Tips & Questions

[louholmes]

I just got a Canon G11 with the Ikelite housing, an Ikelite DS160 strobe, and sync cable. This in itself is a major expense and now I need a low cost case suitable for vacation travel and would like some suggestions.

I'm also planning my next trip with my family this summer at the Beaches Resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. When "Googling" dive operators in Jamaica I come up with "most resorts have dive operations". So this means that I will probably be stuck on a crowded dive boat with mostly non-picture taking divers, meaning that I might not have enough time to be creative or to compose photos. Although I have read on the forums tips, I'm going to ask again. I'm leaning for using the modeling light to aid in auto focus, set the camera to ISO 80 and go with TTL for flash for most shots and for wide shots not to worry much about color correction and adjust it later with software.

For taking pics in RAW mode how much memory should I buy for about a week of diving and is there anything better and free or low cost the then software that came with the camera?

 

[bvanant]

For a case, we use ThinkTank backpacks that will hold the camera, housing, strobes etc. They are not cheap however. For cheap, get an old Samsonite hard case (49 or so) and add some foam rubber to hold your gear. Can't help you with the resorts but for your info, I think the G11 will shoot about 500 pics with an 8 mb card. 8MB SD cards cost $18 or so at Newegg so I would take one for each day of diving so I would get 6 ($100). You can get cheaper cards on ebay ($9) but they might not be fast enough if you start shooting video. For software, I always recommend lightroom but for free you might try Picasa from Google. Does lots of what you might need.

Bill

 

[Divernoob]

Seahorse cases are inexpensive and readily available on Amazon. Mine's carry on size and it was just under $60.00 shipped.

I get all my SD cards at Microcenter. There's one locally for me, but they have a website, too. Their cheapo brand is fine for shooting video (at least with my S90).

I use Irfanview for editing. It free, but it has a somewhat cumbersome cropping mechansim. For cropping, I just use the Micrsoft picture viewer that came with Vista.

 

[louholmes]

Thanks for the replies to bvanant and Divernoob.

I researched your replies before I replied and all the info very helpfull. I like the Seahorse cases from what I have seen. They are very similar to Pelican and and other hard waterproof cases. If I get one I am thinking of getting it without any foam and filling it with any packing material that I come across - plastic bags filled with styro peanuts, or scraps of foam from a local foam shop. There is also a local Microcenter where I live also. Their online add has 8GB cards for $16.99

 

[Bubbletrubble]

For SDHC cards, I would highly recommend getting a Class 6 or better card (Class 4 might be OK) from a well-known manufacturer (Sandisk, Crucial, Lexar, Kingston). I have also had good luck with the Patriot, OCZ, and Transcend brands. Check out the Newegg.com website for reviews of various cards.

 

[Nemrod]

I would avoid Jamaica, there are many better places to visit. N

 

[louholmes]

I agree with you Nemrod. Last summer was also a family vacation. I traveled with my wife, a non-swimmer and my now 9 year old daughter. We stayed at the all-inclusive Beaches Resort in Turks & Caicos and I had some great dives with Caicos Adventures on the west side of West Caicos. I even considered going back there, but rates have gone up and the accomodations I was looking for was sold out, so I opted for a more economical all-inclusive in Jamaica. I may be sorry about this choice for now and hopping next year will be better