Don't be put off by all the techie info!

[Durwin99]

Hi Wossa, I believe the Manta dive site you are referring to is "Lankan", short for "Lankanfinolhu" (otherwise known as Paradise Island) which is in North Male atoll, a little bit up from Male itself. There's a well-known Manta cleaning station there, I think south-east of the island itself - only good in the South-West Monsoon season though (May-Nov roughly). We also did this dive site several times when on the Sea Queen in 2004 with Matt & Anne-Marie as guides - my first holiday with the Canon S70!! Which I still use now... the shame. Planning a S95 purchase once I work out the options for FIX/RecSea housings here in England...

Your photos bring back very nice memories! I really like the colour reproduction, something I just can never achieve with my older camera but look forward to getting right very soon!
-Durwin

 

[Wossa]

Hi Durwin

Thanks for correcting me, especially with the full name of Lankanfinolhu.....always good to know the exact location. I am lucky enough to be going back in March as it was such a good trip !

Thanks for the positive feedback for my pictures!

Wossa

 

[mslise]

Fabulous photos and a great post. I've been using an old canon ixus for my underwater photos for years now and always felt like I 'should' start to use a more sophisticated set up, although I've been really happy with the results I got.
I'm now looking for a new set up (5 years of use = slow leaking of casing) and your post has encouraged me to just stick to a more point and shoot rig for what I need. And the s90/95 is definitely on the list. So thanks for sharing!

 

[Durwin99]

Wossa, I'll also be in the Maldives in March (its an annual pilgrimage!), tried to get on the Sea Queen but our pre-booked flights didn't fit with the boat's itineraries! You won't find Mantas at Lankan then, but they will be somewhere else... We are staying near the famous Hanifaru Manta site in Baa Atoll, unfortunately, again, totally the wrong time of year to see them there. One day, one day, we'll time it right...

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Lightroom is under $200. If you or your child are a teacher or student, you can take advantage of the educational discounts offered by Adobe. I use Photoshop, but, it IS expensive and Lightroom is a good choice as well.

Love Lightroom. I hardly ever edit in Photoshop any more. In fact PS has become a mere plug-in for Lightroom. Beyond the powerful yet totally non-destructive image editing in LR is the DAM.

Sealed Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 MAC/PC 2PCS UK Boxed - eBay (item 370433910841 end time Jan-15-11 13:47:08 PST)

A new full version of Photoshop is expensive; a new version of Photoshop Elements is ~ the same as a new single student Lightroom; a not new Elements can be found for <$50 US. The above link is a pretty good price for a 2 computer student version of Lightroom 3 in your Islands. (~$120 US)

I use Elements 4 that I got a year ago off eBay for $20 US, shipped. Elements 4 and newer (now up to 9) process raw images. I use the FREE Adobe DNG Converter software to download raw images from card/camera to my computer, then import the .dng images into Elements for editing.

I am always confused/entertained by the chest thumping of Lightroom users over the "non-destructive" nonsense. :shocked2:

In any version of Photoshop there is a history pallet and during an edit session the original image is always available to return to. The default settings of E4 saves 50 changes but you can change that to as many as 1000 changes saved.

If I make a bunch of changes and then save/close as a .dng then I have changed my original, but to open the image I would again have to go through the .dng import process, so saving edited images as dng's is just silly.

If I chose to save the image as .psd (photoshop document) I can chose to save the image with all the "history" included, or I can just save the final version as .psd or .tif, which do not require the import process that raw and .dng require. By never saving as .dng my original is never changed.

For a final/final, for picture disc, prints or web, I save in .jpg.

OK, end of rant; I use $20 of Adobe software to edit raw images. I have been organizing my own images in dated folders for over a decade so I have little use for a >$100 organizer. If you have never used Photoshop and you have >$100 to splurge on an organizer Lightroom is a valid option.

 

[bvanant]

The joy of non-destructive editing is not simply that you can undo edits, but that you can not change the original. In PS or Elements or any other linear editing program, you can indeed change the original (which is why most professional PS guys tell you to only edit copies). Once you make the change and save it, the original is not easy to get back. Maybe you have never made a change that you wished you hadn't but many folks have.

Your workflow clearly works for you, but how quickly can you find all of your nudibranch pics in your 10 years of dated folders say. A lot depends on what you want to do with your pics and if you have 100K images (as you most likely do) and they are only sorted by date you must have a really enormously good memory (I certainly don't) to be able to find a given picture quickly. With LR or Aperture or any other keyworded organizer that is a whole lot easier. Compared to the price of cameras/housings/lenses/computers/dive gear and dive trips software is quite cheap.
Bill

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Rather than work on "copies" I was just trained to NOT use "Save" but instead use "Save As" and for the most part I only "Save As" .psd, .tif or .jpg; the last two then ask for PC/Mac Formatting or Quality, so I would have to click OK twice and then close to lose an original that is .tif or .jpg. I only shoot raw underwater.

Just ran a check and my Elements 4 does not have a "Save As" option for saving as .dng or any camera's raw, so by never using "Save" there is no way I can change my raw/dng originals.

Yes I likely have more than 100K raw or .dng image files, but many are on the unresponsive Windows hard drives from before I went Mac only. LR will not help me there.

....

If you have never used Photoshop and you have >$100 to splurge on an organizer Lightroom is a valid option.

I am one of those who is not really that worried about the majority of my past images. There are really only a few hundred that are super special and I know where they are.

I am in the process of dropping probably more than $2K on new underwater hardware; $200 each just for the Fix lens Mounts. Software is low on this poor dive pro's priority list. Not knowing other members and lurkers financial situation, I just bring up less than $50 options for others considerations.

 

[Wossa]

Thanks mslise....I love my S90/95, easy camera to use that produces good pictures...for me personally I think the larger pro rigs are awesome (once you know what your doing) , but such a pain in the ass to take abroad and just ridicoulsy expensive.

Durwin99....I am going on the Sea Spirit this time as the Sea Queen was sold out when I come to book. Have a great trip, and I hope you get to post some of your pictures on here ?

 

[bvanant]

Halemano:
Have you played with GIMP. Totally free and some folks love it, but it isn't for me.
We all appreciate trying to save money but sometimes time is more limited so getting something that is fast and easy makes more sense.
Bill

 

[terrylowe]

Wossa, LOVED your pics! I'm jealous!