Saturday, July 9, 2011 at 06:06PM Take a look at our little video of the NEX-5 camera and housing in action. We've also just added links to some of our other videos - take a look over on the right column of this page for video links and stay tuned for more to come.
Friday, July 8, 2011 at 10:22AM Daniel Norwood posted a slideshow of his recent work using the Sony NEX-5 in the Nauticam housing. Dan's images definitely show how capable the NEX-5 is as an underwater camera. The sensor in this camera is the same size as most DSLR's but in a much smaller package. Check out the slideshow and the rest of the work Dan has posted on Flickr:
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at 07:08AM Nauticam USA is proud to be a premier sponsor of the Digital Shootout 2011 in Bonaire. This is the seventh and final installment of our daily coverage of the shootout.
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Last day. Wow, this week has flown by. I don't think I sat down for more than 20 minutes at a time the whole week. I think I could charge/change batteries and check o-rings in my sleep at this point. Which is a good thing after another crazy late night of shooting fluorescence.
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The images that these people created during this event are absolutely amazing. Congratulations to all who entered and to all who won; absolutely wonderful, inspiring work. Mike, the person who I mentioned a few days days ago who put his Nauticam rig together for the very first time, walked away with not one but two top prizes in the wide angle category. And I want to say a special congratulations to my friend Jeff who produced a truly singular image that won best in show. It's an absolutely inspiring image and represents so much of why I love this world of underwater photography. (Check out the winning shots and videos here: http://www.thedigitalshootout.com/bonaire2011/The-Digital-Shootout-Day7.php)
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Cheers everyone and see you next year!
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Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 12:44PM Nauticam USA is proud to be a premier sponsor of the Digital Shootout 2011 in Bonaire. This is the sixth installment of our daily coverage of the shootout.
Wow. Incredible. Amazing. No wait.. wrong set of adjectives. Let me try this... Groovy. Trippy. Cool. [google more funny 60's adjectives]
I finally got my chance to do a night dive with the fluorescence gear from my new friends at NightSea. Try to imagine diving the reef lit up by a black light, with coral heads glowing in wild green, yellow, orange and red neon colors. Did I mention amazing? Being a staff person, I didn't want to keep any guests who wanted to try it from doing so, so I go geared up to get in the water after they were done. My buddy and roommate Sterling had done this the night before and it worked well. Sterling is obviously as hooked on this as I am and was back for more tonight. Three and a half hours and two tanks later I surfaced from this crazy dive with a huge grin on my face. I also happened to surface in the middle of a wild little thunderstorm which made it all the more surrealistic. Oh, and it was also 2 o'clock in the morning, and I had to wake up at 6:30 the next day. No problem!
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The physics geek in me really likes to hear Charlie from NightSea talk about the technology they employ to make this fluorescence experience work. He can certainly explain it better than me, but in a nutshell, they use a bright light source in a narrow frequency band (the color blue) to excite the molecules in a particular protein that only some of the creatures have in their tissue. Being excited in physics is different from being excited in other contexts - what it means is that those molecules give off light, and so we see the glow in those particular colors. The really clever part comes next - we don't want to see all of that blue light because it is brighter than the florescent glow, so NightSea uses a complimentary filter (yellow in this case) to remove the blue light, leaving only the glow.
So to make this work, we modify the lights we use (strobes, video lights, spotting lights) to produce the correct blue light, and then we put a yellow filter over our camera lens and our eyes. I was shooting my 7D with a Canon EF-S 60mm macro lens behind the Nauticam Macro Port. This port has a 67mm thread on the front, so attaching NightSea's filter was simple. I've included a couple of shots here, and will have more shots plus some video posted soon here and on my own website (http://chrisparsons.net).
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The Digitl Shootout 2011 website is now up - check it out at http://www.thedigitalshootout.com/
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 08:31PM Nauticam USA is proud to be a premier sponsor of the Digital Shootout 2011 in Bonaire. This is the fifth installment of our daily coverage of the shootout.
It's the bugeye lens for me again today. I'm getting better with this lens and think I can continue to push it and get some great images with it. Today I got a spotted moray that really shows the power of this lens - no other currently available lens could get that perspective.
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Spotted Moray with Bugeye Lens
One of our divers here just got her certification a month ago. Miranda is here with her parents, who are both u/w shooters, and Miranda is an experienced shooter on land. Well, she isn't letting her lack of u/w experience slow here down. She's been shooting the Nauticam T2i and E-PL2 housings and getting excellent images. She showed off a shot of a squirrelfish swimming head-on towards the camera. This might sound easy, but let me tell you from my experience of shooting hundreds of these little fish - they don't like the camera pointed at them and usually give you the classic fish butt shot. She not only managed to get a head-on shot, but it was exposed perfectly and lit beautifully. Well done Miranda. Each night during the week we are getting treated to a slideshow where we get to see what people are working on and there have already been some incredible images hitting that screen. I'm very much looking forward to the final night where we'll get to see the best images in each class.
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Shot with the new GH2 Housing and 45mm Macro
Speaking of E-PL2, this is a brand new housing for us that arrived just a couple of days before I left for the shootout. The housing is excellent and really provides a solid upgrade from the OEM housing for E-PL2 shooters. Since you can use Panasonic lenses with this camera that opens up a new world of lens choices for E-PL2 - one example being the excellent Panasonic 8mm fisheye. I shot this combination on a quick test dive before putting the E-PL2 into our demo gear fleet, and I wasn't disappointed. The 8mm focuses very close, which in combination with the very small dome port, makes close-focus-wide-angle shooting very fun and easy. I'd put more images up from E-PL2 but that system has been out on every demo gear dive so I've only gotten that one quick test dive with it.
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The other Olympus camera we are offering to demo here is the Olympus XZ-1. This is a compact camera in the same class as LX5, and it matches it feature for feature. One thing I like about XZ-1 is the command dial that's wrapped around the front of the lens. That, along with the bright f/1.8 zoom lens make this a very compelling camera. The housing is sculpted nicely and looks great. I was really hoping to be able to get some more test shots with the XZ-1 but like the E-PL2, I can't get my hands on it as it is going out as demo gear on pretty much every dive.
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 07:33AM Nauticam USA is proud to be a premier sponsor of the Digital Shootout 2011 in Bonaire. This is the fourth installment of our daily coverage of the shootout.
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More baitball
Day four, and back on the boats to head out to Klein Bonaire. These dive guides are doing a great job with this large group, sharing their special spots for things like frogfish and seahorses. I'm shooting wide today, the 10-22 behind the Zen 230mm dome again as I am just so pleased with the sharpness I am getting out of this combination. I want to get some shots of people with their gear, heads down in their quest to get that perfect shot.
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Mike and his new Nauticam T2i Housing
Despite the fact that some of these folks are very focused on getting close to their subjects, they are doing a good job of staying off of live reef. The Digital Shootout staff and the Divi Dive staff have been stressing the importance of not damaging the reef, and made it clear right at the beginning that anyone sacrificing living reef to get their shot will be removed from the competition, and depending on the severity, may be banned from diving here. They are serious about it and well they should be. As u/w photographers, we are truly ambassadors for the sea. Many people will get their experience of the ocean through our eyes and that charges us with a huge responsibility to set a good example for our fellow divers and do as little damage as possible to an ecosystem that is not only fragile but under attack from many different sources. However, it should not stop at merely this, because the fact is that divers actually are not even close to the biggest threat that reefs face. Water quality issues, temperature increase, over-fishing, invasive species - these issues are what is killing our reefs, not a kicked sea fan. So we need to start by not kicking that sea fan, absolutely, but we as ambassadors for the ocean need to carry that message back to life on land and make a difference.
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Baby Green Turtle with Missing FlipperOk, enough soapbox for the moment. Let's go diving!
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Nauticam 180º Viewfinder on "Some Other Housing"
I'm finally getting a bit more organized at getting these cameras ready to go out, which is a good thing as I'm sending out every one of our housings pretty much every day. Everything has been working well and I'm very pleased not to be having a lot of gear issues. Our LX-5 housing and camera is proving to be very popular with the demo gear uses. Panasonic is not as big of a name in the US in the consumer camera world but they are making some excellent cameras and definitely seem to be on the upswing. LX-5 is the most capable, best imaging compact camera I have used. It's ideally suited for underwater shooting, with features like RAW mode, manual exposure, excellent TTL, TTL in manual mode, and AVCHD video.
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Friendly Hawksbill Getting Some Air
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 10:03AM Nauticam USA is proud to be a premier sponsor of the Digital Shootout 2011 in Bonaire. This is the third installment of our daily coverage of the shootout.
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Nauticam Gear Headquarters for the DSO
Demo gear use started in earnest today, and we handed out a nice assortment of Nauticam gear for people to try. The LX5 is probably the most popular so far and deservedly so - it's a really capable little camera. Jim Decker took one out along with an Inon UWL-H100 M67 Type2 wet lens, and got some excellent shots; shots that really were not even possible with compact cameras from just two years ago. Of course, he was helped greatly by using a great model underwater - yours truly. Ha! Kidding! I told him it wasn't the camera nor his skill that accounted for the excellent sunball in that shot - it was me eclipsing the sun for him.
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Jim with the LX5 fully kitted
We had another great group on the boat today, including two shooters who have brand new Nauticam gear. Sako is sporting a Nauticam NA-D7000 with 180º viewfinder. She's got some Inon Z-240 strobes and a never ending string of questions - which I am more than happy to try to answer - being here to answer questions is my excuse for being here, and I am sticking with that story. Mike is rocking a Canon Rebel T2i in a Nauticam NA-550D housing. He's also got the 180º viewfinder and the Z-240's. Mike was going to town with his rig today - shooting it in manual for the first time. After about an hour and twenty minutes into our second dive, Mike was still banging away. Everyone else was out of the water, so I had to go back in and rap him over the head to get him to surface. Don't get between me and lunch!
Did I mention the baitball?
We also got to see the as yet unreleased Light&Motion Sola 4000's in use. Dan from L&M was shooting some video with some prototype 4000's, and was kind enough to model for me above a great little yellow frogfish.
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Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 10:55AM Nauticam USA is proud to be a premier sponsor of the Digital Shootout 2011 in Bonaire. This is the second installment of our daily coverage of the shootout.
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First boat dives of the trip - it's great to be back in Bonaire and hear the divemaster rattle off site names that I fondly remember. Today we visited Klein Bonaire, the uninhabited island offshore surrounded by reef. We had a great group on the boat, and other than a blown HP hose, the first set of dives went off without a hitch. I shot the Canon 7D in a Nauticam (of course) with a Zen 230mm. Part of the time I was working on getting some shots for the shootout blog that would include some people shots and some gear.
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I decided to shoot the Canon 10-22 for this. Everyone loves Tokina 10-17, and I also love to shoot that lens, but for me there is just something about shooting rectilinear underwater that I enjoy. The downside is that you can't shoot the mini-domes like the awesome Zen Underwater DP-100; the upside is that you get to use the also awesome DP-230. With the combo of the 230mm dome and the 10-22 lens, I got some gear images that were absolutely tack sharp. See yesterday's installment for a good example of that sharpness.
In the afternoon I opted for the bugeye lens, officially the Inon Underwater Micro Semi-Fisheye Relay Lens UFL-MR130 EFS60 (say that 3 times fast). This is definitely a specialty lens; hard to get sharp shots, but the perspective it affords is very unique. I enjoy shooting it a lot, and it sometimes frustrates me to no end, but today I managed to get one keeper, a super tight shot of a black seahorse. It's cool to get that close to something and still get a blue and wide background. I also liked the lettuce sea slug below; it's not a perspective you often see of that creature.
Sunday, June 26, 2011 at 06:40AM Nauticam USA is proud to be a premier sponsor of the Digital Shootout 2011 in Bonaire. This is the first installment of our daily coverage of the shootout.
I'm honored to be here at my first Digital Shootout event. Everyone here has been gracious and kind and there is a real sense of helping each other for a common goal - to make some beautiful images. Divi Flamingo seems like a great spot to host this event, and I can't wait to get started!
With all of my systems put together and batteries charging, yesterday I got a chance to get into the water. For my first dive I took my trusty Canon 7D with me as it was the only thing I had fully charged and ready to go. I shot the Tokina 10-17 with a Zen Underwater DP-100.
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For my second dive, I took the new Panasonic GH2 in a pre-production housing. I'm a big fan of this camera and it did not disappoint. There's a lot of interest in this camera and several others that I've brought so I might not get a chance to dive with it again until the end of the week. For this dive I shot the Panasonic/Leica 45mm macro, and found it to be an excellent macro lens. The working distance seems pretty similar the the Canon EFS 60mm macro on the 7D. Focus was quick though it hunted a bit when I didn't use my focus light. But, with all of the Light&Motion Solas around here, there's no excuse not to run a focus light. The images I got were very sharp and GH2 continues to be my favorite small camera by a long margin.
That's it for today.... Cheers from Bonaire.
Chris
Monday, June 20, 2011 at 06:29PM The Nauticam D7000 is depth rated to 100m (330 feet). Here it is, in action, shooting video at that depth in Grand Cayman. This video by Tony Land, who reports that all of the D7000 controls were fully functional at that depth. Check it out: