Thanks for the compliments.
For the over/unders I was shooting the D200, Aquatica w/9.5 dome, the Tokina 10-17mm and no diopters. Shooting on the vertical I shot autofocus and would put the "focus spot" (???) underwater. I shoot manual only and was told you should expose for the surface and use your strobes to light the underwater subjects. We spent 2 dives/snorkels trying this. Some of my shots the surface is blown out because one of my strobes died and I could not get enough light on the subject. Also learned you need to have a large underwater subject to fill the lower half of the frame, cardinals just don't cut it. I was no more than 2 feet away from them but they look tiny.
Will do a more detailed trip report but we went out with Peter Hughes on their new boat the Paradise Dancer. Boat is HUGE, incredible, and the cabins would be master suites on any other boat. The crew was fantastic. Food good to very good. The diving is really amazing. That said a few issues.
1. The boat is all wood and new so they are still working out issues. When it rained hard our cabin and one other sprang leaks from the ceiling, ours had over a dozen. Only two hit the bed and the crew as on it. By the end of the trip they had it down to ½ dozen but this needs to be resolved.
2. This boat takes up to 20 divers split between to pangas. Being new to this area they are still learning the sites. They would drop both pangas at opposite ends of a site and work our way to the opposite end, bad plan. You always ended up with 18-20 people in one place halfway thru the dive. This is an area where it is good to keep up with the guides as they can find the pygmy seahorses, etc? I spoke with the Dive Masters about this. IMHO they need to have two dive masters per panga, they need to send each panga to a different site. Then drop groups of 4-5 at each end of the site. I think this will come to pass with time.
Since this thread is getting long I'll post some more photos in a new post.
For the over/unders I was shooting the D200, Aquatica w/9.5 dome, the Tokina 10-17mm and no diopters. Shooting on the vertical I shot autofocus and would put the "focus spot" (???) underwater. I shoot manual only and was told you should expose for the surface and use your strobes to light the underwater subjects. We spent 2 dives/snorkels trying this. Some of my shots the surface is blown out because one of my strobes died and I could not get enough light on the subject. Also learned you need to have a large underwater subject to fill the lower half of the frame, cardinals just don't cut it. I was no more than 2 feet away from them but they look tiny.
Will do a more detailed trip report but we went out with Peter Hughes on their new boat the Paradise Dancer. Boat is HUGE, incredible, and the cabins would be master suites on any other boat. The crew was fantastic. Food good to very good. The diving is really amazing. That said a few issues.
1. The boat is all wood and new so they are still working out issues. When it rained hard our cabin and one other sprang leaks from the ceiling, ours had over a dozen. Only two hit the bed and the crew as on it. By the end of the trip they had it down to ½ dozen but this needs to be resolved.
2. This boat takes up to 20 divers split between to pangas. Being new to this area they are still learning the sites. They would drop both pangas at opposite ends of a site and work our way to the opposite end, bad plan. You always ended up with 18-20 people in one place halfway thru the dive. This is an area where it is good to keep up with the guides as they can find the pygmy seahorses, etc? I spoke with the Dive Masters about this. IMHO they need to have two dive masters per panga, they need to send each panga to a different site. Then drop groups of 4-5 at each end of the site. I think this will come to pass with time.
Since this thread is getting long I'll post some more photos in a new post.
