New Guadeloupe Great White Gallery

Hello,

I've posted a gallery for the first time using Flickr - pretty easy. The pictures were taken Oct.16-20th, 2006 on the Ocean Odyssey to Guadeloupe. I used a D200 housed in an Ikelite housing with a 17-35mm lens behind the 8-inch dome. Some were shot with a single DS-125. I'm hoping to repeat the trip again next year. Seeing these animals close up was one of the highlights of my underwater experience.

http://flickr.com/photos/24559804@N00/sets...57594351193023/

Thanks for looking

John

That's a great gallery with some very impressive shots. Thanks for sharing!

Luiz

Spectacular images John.

Thanks for the kind words!

John

great stuff John

what did you think of the new camera?

how about your lens choice with the 17-35? wide enough on the 17 side for the whities on most occasions?

Mike,

I'm pretty happy so far with the D-200. The only thing I have to compare it to is the S2 which I shot the past 3 years. The autofocus is much better and the viewfinder and LCD kicks butt. I used it topside in Alaska on a cruise last month. The gallery is in the same Flickr site. I don't know if you remember my wife Sarah from the Tahiti Aggressor but she says hi. Pictures of her and our new baby who turned 1 yr on the cruise are in the alaska shots. I've got some pretty funny pictures of you I should post!

The 17-35 worked well. I didn't have the right zoom gear due to my procrastination and shot everything at either 28mm or 24mm. Only 2 shots in the gallery are cropped at all. With the zoom working I think it would have been ideal. We got pretty lucky with the shark though. A friend was shooting a D200 with a 12-24mm the whole time and got great full frame shots. One was a whole body that filled the frame at 12mm. Very impressive. I would have thought it wouldn't have had enough reach but not so on this particular trip. If I do the trip again, I'll definitely use the 17-35 again (wish the 17-55DX was less).

To answer your question after all the babble - I thought the 17-35 was wide enough!

John

John,

Absolutely stunning shots. You had nice clear water without lots of bait pieces and the shark came in close. Guess it was worth getting skunked the first two days.

Terry

uh oh!! funny pics of me... scary...

great alaska shots too! and of course i remember Sarah, say hello to her for me as well.

great that you two could take the baby on a cruise at that age!

Some great shots John. Love the real close-up shot.

My wife wants to do the Alaska cruise but I keep resisting right now. Definately something to do just want to go diving right now. She may win this discussion though.

Cheers

Todd

Some great shots John. Love the real close-up shot.

 

My wife wants to do the Alaska cruise but I keep resisting right now. Definately something to do just want to go diving right now. She may win this discussion though.

 

Cheers

 

Todd

Hey Todd,

If you had asked me about an Alaska cruise a year ago I would've laughed and said I wasn't in my 70s yet.

We planned it about a year ago when the baby was born. We're avid hardcore travellers and tried to think of somewhere and something that we felt was baby safe - we weren't going to "not travel" like everyone said with the baby! I also had to pick a place where I wasn't going to feel dissapointed if I missed diving. Little did I know at the time that there is a dive operation in Ketchikan. ChrisM did it about a month prior to our trip.

I ended up having a great time on the cruise. I've never been north of the Canadian border before and thought the scenery was amazing. Makes me want to do Port Hardy. We had a Junior Suite which was huge for little more money than a standard balcony room. The balcony was great - most of my pictures of the Hubbard Glacier and Inside Passage were from the balcony. We just left the sliding door open and the baby just crawled in and out at his leisure. Great playgroups for kids - even had 4 other kids all around a year old that I went to each morning. Other than the playgroups, we took him whale watching, on a rain forest hike where we saw black bears, and to the Mendenhaal Glacier hike. Pretty cool stuff. Like I said, ChrisM went on a similar family trip the month before and admitted he had a good time complete with Bingo!

I'm biding my time until our Son turns 4 years and we can do the Aggressor family weeks or the Kidsseacamp which looks pretty cool.

Richorn laughed at me last year and said my diving trips were over. Never!!!!!

John

You will love Port Hardy. Most likely you went right by all the dive sites on your cruise past. We see a bunch of the ships while we are up diving.

I have a 4 1/2 year old and a 3 year old so we too are looking forward to family frienly diving options. That said my wife has been understanding as the grandparents are good for babysitting once a year. I get away a little bit more than that. ; )

The room advice sounds good too.

Cheers

Todd