Saturday, May 24, 2008

new pentax Optio W60

a new compact camera from pentax, which is

  • waterproof to 3-4m (13ft) for 2h
  • dustproof and freezeproof to -10C (13F)
  • wide lens (28mm equivalent)
  • manual focus
  • 1cm macro focus
  • 9 point TTL contrast detection AF (9 point, spot, auto tracking, macro, super macro, infinity, pan, manual focus)
  • ISO up to 6400
  • High-Quality Movie mode with HD resolution up to 1280 x 720 pixels
  • 10mp, internal optical zoom 5x
  • available in July 2008 for US $329.95

if only pentax would make a proper underwater housing for it. i like the idea of having (possibly as a second camera) a waterproof compact camera in a waterproof housing.

my first underwater camera was a pentax optio s30 in a pentax housing, and i was very very happy with it. especially the super macro mode. using just the camera's internal flash and super macro mode the photos (sometimes) were very good. i still cannot get such photos with my canon g7, two inon strobes, and an inon wet macro lens, after thousands of photos. some examples from my old pentax camera: one, two, three, four. a problem with my old pentax was that it was very very slow to focus and take a photo.

more info about the new pentax w60 on dcviews.com or the h2ocamera.com site.

dolphins

for the first time this saturday i saw

  • dolphins while diving
  • dolphins while ... driving !
cant believe there are many other cities around the world (or any) where someone can see dolphins while driving their car on a busy road with traffic jams and all that.

we saw two (small i think) dolphins at kurnell diving the leap to the steps, close to the steps and while we were at a depth of around 10m. after the dive, and while driving back into the city over the taren point bridge we saw dolphins again in botany bay with a few boats circling them.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

high ISO with red filter

great visibility these days in sydney. it seems that the port jackson sharks are arriving. Here is a photo of an eastern blue devil fish we saw at shark point (sunday may 18).



i tried using high ISO with a red filter at 25-28m depth. With ISO set to Auto the speed would go down to 1/5 (shutter priority mode with speed set manually to 1/60, and aperture 2.8). i manually set the ISO to 800 to get good exposure speeds (at ISO 400 still there was not enough light). At 25-28m with ISO set at 800, i would get exposure speeds around 1/30 or 1/25 which is ok along with the image stabilization to avoid too much blur.



there is plenty of noise in the pictures. simple filters (such as the ones i use with picasa) will have trouble fixing the colors due to noise (following photos tint filter with 60-70% color preservation and the original next to it).

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

olympus E-520 and olympus housing PT-E05

New dSLR by Olympus, the E-520, with image stabilization (sensor), contrast detect AF in live-view mode (as well as phase detect AF through menus), Shadow Adjustment, and a matching underwater olympus housing PT-E05. about 699USD with the F3.5-5.6, 14 - 42 mm lens.

Cannot find any pricing for the PT-E05 housing yet. the PT-E03 housing (for E410) was about 1000USD including the port for the kit lens.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

underwater housings for canon 450D / XSi

ikelite 6871.45 on bhphotovideo.com listed for $1,330 USD.
some more housings listed on digifish.com.