How Much Experience Have We Had?

I'm curious about this, and of course bored during stay-at-home time.   I'm wondering how much dive and photography experience the others on here have?   Also wondering how everyone's photographic endeavors have evolved or improved over time, perhaps with certain equipment.

Myself:  started diving with NAUI training in high school in 1971.  Only managed to do 4 open water dives until I met my second wife in 2006.  Now I have 349 dives in, most of them in the Caribbean, and maybe 2/3rds of those in Roatan.   (Great diving! Convenient Cheap)

I started with a camera as soon as I was recertified with PADI in 2006.  Did one dive with a disposable film camera.  After that I had a series of Canon point-n-shoots, all similar, but each better than the last.

My photography didn't start improving much until I added strobes, on an RX100 II rig.  After  year with that, I talked myself into buying a Nauticam housing for my D810, along with 230mm dome for 16-35 and 105mm macro port.  Diving with a camera that reacts almost instantly, and which had a lot of crop room, really helped me.  But it was working in Lightroom with the RAW images from the D810 that really helped me improve.

Now I shoot with a D850/Nauticam rig.  I love the speed of the autofocus along with the high resolution.  I try very hard to stay at ISO 64 with the macro lens, and as close as I can get with the 16-35.

December, 1970, Prospect Lake, Colorado Springs, Colorado.   This was the certification dive for my NAUI cert.   We went in roped back to the shore as it was about 12 inches visibility.  At one point I bumped my head on the bottom of the ice.   Weird.

I was just about to graduate high school and go off to college the next month.  My sister was a junior in high school.  As mentioned in the OP, she never went back to pick up her NAUI cert and never dove again.  Shame.

Note the horse collars, lack of gauges (J valve), lack of octopus, and oddly, a dive knife strapped to my sister's leg.

Picture of me and a picture of a shark I took

First “real” camera was a Sony f828 4 color sensor with tilt body I bought back in 2004 for my island wedding in grand cayman, cruise line provided 1 photographer and an assistant with our wedding package, let them “use “ my Sony for 2 days and copy the memory sticks and cards as long as they didn’t delete any pictures from wedding lol (over 100 free pictures lol) , moved up to a cannon 50d when they came out and then moved up to full frame with a 5d mkii once familiar with that.

Diving got certified in 2006 when a friend at my yacht club suggested it to me, have my dry suit, nitrox, advanced, confined space, cold water and shark endorsements since. 
 The two hobbies collided together about 2008 on this site when someone gave away (to me) on the free for you page a Canon 870 elph in an underwater canon housing which I gladly paid shipping for. After three or four years of getting used to underwater photography at that level I decided I wanted to get a little deeper involved, in 2014 I scheduled two dives ( no cage of course)  with Caribbean reef sharks on a 2015 cruise. That was the point I went all in with an aquatica housing for my 5dmkii , an 8” dome , dual strobes and a wide angle L zoom lens , still have and use my “free” setup to this day , and I bring out the big  rig for those special dives.

Fun trip down memory lane, thanks for posting and stay safe !!!

I know my Nikon rig is huge, with the 230mm dome, and the range of focal lengths available is small, but boy am I finally happy with the results!

I dive primarily in Roatan these days, particularly since my wife died and I go alone.   Where I dive is primarily wall diving with every dive having potential for good wide and macro shots.  Some dive sites lend themselves more to one or the other.

I deal with the extreme lack of flexibility the same way I do above water if I'm shooting with a single prime.  I make a memory of the shots that don't fit, and I take the shots that do.  Nice thing about going back to the same places is that I eventually cover every dive site with both my lenses.  I go to the Reef House Resort in Oak Ridge, Roatan.  I've been to at least 37 different dive sites there over about 180 dives.

Macro - I use a 105mm - is a bit more flexible that my wide angle (16-35) in some ways, because I can simply back up.  Problem there is needing very clear water.   With the wide angle, even at 35mm up against the subject it's still wide.  I'm just starting to get used to shooting wide and look forward to doing more of it.

I certainly use my D850 above water as well, but these days I'm generally doing dedicated dive trips and may not have more than the 105 and 16-35 lenses with me.  I really don't have room for above-water lenses when I'm packing dive gear.

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

I'm curious about this, and of course bored during stay-at-home time. I'm wondering how much dive and photography experience the others on here have? Also wondering how everyone's photographic endeavors have evolved or improved over time, perhaps with certain equipment.

Great tread Chraig. Thank you for showing these lovely pictures, I enjoyed the picture from you and your sister a lot!

Here is my story, just skip it, when it is too lengthy (I warn you...):

I am roughly your age (born 56). I was a wildly determined snorkeler since I can remember (30m+; I was even spear-hunting with hand spear !), but could effort scubadiving only after my promotion (I am a biologist). In 1981 I made my CMAS/TSVÖ ** certificate with my first self earned money. Much later, in 1998, I made the CMAS/TSVÖ *** brevet (similar to PADI divemaster) - the reason was that I organized excursions with my students on marine toxines and I felt it would be good to have the appropriate certification as a divemaster, just to make the diving saver. I was introduced into photography early by my grandpa, who donated a big film camera to me, when I was a child (the film was so big, that one could make contact positives from the negatives in my first darkroom). My first experience of making pictures under the water started in 1995 when I decided to make UW videos and aquired a Sony VX1000 in Sealux housing with two video lights (I stopped this around 2000).

Until 2003, when I met my second wife, I did not have an extremely high number of dives, relative to the time span (approx. 400), since my favorite time spending was white water kajaking, what I practiced almost every free hour and scuba diving was second. My second wife was so fascinated by scuba diving, that the focus shifted completely to diving (she did not like the turbulent white waters; currently I have 1143 dives logged). She is a serious photographer and started UW photography (First Lumix TZ5, followed by Oly EPL5 in Oly housing) soon after her certification. I started UW photography after surviving a severe cancer illness in 2017 (while undergoing chemo and waiting for the next surgery I thought to myself that life is too short to make the divermaster and illuminator for my wife and not to invest a fortune in good UW camera equipment ) with Oly EM5II in Nauticam housing. After my wife flooded her EPL5 in 2019, I had a good excuse to buy an EM1II with Nauticam for me and give her my old EM5II...

I am quite happy with the MFT format. My favorite WA solution is the Canon 8-15mm fisheye adapted with Metabones 1x adapter using Nauticam 140mm domeport, providing diagonal angles of view of 180 (8mm) - 85 (15mm) degrees. The optical quality is so brilliant, that I am reluctant to switch to a larger sensor, since there is no optical solution available for the big sensor, that comes close (eventually these super-expensive and super-heavy WAPC's from Nauticam come close). My standard Macro is the native Zuiko 60mm Macro lens (eventually, but seldom, with additional CMC-1 diopter), which is also outstanding in its IQ (similar to 120mm Macro on FF). Sometimes, but by far less often, I take the Pana 45mm Macro (especially when my wife is claiming the 60mm, that belongs to her, for herself). My favorite fish portrait combination is the native Zuiko 12-40mm behind Zen DP170.

I am very satisfied with MFT, the camera/lens/port combinations I listed above give brilliant IQ. Only sometimes I would wish more dynamic range (sunballs or bellies of fish (barracudas!) fading out), sharper images with more Megapixels for cropping and 14 bit resolution for better postprocessing. The optical WA options with FF, however, are scaring me a little. I plan to switch to a FF system in the future (In 2022, when I will retire; in my case it will be Canon, as I already have several lenses), but it is well possible that I will regret this experiment and come back to MFT (I need to convince myself personally, that I do not miss much, but who knows what the outcome will be at the end)...

All the best, Wolfgang

Funny how the wife influences diving a lot!   I had four open water dives in between age 17 and 52.  Then I met Connie, and she asked me one day if I thought I'd like diving. I said, sure, but it's been 35 years.   She really wanted a dive buddy as she'd been diving alone for the past 10 years or so.  (And only had about 25 dives in.)

She then paid for me to get re-certified, and we started diving.  I immediately fell in love with it.  It's very much in my nature to do things I like to excess.   She said she created a monster, and I wanted to make every vacation a dive vacation.  Eventually that worked into dedicated dive trips as I had too much equipment to carry to make it worth doing 2-4 dives on a cruise.

After Connie died in early 2017, I really didn't know what to do.  Most everything I did related to vacations was planned by Connie, and we were working her bucket list pretty hard.  I didn't even know what my bucket list would have on it.   I decided one thing I wanted to do for sure was to get more dives in, and I set myself a goal of someday doing 100 dives in a year.  I immediately started doing two week dive trips, but I just did them to the same place in Roatan where I was already comfortable.

Why Roatan specifically?   Well, first off the diving is really, really good.   Rivals the best I've seen in the Caribbean.  Second, it used to be easy (and cheap) to get to.  Before flight schedules changed a couple of years ago I could catch a 2-hour flight to Houston, have a 2-hour layover, and then a 2.5 hour flight to Roatan.  I could get there early enough Saturday afternoon to put my camera rig together and do a checkout shore dive.  Then I would get in around 36 more dives over the next two weeks.  Only $850 round trip.  (Now it's up to $1400 and climbing, and I have to fly through Miami, or overnight in Houston).

The Reef House Resort where I always go isn't a luxury 'resort' in about any way except laid-back.   But it has a very small-town, homey feel to it, especially now that I've been there so much and know so many residents.  But the real reason is the diving, and the divemaster David.   Let's face it.  As underwater photographers, we need subjects!  And the first part of photographing a subject is actually finding it.  My eyesight is probably typical for a 65-year-old.  Not as great as used to be, particularly in dark conditions.  David's eyesight must be phenomenal.  I've followed him too many hours not to marvel at his ability to find things.  Helps that he has over 20,000 dives in along the 20-30 dive sites around the Reef House.  Besides being incredibly good at finding things, he is also very good-natured and pleasant to be around.  Most people who dive with him have probably heard him give a big belly laugh underwater.  He's always smiling.

Now I wonder if Reef House will survive, and it I will ever dive again.   At my age - and after losing my wife to pancreatic cancer - I go out on every last dive of a trip and try to make a strong memory of it, in case I am never able to go back.

kelpdiver wrote:

Architeuthis wrote:

I am quite happy with the MFT format. My favorite WA solution is the Canon 8-15mm fisheye adapted with Metabones 1x adapter using Nauticam 140mm domeport, providing diagonal angles of view of 180 (8mm) - 85 (15mm) degrees. The optical quality is so brilliant, that I am reluctant to switch to a larger sensor, since there is no optical solution available for the big sensor, that comes close (eventually these super-expensive and super-heavy WAPC's from Nauticam come close).

That caught my eye, owning both. But puzzled by you saying there's no larger sensor solution - all of the Canons are recommended pairings for the 8-15. However, I think you have to go to the massive > 200mm dome ports. If you're getting good results with the N85 140 dome on the 4/3, that's interesting.

Hi kelpdiver,

The Canon 8-15mm lens is also a favorite on FF cameras (Sony, Canon; Nikon has its own 8-15mm fisheye). Normaly the Nauticam 140mm dome is used also with this lens, but in FF it covers a different range of angles of view (AOV): one can switch between circular fisheye and 180 degree diagonal, but no further Zoom out is possible. A solution MAY be to use it with a 2x teleconverter on FF, then the very useful AOV that it provides on MFT would be restored. The widest aperture, however, would be f:8.0 then (from f: 4.0). It may well be that AF is compromised when there is so little light available...

Do you prefer it over the 8mm FEs on the 100mm domes because you have some zoom range?

See here on a general description about my the fisheye approach on MFT sensor: https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/62560-canon-8-15mm-and-tokina-10-17mm-on-om-d-em5ii/

and here some sample photos:

https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/64924-canon-8-15mm-nauticam-140mm-minidome-and-em1ii/

https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/62974-canon-8-15-140mm-minidome-and-omd-em5ii/

I did not test out the Zen DP-100 for use with the Canon 8-15, since I could not find a version that would fit the recommended extensions (but you can find comparisons of Nauticam 140mm with Zen DP-170 in the links above). Before I used the zoom fisheye, the Zuiko 8mm was a favorite lens of mine, providing tack sharp ultra-WA photos. Often, however, the AOV is too wide (e.g. when approaching shy animals) and one would want to zoom in. The IQ of the Canon, BTW, at 8mm is at least as good as the Zuiko, with the additional option to zoom out (=> Yes this is the reason, why I like this lens so much!).

Only for APS-C sensors a pendant to 8-15mm on MFT exists: the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye. This lens is extremely useful on APS-C for the reasons above, but the IQ is not good. It was designed more as a "fun" lens, while the Canon 8-15mm fulfills the highest optical standards (Many APS-C shooters use now the excellent Canon or Nikon 8-15mm fisheyes with 1.4x teleconverters instead of the Tokina; ironically these lenses do not require treleconverters on the smaller MFT sensor). For FF sensors nothing comparable exists (i.e. moderate fisheye with the option to zoom out to e.g. 80 or even more). Therefore these WAPC's (two versions exist already) and also the WWL-1 and WWL-C were developed in order to provide fisheye zoom capabilities at moderate AOV's, in connection with moderate rectilinear WA lenses. These fisheye zoom characteristics are documented to deliver far better IQ (i.e. more sharpness) compared to rectilinear WA, that require hughe domes and small apertures to deliver satisfactory results...

I love to discuss these technical things, but in case we continue the discussion, I suggest you start another tread in order not to ruin Craig's wonderful "nostalgia" tread here...

Wolfgang

kelpdiver wrote:

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

Now I wonder if Reef House will survive, and it I will ever dive again.

pretty sure the latter will be true, Craig. I lost my Anilao trip for last week, and my French Polynesia trip in 6 weeks is looking tenuous, but we should get past this collapse. If you can get excited enough about Baja, that's drivable from Phoenix.

no guarantees on Reef House - this is a bigger blow than a cat 4 hurricane - it could come down to the owner's age and financial endurance. But others will emerge. It is healthy to have a few favorites as protection.

The problem as I see it is a collision between advancing age and potential self-quarantine periods to travel to other countries.   I see this virus circulating over the next 4 years, and the entire world shutting off from itself to fight it.   Pockets of safe areas will become armed refuges, a bit like those apocalyptic plague movies (28 days later?) where strangers are driven away from armed camps by force.   Meaning "nobody gets in here without a 2-week quarantine at best".

If I can't travel out of the country to dive, I may be too old - or dead - before I get the opportunity again.  I admit my outlook on the future is influenced by watching my seemingly-invincible wife's health collapse overnight when the effects of pancreatic cancer provided the first symptoms.  A lot can/will happen in four years.

kelpdiver wrote:

PHXAZCRAIG wrote:

The problem as I see it is a collision between advancing age and potential self-quarantine periods to travel to other countries. I see this virus circulating over the next 4 years, and the entire world shutting off from itself to fight it.

While C19 is far more easily transmitted than SARS or MERS was, also much lower death rate. Ebola had highest rate, but pretty limited in spread, and attacks so fast that the epidemic quickly dies out. If we get the worst attributes of each - easy transmission, slow development, 10% death rate, then we get that scenario you present. And that would be the end for happy leisurely travel. You'd have to commit to moving to a place and doing quarantine.

Let's speculate a bit.  Say we're wanting to go to New Zealand for a 1 or 2-week vacation.  Currently they are quarantining everyone who comes into the country for 2 weeks.   How long will they continue to do this?  Anyone see them opening up the gates this summer?  If so, what will happen when a new outbreak occurs?

Another aspect - the US seems completely outmatched in fighting this disease, and the way I foresee things, the US is going to be having problems for a while, and what is the likelihood of travelers from the US (particularly) will be allowed free access to other countries around the world who have the virus under control before the US?

I see the only remote hope here is some fantastically quickly produced effective vaccine, and even then we've got a big segment of the US who is fanatically anti-vaccine.  I see it as another reason other countries will be wary of US tourists.

It's a lose-lose situation, with some losing worse than others at this point.

Phoenix Arizona Craig
www.cjcphoto.net
"In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they're not."