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?

Olympus E-420: no olympus housing for it?

here is a thread from wetpixel.com on the subject. PT-E03 (the housing for E410) has been discontinued and olympus has not announced any plans to build a housing for E420.

photo opportunity

yesterday at shark point, i was taking a picture of a nudibranch:



and this little guy swam right next to the nudibranch, to get in the picture...
fish really like to be photographed it seems....