G9 in Turks and Caicos

[Mel Moncrieff]

Hi Everyone:

I just got back from a fabulous week in the Turks and Caicos aboard the T&C Explorer liveaboard dive boat. Can't say enough good things about the boat, the crew, and most importantly, the diving!! Vis of 100+, curious reef sharks on over 1/2 the dives, and all the small and big stuff we were hoping for, including turtles, stingrays, spotted eagle rays, etc. Best dive trip I've done in the Caribbean. For photography, I used a Canon G9 with dual Ikelite DS125 strobes. For most shots I had the camera on manual with a shutter speed of 1/80 and controlled exposure with the aperture and strobe power. Here's a link to the photos: turks_caicos_explorer Photo Gallery by Mel Moncrieff at pbase.com

All the best,

Mel

 

[scubapatton]

I have the same camera, but not the strobes.. great job. Love the porcupine puffers coming at the camera.

 

[Mel Moncrieff]

Thanks, I see you've been to the Phillipines--any recommendations?

Mel

 

[Mayor]

Great pictures! My wife and I are going there in May.

 

[Mel Moncrieff]

Be sure to dive the "G Spot" so called because it is "hard to find, but well worth it

Great pictures! My wife and I are going there in May.

 

[Jorgy]

Great pics, I am just learning to shoot my G9. When you go to the photo gallery and it says........

Hawksbill Turtle, Canon PowerShot G9 1/80s f/5.6 at 9.9mm iso100 full exif

What does the "at 9.9mm" mean? Is that where the zoom is?

You have very little backscatter is that just great strobe technique or are you doing post-dive processing? If post-dive processing, what software, if I might ask?

Thanks.......M

BTW.....We seem to have a very nomadic pair of fish, from Curacao in December....

 

[Mel Moncrieff]

Nice shot, love to shoot fish as pairs. 9.9mm is the zoom, yes. I have to do post-dive processing to get rid of backscatter--I use the spot healing brush in Photoshop CS3--just click it on the spots. Curacao is high on my list of places to go to--any recommendations?

Mel

 

[Jorgy]

Thanks........

We are a family of 4, ages 13 and up, all divers. I travel a ton for work, so when we go on vacation we prefer very quiet, slow places where we can hang-out as a family.......not big eaters, drinkers, partiers, shoppers, etc.....

We were at Sunset Waters, it was an affordable all-inclusive with six days of boat diving included in the package. SW was perfect for us, just what we wanted. The resort itself is a little tired and fairly basic (OK really basic), service was great, staff was friendly, they had a free shuttle to Willemstad, we went for just one afternoon....wouldn't do that again as three cruise ships were in port that day.......

The SW Dive Shop was superb, we arrived 3 hours late and Dave from the shop met us at 8:00 pm when we were finally checking in (he had waited since 5) to see if we needed rental gear and confirm we would be diving in the morning.....they have 2 boats and serve the northwest dive sites, which was perfect for us......that being said there a lot of dive sites we didn't hit that sound great, Suzy from the Dive Bus recently had a great post on SB or check-out......

The Dive Bus - HOME

Our favorite dive sites were Mushroom Forest, Radio City, Watamula and Porto Mari. Overall, we all agreed the diving was great........lots to see and little current, except Watamula, which was a drift.....

On the plane flying home, we always do the secret thumbs up/down vote and Curacao/SW scored a perfect 4 thumbs up......or maybe it was just the Air Jamaica champagne service........

Hope this helps.........M

Only bad thing was lots of bug bites..........

 

[Mel Moncrieff]

Thanks a lot Jorgy--sounds just like what I'm looking for. I've heard SW is great.
Great shot of the clownfish.

Mel

 

[scubapatton]

Mel,

I dove Borocay int he Philippines around 13 years ago. A friend is going there later this month I think. so I can ask where he goes if interested in knowing more.

I have CS2, but I found out recently that CS3 has support for the G9 raw (while CS2 does not).. go figure...