New Scuba looks from the cruise...

[river_sand_bar2]

Thought you all might like to see a few pics from the recent trip on the Miracle.

[cruzegirl]

Excellent pics... great job...... Makes me envious for my cruise in 3 weeks.....lol.....:D

[booth22]

What type of camera/set up were you using?

[10X]

Nice photos. Did you notice what looks to be a Pederson Shrimp next to the moray? It looks to be a pretty good size so I wonder if you could crop the photo at full size and have another nice shot.

 

Denny

[river_sand_bar2]

The camera I used was a Cannon A620 and the underwater housing for it....It took me a little bit to get the settings right as I hadn't used it underwater prior to my trip. Finally realized you need the flash on every picture. Gonna make the investment in a strobe now.

 

10X... Yes I did notice the shrimp... it was cleaning the Moray as I was taking the picture. They are actually pretty fast movers, which was a surprise to me.

 

Ok... just for the record....the water in Cozumel was wonderful... super clear... BUT, I had to admit, diving in Belize was an incredible dive. It was as if you were in an underwater forest.

 

[oceandiverchris]

I use the same setup. GREAT CAMERA!! I can't say enough about it. Once you get the strobe, you will be taking the same pictures as those $1500 setups. Have you tried to take movies underwater yet? It does a great job. Buy a 2GB memory chip for it and you can take long movies.

[river_sand_bar2]

Cant wait to get the strobe.... I am being a good boy so maybe Santa might bring it... :D

 

I used a 1gb card and YES, I did get some great underwater video's...interesting to hear your breathing techniques underwater :eek: no wonder I suck sooo much air.. ha ha ha

[oceandiverchris]

Well, I would never tell my students this and I dont reccomend anyone do it, but I skip breath. I am still allowing VERY VERY tiny bubbles to escape, I'm just kind of postponing my next breath. Keep the camera well in front of you. This along with my skip breathing avoids any bubbles in my pictures. I find that keeping a loose grip and stiff arms also helps.

 

You have to be very patient and wait for the critters to pose so you dont get a bunch of "Fish Butt" pictures. hehe

[suezyq50]

Nice pictures and good tips.

[river_sand_bar2]

Great tip Chris...

 

Plus its NOT easy taking pictures when your DRIFT diving in Cozumel... you end up using half your air trying to stay in one place... kicking against the current.. miss the shot and its like.. "OPPS, now I have to swim back to get it.. puff puff puff" :)

[oceandiverchris]

Yea, Cozumel can be a challange when the currents are moving.

 

I have found a good place to take picture is El Cid La Ceiba at night. You will see some GREAT night life and no currents to deal with there. Crab, lobster, squid, Octopus, cuddle fish, and eel come out in the masses. Great photo opportunities.

 

You can get buy without a strobe at night if you have a good HID dive light. I keep the camera in one hand and a light canon 100 in the other and have taken excelent pictures at night. Its takes a little to get used to, but it works.

 

Hope Santa is good to you!!

[10X]

My wife uses the Canon A95, the precursor to the A620. They are very nice cameras and take great pictures. They are also very compact which makes for easy handling underwater. She uses hers while snorkeling since she has no interest in diving. But she takes some great snorkeling pictures.

[robtulipe]

Well, I would never tell my students this and I dont reccomend anyone do it, but I skip breath. I am still allowing VERY VERY tiny bubbles to escape, I'm just kind of postponing my next breath.

I believe the correct term is pulse breath, where you hold the current breath in your lungs while still keeping the air passage open to allow a little of the air to escape if you do go more shallow ( increased pressure in lungs allows very tiny bubbles to escape as mentioned above) to prevent damage to the lungs.This results in a longer time for oxygen transfer to and thus more oxygen in the blood from the same breath. You are using each breath more efficiently in a total loss open SCUBA set up ( not a rebreather ) thus can substantially increase your bottom time. It takes a little practice to get use to and you may have to increase your dive weights slightly as you tend to be more buoyant using this method.

For Cozumel drift dives hug , but don't hold on to, the bottom or go behind a corel head, etc. if possible as this will lessing the effect of the current. I know at times your sealife subjects or models will not co-operate with this strategy. Here is my favorite shot taken in Maui.

Question for river_sand_bar2, how do you post multiples of large resolution pictures as the attached feature seems to limit me as to the size of picture and # i want to post?

[bruce-r]

Question for river_sand_bar2, how do you post multiples of large resolution pictures as the attached feature seems to limit me as to the size of picture and # i want to post?

The answer is that he doesn't attach the photos, he links to them. They are from a gallery on http://www.scubaboard.com

[river_sand_bar2]

The pictures are loaded on Scubaboard.com and then linked to this website... east to do.

[jetskier]

Bruce,

Ever see the water green in Cozumel? We had a wicked storm blow in on us Nov 2nd.

Dave