rumors of a new nikon P6000

I am reading through DivePhotoGuide.com that there are rumors about a new nikon P6000.
The specs mentioned in the photo that appears on flickr, in full size, include:

28mm eq. wide lens, Raw format, 6400 ISO, nikon's VR, 2.7in screen and 13.5 mpixels on a 1/1.7 sensor.

new Canon 1000D

canon 1000D announced, which is placed below 450D. most features are similar to 450D (including the live view with both phase and contrast detect auto focus) but with a smaller lcd screen, slightly slower in continuous mode, no spot metering, 7 point (instead of 9) AF, no highlight tone priority, and slightly less magnification on the viewfinder. for a detailed preview see the dpreview pages.

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.

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).

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.

underwater housings for canon 450D / XSi

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

canon 450D/XSi preview

dpreview.com has published a part of its canon 450D/XSi hands-on preview. it is about half the usual review, the full review will follow within two weeks according to the website.

some features that look interesting:

• live view with edge detection auto focus
• highlight tone priority- according to dpreview, in this mode canon should capture more information in the bright areas of the image at the risk of more noise in the shadows
• better (or more) noise reduction in high iso
• "my menu"
• displaying the iso in the viewfinder

creatures of bare island: striated frogfish

interesting creatures from bare island:
i believe this is a striated frogfish (Antennarius striatus), a kind of anglerfish.



i got this photo in sydney - bare island, february 14, 2008. (canon G7 two inon strobes). i have a there are a couple more photos on my flickr site.
for more info see wikipedia or fishbase.

canon 450D / XSi dSLR

the new canon 450D is available in most places for around 900USD with the kit lens (IS 18-55).
No housing for it yet. Just to get an idea i looked through digideep.com, to see how long it took for the underwater housings to be available after the camera hit the market. i only looked at fantasea and ikelite to get an idea.

camera	announced	available	ikelite available	fantasea available
canon 450D/XSi	26-jan-2008	15-apr-2008 (for US, i guess)	under consideration
canon 400D/XTi	26-aug-2006	15-sep-2006	10-Oct-2006 1 month	1-Apr-2007 5.5 months
nikon D40	15-nov-2006	1-dec-2006	15-mar-2007 3.5 months	1-may-2007 4.5 months
nikon D200	28-oct-2005	1-nov-2005	4-apr-2005 (?) 6 months
nikon D70	12-dec-2003	12-mar-2004	12-may-2004 2 months	1-mar-2005, +1 year ! (announced 1-feb-2004??)

so fantasea is a bit slow with its housings, is it?

too bad, i would choose fantasea over ikelite since the price is better, and also some of their housings are slightly more compact. but if they take 6-12 months to get the housing out, well... that's not good, is it?