Canon
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II.
This camera is the latest professional grade Canon digital camera and my latest, and last splurge, for some time. It is basically the same camera as a the older EOS-1D MKII only the Ds sports over a 16 mega pixel full frame sensor. This camera was flawless from day one. I also found that my Canon 100mm macro lens focused much better with this body. Very few times did I have to manually override the focus.
All photos started out as over 16mb files and processed down from that. As usual, I am still assessing what work flow works best.
All the pictures in the gallery bellow were photographed with 8 mega pixel Mark II. The underwater housing used was manufactured by Seacam. I cannot say enough good things about this camera and housing. While I had some minor technical difficulties with the camera focusing (it needed to be sent back to Canon to be calibrated), the housing has been flawless. I highly recommend both.
All of the photos started out as large (8.5mb) raw files and were downsized considerably (100-200k) to fit efficiently on the server. Naturally, the quality of the photos were compromised. I am still assessing which processing technique works best, so please bear with me.
Olympus
All the pictures in this gallery were taken with a Olympus E-20. The housing used was manufactured by Light and Motion. This was a frustrating set up at most times for me. It was especially plagued with a lot of problems when I first got it. Many times on any given dive I could be seen shaking it in frustration for it would just lock up; indeed, the housing had to be sent back a few times for various repairs. It is possible that I did get a "lemon." The ROC controllers on the housing worked great when the electronics weren't fried. I do miss this innovation. Many people are quite happy with most of Light and Motion products and I would seriously consider a light and motion video housings if I was in the market. I would not, however, recommend buying a new E-20/Titan set up.
All pictures started out as 3-4mb jpegs. Many of the underwater photos have been heavily processed. Some of this is due inexperience on my part and some is due to flash problems, or lack there of, I encountered with the set up. Just as the Canon photos, these pictures were also down sized to fit the server.
This site was last updated 07/09/07