How Much Experience Have We Had?

Thank you Craig for this thread! Since there are only a handful of people posting on this forum it is kind of nice to get to know each other a little better. Great stories from all of you!

I started diving (PADI OWD) in 2002, while living in Brazil. I took the theory test and pool exercises in Sao Paulo and went on to do the checkout dives on Fernando de Noronha. This is an island 300 km off the Brazilian coast (Recife) in the middle of the Atlantic (closer to Africa than to Sao Paulo), it was an amazing experience with Leatherback Turtles, sharks, barracudas and lots of moray eels, that got me hooked. At the same time I got started taking pictures with a disposable camera while snorkeling, with rather poor results.

Having moved back to Europe, I continued my dive adventures in Egypt (Sharm el Sheik) the next year, including an upgrade to PADI AOW, however without any camera. From then onwards I did one to two dive trips per year, and started with underwater photography in 2004, with a Canon Ixus (Elph) V2 and the Canon underwater housing. The next years where a mix of diving in Egypt, Malaysia (mostly Sipadan Island), Maldives and Indonesia. Once I moved to SE-Asia a few years ago, dive trips where only in the region, including Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia (mostly Coral Triangle). As of today I have logged over 500 dives, many of them at rather demanding dive sites like Komodo National Park, Pulau Weh, Kuredo Express, etc..

My choices of cameras were driven by my experience in the 1990s while living in the US East Coast, when I owned a Nikon SLR (film), which I barely used, since I hated schlepping that bulky thing around. It was replaced by the tiny Canon Elph (Ixus), still film days. Which then got replaced by the aforementioned Ixus V2, my first digital camera and first underwater camera. Pictures taken with this camera have only value for remembrance, since the AF was brutally slow, the sensor not impressive, and foremost me being a bad (underwater)-photographer.

The Ixus got replaced by a Canon Powershot G9 with the Canon underwater housing. While the camera was somewhat an improvement, AF was still not great as well as the sensor did not allow to go above 400 ISO, and I had not really improved that much as a photographer…

The Canon G9 made space for a Canon Powershot G1x, again with Canon housing, as well as an adapter for an Inon ULC-165M67 close-up lens. While the larger 1.5” sensor and the quality lens promised a lot on paper, it was a disaster underwater. The camera was sluggish in its operation and AF, and the inability to do close-up focusing with the lens, did make it kind of useless underwater, I did not enjoy it underwater at all (much more so above).

Trying to stick with my mantra to keep the camera small, as well as trying to find an underwater casings that would be financially justifiable for 1-2 dive trips a years, while accommodating my increased need for long reach (wildlife photography), I decided, that it was time for an Olympus PEN E-PL7 with the Olympus housing. It later got upgraded with a semi-dome port from AOI and an external video light. This was a significant improvement over my past cameras and also helped me to further improve my photographic abilities above and below the surface.

I have now been on the market for a new camera and housing for over 2 years, but have not found anything that would make me happy or justify the investment (need better everything, including long wildlife lens, while staying compact).

so, there you have it… hope was not too long, but hey we all have more time at home now…

Stay safe and Happy Easter,

Lars