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By JustAddWater, August 11, 2009 4:44 pm

Bu aralar dalışlarda çektiğim ufak videoları elden geçiriyorum. Bunlardan birini aşağıda bulabilirsiniz.

Çeşme / Yatak Adası 16 metre derinlik, el ile beyaz ayarı, baraküda taşından önceki son kovuk…

Cardinal Fish / Apogon imberbis

Namaste,

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By JustAddWater, April 29, 2009 5:41 am

Well, this is the fourth part of my review for the DX1200-HD. I have concluded 6 dives with this setup and now have a certain feeling of the camera. My best settings for photography are as follows:

Program Mode (P) with -1 EV correction since the camera tends to overexpose +1EV generally. ISO 100, normal sharpness, absolutely MANUAL WHITE BALANCE.

Speaking of manual white balancing, it is very easy to perform underwater (takes to press 3 buttons) and gives very good results. This photograph was taken at a depth of 68 feet in Cyprus, without strobes using a magic filter and manual white balancing. The wide angle converter lens was used as well. The photograph is not doctored in Photoshop or other software and is like this straight out of the camera.

White balancing is done by pressing the change button on the lower left, selecting the white balance mode and going to the funny icon on the left, after pressing ok, pressing the shutter button to measure white balance value and ok button to record it. It is good practice to change white balance if you change your depth by more than 6 feet.

Video mode is impressive as well, the same white balancing method works in the video mode too. The camera generates too much noise after ISO 400 and has focusing problems in low light, a focus light attached to the housing top helps fixing this problem. The close-up lens kit was not impressive as the wideangle, i had focusing problems with that and finding suitable subjects was a real challenge.

Due to enormous amounts of data being written during video shoots, a very fast SD-HC card is required, otherwise the recording is not successfull and shakes, stutters occur in the video. I have selected a SanDisk Ultra III of 8 GB capacity. A funny thing here is, the maximum single file size for a video file is 4GB so if you shoot continuously, an 8GB card will hold 2x4GB , thus two files. This causes some confusion in calculating the remaining storage space since the camera shows the remaining space in minutes and it tends to remain the same.

Ergo, this is a very capable camera for a beginner/intermediate underwater photographer and in my case a very nice second gear / back-up camera during diving to accompany my D300.

This concludes my humble review, which is available in four parts in this blog, if you read it and leave feedback somehow i would be glad.

f2.8 1/60th @ ISO 100 Manual WB + Magic Filter

Namaste,

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By JustAddWater, April 27, 2009 9:14 am

Bazı anlar olur ki hayatta gerçekten tekrarı yoktur. Gördün gördün göremedin .. avucunu yalarsın. Maalesef hayat böyle.

Bu kare sualtında gördüğüm o nadir anlardan birinden hırsızlandı. Fotoğrafın konusu olan ahtapot yani bildiğininz Octopus vulgaris.

Ama ne vulgaris ? Arkadaşımız bir kuzu büyüklüğünde, üstelik bir tane de değil tam iki taneler ve aile saadeti gereği bir takım türün devamı, soyun sürdürülmesi gibi işlerle meşguller. O sırada çıkıp geliveren kabarcıklı paparazzi sürüsü ambiyansı biraz bozuyor tabii. Neyse tabii derinlik 25 metre civarı olunca arkadaşların yanında geçirebileceğimiz süre de ona göre kısıtlı oluyor.

İlk başta kayanın başına çökmüş bunları seyreden iki dalıcının neredeyse regülatörler ağızlarından fırlayacaktı. Ben biraz aşağıdan yaklaştım ve iki taş arasından izlemek istedim ancak ahtapot ilgiden rahatsız olmuş ve köşeyi dönüvermişti. Kayanın üzerinden aşağı doğru süzülünce karşılaştık, açıkta olanı bir kuzu kadar büyüktü ve karşılaşmamız sırasında açıkta olmaktan pek de hoşnut olmamıştı doğal olarak.

Kendini ölçülü hareketlerle sol tarafa doğru attı, bu arada divemaster arkadaş çırpınıyor eliyle 2 işareti yaparak bir tane daha var diyordu. Gösterdiği 2. ahtapot yuvadaydı ve en az bunun kadar büyüktü. Derinliği de hesaba katarak video çekmeye karar verdim, 4 dakika kadar çekim yaptım. Arada iki ahtapot arasında gidip geliyor ikisini de kadraja almaya ve boyutları belli olsun diye kadraja bir dalıcı da eklemeye çalışıyordum.

Bu kare o çabalardan biri, arkadaki dalıcı ahtapotun gerçek boyu hakkında bir fikir verecektir size. Bu arada hala Kıbrıs ta dalmamış olanlarınız çok şey kaybediyor özellikle bahar aylarında. Hala dalmamış olanlara ise söyleyecek sözüm yok.

Sea & Sea DX1200-HD f2.8 1/70 @ISO100 Magic Filter

Namaste,

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By JustAddWater, April 12, 2009 12:21 pm

So the long wait is over, i had three dives with the DX1200-HD yesterday. The weather was cloudy, the sea was calm and cold (16 C) , i had to put on a full wet suit and a shorty on top of it

First the good news :

-The video capabilities are quite satisfactory. The compact size enabling easy handholding and shooting, auto w/b is very good and the wideangle lens has enough coverage.

-The battery survived 3 dives of totalling 90 minutes. Shooting over 20 minutes of video and some 76 photos.

-Used magic-filter and manual white balancing for most of the shots.

-The photographs and videos were shot not in the most favorable conditions, the light was very scarce especially during the 2nd and 3rd dives. White balancing underwater is very easy. The housing is very robust.

Now the bad news:

- ISO 400 has visible noise, ISO 800 is even worse and not to be tried.

- The power button can be mistaken as the shutter release especially in the heat of the moment, when you are shooting something very rare or interesting (a tribute to Murphy)

- Close-up lens is not easy to get used to, it is not easy to correctly focus.

The video that i have shot can be seen here. I have the feeling that with the magic filter and in shallow tropical waters this combination will be a bliss to use.

Namaste,

Photo : ISO 400 , F2.8 1/95 th sec, Multi Metering , Manual W/B

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By JustAddWater, April 10, 2009 11:12 am

Sea&Sea DX1200HD Review Part II

Although the review is somewhat dry due to the fact that it is still performed on land . I will be diving with this setup tomorrow hopefully. So until that time , these are the bits of information that i have gathered while fumbling with the camera and housing buttons and menus:

It is possible to install the battery incorrectly without noticing if you do not switch on the camera after installing the battery. This may be a very nasty surprise if you install the battery incorrectly, close the housing , dive and try to switch on the camera down 40 feet. Since battery performance is less than mediocre you may want to dive with the camera swithched off to save power.

I did mention that the battery performance is rather bad. I have managed to shoot 56 times with the flash on until the battery died and eventual shut down occured. The settings were 12MP Superfine Sea&Sea Mode. In video mode the performance is somewhat better provided that you do not use the zooming function too much.

The batteries are 3.7V 750Ah SANYO battery packs which are available everywhere, it is wise to have them handy. The price was in the range of 10$/pc.
Autofocus is a little bit difficult in low light situations until you get the hang of it, half pressing the shutter release to get a focus lock than composing the picture is a real challenge but can be done.

The close-up lens and wideangle lenses work quite fine which will be good thing during video shoots, you can switch from close-up to wideangle and wideangle to close-up at will.
I have decided to use the Sea & Sea mode and Program (P) mode during my dives. The first is merely to see what this mode is simply capable of and the latter for the greater control it gives in especially setting the ISO speed and White Balance.

Manually setting the White Balance is only possible in the P Mode, but is very very easy, you just switch to +/- change mode by pressing the required button on the lower left, fumble with the up/down buttons to find the WB selection , go to the rightmost choice whose icon resembles a rude and uncanny gesture and press OK. Find a surface on which you want to white balance and press the shutter release, press the OK to save the white balance value. This is it. When shooting with Magic Filters do not forget to change your WB setting every 2 meters.

ISO settings greater that 800 produce visible artifacts and noise which may be handled by software,so upto 800 ISO the setting is possible.
Camera tends to slightly overexpose so a compensation of -1 EV is recommended.

The third and final part of this review will hopefully be a wet one since i will test the camera on weekend during dives in video and photography modes. By that time i have to buy a SD card that works in HD video mode without problems. The 1 GB old cards that i have are only good for 10 minutes

Namaste,

NB : The photo attached to the post is taken in Cyprus 3 years ago with a Nikon D50 & 18-55 Kit lens.

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By JustAddWater, April 2, 2009 8:16 am

This will be my first blog post for the Sea & Sea DX1200 HD camera. I have purchased this set with the wideangle and close-up convertors to shoot 720p HD video underwater.

Normally i use a housed Nikon D300 for underwater photography and specific lenses for the dive. That is 105 or 60mm Micro Nikkors for the macro dives and 10.5mm fisheye for the wreck dives etc.

During those dives i usually suffered from being limited to the lens at hand having a turtle show up during a macro dive or finding a huge school of jacks, barracudas with a 60mm attached.

DX1200 HD is a very compact system certified upto 45mt depth with wideangle and close-up lenses that can be attached/detached underwater, providing the possibility to shoot macro and wideangle in the same dive. The camera is a relabelled Ukrainian ERGO digital, with 12MP packed for photography and 720p HD video at 30fps.

Sea&Sea usually uses Ricoh cameras for its compact range, thus the ERGO choice is somewhat a surprise in this regard. But the camera offers great bang for the buck at a price range of 600 $ for the body & housing.

So, having said all these i also have to say that there are not many reviews for this gear on the net. You can fish out some information at the scubaboard forums. I will test the housing underwater on April 12th in Çeşme in the exploration dives for a new wreck which will be a new artificial reef for the fish and other lifeforms (divers) to breed on

Underwater photos and experiences will constitute the second part of the review, bu i had some chance to try out the camera on land and here are the issues that i have faced in my trials and tribulations :

1. The camera supports SDHC cards upto 8GB capacity which is enough for an hour of 720p HD video at 30fps at the superfine resolution. Reducing this resolution to normal will increase the duration to 75 minutes. However, the SDHC card is very important here, when shooting video with a Toshiba 8GB SDHC card, the video jerked every 10 seconds and the on high quality settings the jerking was intolerable. I tried a normal Noname SD card and the video was flawless, thus, try before you buy for some cards are incompatible.
2. There is no manual mode in photography, you can use the program mode and apply some sort of exposure compensation between -2 and +2 EV with 0.5 EV steps, change the white balance and ISO settings.
3. Sea & Sea Mode is mainly for the underwater photography and arranges the white alance to compensate for the loss of colors.
4. Battery life is good for video and normal photography but as soon as you switch the strobe on the battery life decreases drastically. I would recommend to have 2 batteries and 3 SDHC cards for every trip since the battery will last only one dive and so as the SD card.
5. The strobe is fired without the fiber optic card in the macro mode with the accessory shoe arm, which can also support a small video light. I recommend to use the magic filter with this combo to travel lightly though.
6. The housing is very well designed , compact and provides access to all the necessary functions underwater, the red latch locking buttons are a little bit irritating since it is possible to press them accidentally underwater and flood the camera.
7. High ISO performance on land is acceptable, will review it underwater with the magic filter combination.
8. The thread on the close-up lens will probably provide some filters and future additions which is a good sign.

This is so far what i have seen, underwater performance and using tips will hopefully follow in the next posts after the dives.

Take care, Namaste.