eye.fi/a-wireless-memory-card/

price check for dSLRs

current prices for the three entry level dSLRs with housing and standard flat ports (standard lens). All prices from BHphotovideo.com except for olympus housing and port which come from videodirect.com

• canon 400D (rebel XTi) in fantasea 1725 USD (660+1066)
• nikon D40x in fantasea 1710 USD (660 + 1050)
• olympus E410 in olympus 1630 USD (630 + 1000)

all three cameras seem to be good in terms of performance. the olympus has a couple of features that set it apart:

• camera flash works in the olympus housing, so external strobes can work with optic fibre cables
• live view

my next car

This car looks better than my barina:

http://www.divephotoguide.com/nissan-nv200.php
http://www.amustard.com/?page=nv200_press

nikon P5100 and the fantasea housing

fantasea announced that their underwater housing FP5000 for nikon P5000 works fine with the new nikon P5100. waterproof to 60m double o-rings everywhere, 46mm port ring thread for attaching wet lenses, 209USD from adorama. nikon P5100 is 500USD from adorama, so the total is 709USD, a very good price.

Oxygen capsules

was just reading an article about "02 capsules" that are available in some spas in japan, for about $50/hour. (this is the article on the web).
The capsules give you 1.3 atmospheres pressure and deliver up to 50% oxygen. would be good to have those on some liveaboard dive boats. you could take a nap between dives in one of them and refresh yourself for the next dive.
if you want to buy one, here is a website for o2 capsules (in japanese). the capsule for one person starts from 28,000AUD.

How many fish fit in a subway car?

323 fish. that's right, every sudway car will host 323 fish.

I was reading this article about a decision to dump 600 New York city subway cars along the New Jersey shore as artificial reefs. According to that article, subway cars were used as artificial reefs in South Carolina and attracted lots of marine life within 10 years. A 3-year study by the state Division of Fish and Wildlife showed that each subway car hosted 323 reef fish.

name the walking shark

The auction starting price is just $500,000 to name the 'walking shark' that was discovered in indonesia in 2006 or so.
Here is an article (the photo comes from this site) about the walking shark, and another one.

a nudibranch and a seahorse

a couple of interesting creatures from today's dive at Kurnell "the leap to the steps", south of sydney.

here is a nudibranch (which should be a Ceratosoma brevicaudatum according to an earlier identification from a diveoz.com.au user)


which, by the way, is very similar to this guy


that we saw at bare island (west side) 11-Mar-2007. It is a long way from bare island to Kurnell (if you are a nudibranch).

Also here is an interesting (beer-belly) seahorse.


Is this a big belly seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis)?

It does look a bit like this one and this one. Another pic of a big-belly seahorse appears on Michael McFadyen's Bare island isolated reefs page. There is also the potbelly seahorse (Hippocampus bleekeri) -for example see this page- that looks similar.

Also as i read on the web, big-belly seahorses are among the largest seahorses, growing to 30-35cm.

The one at Kurnell was indeed quite big.

australian prices again

i was in a big retail store today in sydney, and saw the price for an olympus E410, so i thought i complain about prices in sydney again.

here is a comparison of the price tag price for olympus E410 with 14-42mm lens.
big retail store in sydney: 1300 AUD
adorama.com from US: 629 USD = about 745AUD, which makes it about 800 AUD including shipping (yes there is difference with my earlier post, but the aussie dollar is going up compared to the USD)

1300AUD versus 800AUD. and it really does not take any effort to find these prices online. shopbot.com.au reports 1015AUD as the lowest price in aussie land. that is still seriously more expensive than getting it from the US.

nudi site

an interesting site i just saw about nudibranchs: nudi pixel.
Here is a description of the site (copy pasted from their page):
"""
Nudi Pixel is an online resource for nudibranch and sea slug identification using photographs.
blah blah blah....
This is basically a repository of nudibranch photographs from all over the world, and we further proceed the data to make it suitable for species identification. Read suggestion on how to use this web site for nudibranchs and sea slugs identification.

You are invited to submit nudibranchs or sea slugs photos (of course, you must be the photographer and the photos are taken in nature, not in captivity). Another way to contribute is simply helping us by identifying some unidentified nudibranch species or correcting misidentified species.

"""

australian prices for olympus e410

Australian prices are very high on pretty much every item you can think of. It is almost always cheaper to buy products overseas, even after paying shipping and duties. And it might be faster too.

I was just looking at olympus E-410 including a housing for it (olympus PT-E03). Here is a price comparison (the following are the best prices i could find within a few minutes on the web):

from overseas:
adorama olympus E410 with lens 840 AUD delivered.
uwdigitalcamera.com housing (no port) 1050 AUD probably 1100AUD delivered

from australia:
housing from seaoptic.com 1300AUD (plus shipping)
camera+lens from ebay 950AUD delivered

overall a difference of about 370AUD. and this is a very small price difference, usually things are much worse.

new nikon P5100

new nikon P5100 was announced very recently. see the dpreview.com article for more details.
replaces the P5000 and the body looks very similar. the dimensions are identical so it might be the case that the fantasea FP5000 housing will work with the P5100 as well.
dpreview mentions the following differences with the previous model P5000 (only the interesting ones are listed below):

Key differences from P5000

• 12.1 MP
• EXPEED: Nikon's innovative digital image processing concept
• Continuous flash upto 3 frames @ 1.0 fps (new feature)
• Cosmetic upgrade (mainly button and ring)
• Improved Graphical User Interface

the continuous flash feature sounds very very interesting for underwater photography.

oceanic atom and seadoo scooter

oceanic atom wireless transmitter and seadoo scooter:
the two don't seem to like each other.


when the seadoo scooter is running the transmission link is lost on the dive computer.This happened consistently throughout one night dive. Will experiment with this again soon, but it was quite clear that some sort of electrical noise from the scooter engine disturbs the atom transmission.

as soon as the scooter's engine stops, the interference stops and the computer finds the signal again. This happens even when the scooter was to my right side (was sharing the scooter with my buddy at the time) and the atom was on my right wrist.

i will try to experiment with my dive buddies a bit more and see how close the scooter needs to be to disturb the transmission (when someone else is using the scooter).