bvanant

Here is a nice little squid we saw on a black water dive in Komodo on the Samambaia. If anyone has an ID we would love to know. thanks Bill

Great shot Dave. We see them quite a bit at Farnsworth, a friend touched one (but only once). Bill

My rule of thumb for one generation old stuff is something like 80 to 85% of new. For strobes and stuff more than a generation old, something like 50 to 60%. Bill

looks kind like a cross between a tiger and great white. From the perspective of users of images, I am not sure they really care. If you look at most TV advertisements for new cars, most if not all are renderings, rather than actual footage. If I were looking for a pic for an ad needing a shark, why not use an AI one if it were significantly cheaper/better. Advertisers don't owe UW photographers anything, they are trying to sell something. Magazines and websites are an entirely different story. We make medical devices and clearly use stock photos of people that we pretend are real patients but never claim that they are. So a lot depends on the end use. Bill

Just let me know and 1 or 2 addresses to ship to. Last time I did this a guy ordered 10m. To me in LA it was $75 + 7 shipping. Adding a $9 shipping to Europe it came out to $9 per meter. Remember that the $7.50 per meter does not include their shipping to me, it is a bit more. Bill

Hollywood divers rents a ton of gear, much of it to the local film industry. Bluewater photo MIGHT have some rental gear, but Hollywood is kind of the go to place to rent in So Cal. Bill

I have made cables from single core Asahi 1mm core and 1.5 mm core. Also with 217 and 613 multi-cores. The 1.5 mm core could trigger the MF-2 in RC mode (for blackwater) as could the 217 and 613 core fibers. The 1 mm core mostly didn't trigger in RC mode but was fine for manual (AOI LED trigger). There is no IFO cable they are a distributor. The fiber is made by Asahi, digikey is famous for putting a variety of names on commodity stuff. Let me know. I am leaving for Komodo on the 7th so it will have to be after that, back Sept. 8 BVA

There are a couple of ways to do this. 1. I will pay for the fiber and postage to a single or maximum 2 European/UK address(es) and get reimbursed by someone. 2. Someone in the EU/UK buys the cable and has it shipped to me. I will then ship ($20ish) to Europe/UK and get reimbursed for the shipping by someone. Let me know [email protected]

If you want to put together an order for say 20 meters, I will be happy to ship it to anyone via USPS. I have done this for individuals in Europe before. BVA

We saw the exhibit in Edinburgh last spring. Loved the horseshoe crabs. In Edinburgh though the photos were on digital displays, not prints. Bill

I suspect that most arms will work as well as any other, perhaps the anodization will be less robust, but for clamps I have a bunch of ULCS clamps now more than 15 years old and always perfect. I did get some cheap ALI clamps that were terrible, the edges were so sharp that they scratched the balls and cut the orings and didn't hold unless they were really tightened down. Bill

Diet coke is better in the sense that there is no possibility of residual sugar sticking around. BVA

Yet another vote for MFT. I have shot MFT for a long time now (Olympus OM-D EM-1, through the new OM-1 mark II). All the macro lenses (30, 45, 60 and 90) and the 7-14. I am using the AOI housing after using Nauticam for a long time and then Isotta. I don't believe there are photos that I could have gotten with the Nauticam/Isotta that I couldn't get with the AOI. Built in LED trigger and vacuum system and ports that support the lenses. In the long run (as my wife tells me) really no one cares about my or anyone's photos very much and I shoot mostly for myself. The choice of AOI was more about trying something new rather than money (at 250 dives/year x 3 years the price difference is like $3 per dive). There is now an Isotta for the OM-1 series (they didn't have it when I bought the AOI) so that might be a good option. Bill (www.blueviews.net)

We are wanting to donate 3 complete Bluefin Pro housings for the Sony CX550 cameras to some organization that could use them. The housings are all working and they have the flip macro adapter. In addition there a ton of other spare parts, two fathoms wide angle ports, and an adapter for the OLD Inon insect eye lens (we will throw that in if you are interested. You pay the shipping and you will have three great systems for students or beginners to play with. For an example of what the camera/housings can do please see the early videos on our website www.blueviews.net. Contact me at [email protected] Cheers

The o-ring store has a tool (https://www.theoringstore.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=345) called Olypsys that lets you measure unknown o-rings pretty accurately. A good digital caliper (english or metric) will get you cross section pretty well. Also remember that not all o-rings from Japanese companies are metric sizes, many are JIS. Cheers, Bill

If you can get a space we really like the Samambaia or the Damai, great boats and great crew. We like Komodo later in the year (we did Christmas and New Year on the Komodo last year) and it was great, mostly warm and clear. Bill

2-209 o-rings in buna are like 10 cents and in silicone are like 25 cents. I like softer o-rings for positional stability and change them once a year (when I remember). The only exception to the size is the XIT 404 versions, they use a different size (and different sizes for different XIT balls bill

We did a couple of weeks at Sorido Bay, diving was excellent and the house reef had some very cool stuff on it. Highly recommended. The other place that is excellent is Misool Eco resort, beautiful place but booking is kind of like a liveaboard, only select dates to come and go. Bill

A lot depends on what part of the CI you want to visit. Our favorite is San Miguel the northernmost and furthest out (and hardest to get to). Catalina is the easiest to get to and is a place you can stay on land but to me it has the least interesting diving (at least for macro things unless you can get to the backside and go to Farnsworth (awesome). For overnight trips, your choices are the Bottom Scratcher from San Pedro, the Peace and Truth boats from Ventura. For day boat diving we highly recommend the Giant Stride from San Pedro and the Spectre from Ventura. Check with local dive shops (Hollywood, Zen, Pacific Wilderness, In2Deep etc.) for trips. For a taste of local diving check out https://www.blueviews.net/Videos/local-socal.html particularly the Channel Islands on the Vision for a taste of San Miguel. null Let me know when you are coming perhaps we can help arrange some diving for you. Attached is a nice local nudi (Ancula) from a Giant Stride dive last week.

For sale is a complete ready to dive Canon 7D system in Nauticam housing. Nauticam Housing (1), with leak detection and pump. Nauticam Dome Port( 4 inch) for Wide Angle (1) Nauticam port for 60mm lens (1) Nauticam port for 100mm lens (1) Nauticam SMC-1 (1) Nauticam 45 degree viewfinder (1) Canon 7D Mark 1 camera body Tokina AT-X , 10 -17 mm lens, for Canon.(1) Canon EF-S 60mm F/2.8 macro USM lens (1) Canon Macro lens EF 100 mm 1:2.8 IS USM (1) Inon D - 2000 Strobes (2) Canon batteries ( 2) and charger. Ball mounts for strobes Cables for strobes Various Orings and miscellaneous port caps and other bits and pieces , Oring grease etc New, this was awesome and expensive. Altogether, ready to dive Price is $3500 US. The system is in Australia and will ship from there. You pay the shipping. Great system for someone getting into UW photography. I don't want to piece it out. Note this is for a camera, three lenses (100, 60, 10-17) and Nauticam housing with ports for all of the lenses. Bill

splitters exist for topside FO work. Here is a $13 1-8. Fiberone makes a 1x2. We use some more expensive ones in our lab to run spectrometers.

nice as always Jack

Fantastic book, now like $28 from Amazon. bill

I wonder if it has the same dimensions, i.e., fit in the same housings. Otherwise not so clear how much an upgrade it it over the OM-1. Bill