The new Olympus PT-E06 housing is now shipping for the (also new) E-620 DSLR. Features are identical to the PT-E05 with a few controls moved. Includes cam-lock closure, dual rear o-rings, slide out mounting tray, etc. Dual optical sync ports along with one Olympus hard-wired bulkhead. Previous Olympus ports are compatible. 40 meter/140' depth rating.

I also tested it's fit on the Sea & Sea RDX Grip Stay-L Tray. Olympus doesn't have a decent 2 handle solution (or certainly one that is available in the US). It fits very well with lots of room for adjustment. (On the photos I've moved the handles in quite a bit.) Although it is expensive (MSRP $335) it does have a quick release that's a very nice feature. It's about 2.5#, and I believe that it will make the Oly system a bit negative, but not more than a pound or so. I've added Optical Ocean Sales Ball to Base adapters, the tray only comes with the standard S&S slide-on mounts.

Dusted off the fins and got back into the water today.

Jim and Stan met me under cloudy and wet skies. However the rain held off enough for us to get into the water, with even a trace of light from the sun.

After taking off an ACB weight pouch packet to get it sewed, I managed to leave it at Fisheries Supply last night. So I went with one pouch and stuck 10# of weight in my drysuit pocket. Not very comfortable, but enough to get me down.

We swam out and dropped down. I saw Jim for a bit and then he was gone. Stan apparently aborted due to a suit leak, and after Jim checked on him he couldn't find me. I was shooting some of the 3/4" red flabelina nudis I seem to find there. It's funny I never see any larger ones, just the itty bitty ones. But good foil for the 50mm macro on my demo Oly E520 rig.

I shot them, some fairly large golden dironas and a painted greenling hiding under an anemone, along with some other critters. Very few fish around at all. I was also shooting some environmental shots of eelgrass for a state job I'm working on. Not a real exciting dive, but it sure was great to be back in the water.

The Olympus E520 shot pretty well, with the UFL-2 strobe's TTL pretty well spot on in exposure. The light was a bit contrasty as I didn't have a diffuser supplied.

The Live View was very slow to shoot, almost unusable, and I reverted to using the viewfinder. That worked fine. My only other complaint is that the strap on the right side is a bit small for dry glove use, need to be longer. The rig overall was very light, easy-to-use and nice to handle compared to my Nikon D80, but the D80 is much more responsive with a relatively huge viewfinder. Not a fair comparison, as the Oly E520 is about 1/3 less expensive. They are coming out with a new model, the E620 in a couple of months that is more responsive and more of a mid-range camera. I also shot with one of the Big Blue 1x5AF focus lights and it was great, nice wide, even beam, with good brightness.

I thought the 50mm macro was ok, certainly sharp, a bit slow on auto focus, even against my older 60 Nikor without an AFS lens motor. But with a little use, I got accustomed to it. I used the S-AF-M setting and could auto focus then dial in manual focus, without missing a beat, no switches needed and the setting can be changed with a push of the button.

Olympus Imaging has recently reved it's 2009 Stylus lineup with new rebranded "Tough" cameras and now the new PT-045 and PT-047 housings.

The T-8000 now sports 12MP, with the T-6000 at 10MP. Both cameras are practically indestructible feature a shock, crush, freeze and water-proof design. The T-6000 is depth-rated to 10' and the T-8000 to 33'. Both have a great 3.6x lens with a 35mm equivalent of 28-102mm and dual image stabilization for blur-free photos, first seen on the 1030sw. Built-in macro can shoot down to .8 of an inch. New is a "Tap" control where you can access certain camera features simply by tapping the side of the camera case, even with gloves on.

Besides their durability and depth rating, what makes these cameras ideal for underwater photographers is their four built-in underwater settings to adjust the camera for different types of shots. These include Underwater Snapshot, Wideangle 1 & 2, and Macro. This is great for new users to capture different shots right out of the box. More advanced users will enjoy Programmed Auto and other modes. Much more information is available from Olympus.

As nice as these upgraded cameras are, what makes their release for underwater photographers even better are the sexy new black housings the PT-045 (T-8000) and PT-47 (T-6000). Olympus has copied features from their run-away best-selling PT-EO5 housing for the Olympus E-520 DSLR camera and brought them to point and shoot simplicity.

Features of both the PT-045 and PT-047 housings are nearly identical.

New is a locked twist cam closure, that along with simple drop-in alignment, makes this a plug and play housing, no trays, screws or other internal mounting is necessary.

But the black isn't just there for looks, divers that use an external strobe have for years blocked off all the light coming from the camera's flash, except for a small area where a fiber optic sync cord is mounted to fire an external strobe. The trend today is for manufacturers to include a plug-in port for an optical sync cord on many DSLRs. Olympus now extends that idea with a black slide-in plug mount that replaces the strobe diffuser. The plug fits the standard Olympus, Sea & Sea, Fantasea and other plug-in cords.

Other intelligent features of the Olympus housings include a "hotshoe" style mount for a small strobe or focus light and ranked, labeled, camera controls that are separated both by position and height, so that use with gloves is much easier. Ports have 55mm screw-in threads and accept external wide and macro angle lenses from Fantasea and others.

The cameras and housings are available separately or in bundles together.

Besides the above cameras, Olympus also released the value-priced PT-046 housing for the new FE-3010.

We've been spotting these guys now again this summer. They are rare to see and very shy, usually hiding away deep in a nook or cranny. They seem to like the wood pilings at Seacrest Park, our local after work divesite here in Seattle and do tend to come out a bit at night.

A few weeks ago, while testing my drysuit (and without camera, of course) we found 5 of them on one log!
I had to go back with my camera and see if I could hunt them down. There is one very large Warbonnet, maybe 12-15' (and they are only supposed to get to 10") at the end of the log. I call him "Big Daddy". Then there are usually a few smaller ones around. I found Big Daddy ok, and he was playing his usual games of diving into the interior of the log. But as I was swimming away, I saw another freely swimming down the log. But quickly lost it (her?) in the growth. I swam around for a while hoping they'd poke out again and searching the log I found it amongst the tunicates, sponge and anemones.

Having a clear go, I cranked off a huge amount of shots, as the D80 and z240 strobes can shoot very quickly. Shot with/without my woody diopter and between f/14-f/16 at 100th sec.

I was quite pleased with the results and on the way back almost missed one of the largest octopus I've ever seen. Apparently there are 3 of them hanging around, keeping the crab population in check. Macro to wide angle; Seacrest is an amazing site.

I spent the day with my friend Dave Hancock, aka "DiveAlert Dave" out on his boat on Sunday. We went to Lopez Island in the San Juans, north of Seattle to dive a couple of sites.

Long Island is a high current area and has lots of color and life. We also dove a nearby rock off the south end of Lopez Island that turned out to be pretty good, once we found the sweet spot. Weather and seas were calm after a huge storm the day before.

Shot with Nikon D80 Sigma 17-70 and Nikon 60mm macro, a Woody at times and 2x Inon 240z.

Four of us went out on my friend Doc Kay's boat yesterday. The goal was to get Denise comfortable and the Carl Baird & I more comfortable with our new DUI suits. Doc was also fiddling with new equipment configurations, or course, what else is new? ;-)

The day was perfect for diving, a bit overcast to keep the heat down with just a bit of a northerly blowing. We got through the locks after a dog & man overboard incident (guy was letting his dog pee and fell off from another boat..!). We headed north to Boeing Creek and motored around to find the slope of the reef (we thought) and dropped anchor with little current showing.

Denise and I dropped in and went down a stern anchor to 30'. She had no problems clearing and seemed to do well. We swam out west thinking to find the reef, but after a circle I decided we'd missed it and after swimming quite a ways north we found it's edge. Carl found it ok as well.

The water was very clear, viz about 35'+ and the reef teamed with life. Lots of fish, and I was very excited to see a huge school of black rockfish going all the way to the surface. A few browns and olives as well. Most were smaller, obviously coming of age since the recent order protecting them in Puget Sound. There were a few larger Quilbacks and Canaries as well as an assortment of lings, C-O sole, even one larger Cabazon. Nudibranchs and other small invertebrates dotted the rocks along with kelp and plumose. The reef in such clear conditions was really beautiful.

Denise did quite well, seeming to be comfortable, until she got a bad leg cramp. So I helped her back up the slope and back to the boat, then continued my dive. I dropped down the anchor to find the scooter tied off, Doc was going to use it, but it seemed inoperable. I saw him, and then did a rather determined spiney lumpsucker search n the shallows to no avail.

Doc had a frustrating dive missing the reef, and while the scooter seemed to work ok on the surface, it didn't work on the bottom for long. Battery was fine and there were no floods, etc. I haven't used it for a while, as I'm usually carrying a large camera, so I thought I'd see what was going on.

Carl and I were up for a second dive, he was working out his weighting and trim. I am pretty comfortable in my new DUI CF200 suit, nice not to have to patch a suit every time I dive. Doc moved the boat north and Carl and I dropped in.

We swam around for a while finally coming upon a large anchor block and old buoy line. I did find a rather large Heart Crab there, with it's triangular body covered in thorns. We swam slowly back until Carl signaled he was low on gas and we came up and safety stopped and swam to the boat. I still had 1600#, so I took the scooter to do some testing. After going along just fine for a ways, I headed down the slope, at 33' it stopped. I swam it back up a bit and then it went off again fine. I scootered along in 15-20' for a long time, buzzing ling cod and generally making a pest of myself. Then I went back down the slope. 33' it stopped again. OK, depth related, I swam it up and at 30' it worked ok. Hmmm, depth is shorting the "kill switch". I tested it 3 more times and it was very consistent. Scooter is rated for like 200' and I've had it down to 120' for quite a while at times, so something is amiss. The guys at UWS will sort it out.

We headed back to the locks in the sun, and got home after a long wait, as they are only using the large locks this summer.

A great day of diving and testing gear!

Last week as part of the 4th of July festivities there was a tall ships festival. For the first time in 20 years the Coast Guard cadet training ship "Eagle" came to town. This ship was originally built as a Nazi training ship and was taken over as part of war reparations.

The Eagle is a three-masted sailing barque with 21,350 square feet of sail. It is home ported at the CG Academy, New London, Connecticut. It is the only active commissioned sailing vessel in the U.S. maritime services. She is one of five such training barques in world. Remarkably, her surviving sister ships include the Mircea of Romania, Sagres II of Portugal, Gorch Fock of Germany, and Tovarich of Russia.

Today's Eagle, the seventh in a long line of proud cutters to bear the name, was built in 1936 by the Blohm & Voss Shipyard, Hamburg, Germany, as a training vessel for German Navy cadets. It was commissioned Horst Wessel and served as a training ship for the Kriegsmarine throughout World War II.

Horst Wessel (1907-1930) was a Nazi party member, SA Stormtrooper and purported pimp who was killed fighting German Communists in 1930. Some months before he died, Wessel had written the verses to what would become the "Horst Wessel Lied" but it first gained popular currency when a choir of Stormtroopers performed it at his funeral. It was later recorded, and in 1931 it became the official anthem of the Nazi Party, played alongside Deutschland über Alles at all official occasions.

Much more info here

I do some work of the the coasties and they asked me to shoot some stuff for fun. Might sell a few shots for their office walls. Their guys were up in helos, I'm angling for that the next time... These were shot with my Nikon D80, using a Sigma 17-70 and 70-300. I used a polarizing lens on most of them, it was very hazy, hot and and humid.

Many more photos here

Did a couple of boat dives up to South Whidbey island in Puget Sound yesterday. Had perfect conditions and quite good viz. Site is called "Big Fish", I'd tell you where it is, but I'd have to kill you. We're keeping it under wraps so the hunters can't find it. OK, it's our favorite scalloping site as well.

Lots of large rockfish, schools of rare blacks; "Old School" Puget Sound. Of course we had perfect wide angle conditions with 35' viz, and I'm loaded for macro with my 60mm and Woody's...

I tried to work on getting black backgrounds with varying success. What's easy on a digicam with 1/2000th shutter sync is much harder on a DSLR with 1/200th. Lighting placement is critical, and I'm beginning to think about a shade or something to keep light off the background...anyone have ideas? I also tried shooting at my normal f/14-f/16 and then at f/20. I've noticed there is a noticeable lack of sharpness above about f/18 with the Nikkor 60mm macro.

We had a great day, my friend Steve tried an exploration dive off of Foul Weather Bluff to no avail. Then we went over to dive the ferry wreck, except i missed the wreck and swam around on the sand and concrete rip-rap that's there. WSDFG has put up a new "Artificial Reef" buoy, but it looks to be under construction; you can't tie up to it.



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Gees, I think there ought to be a weekly award for dumb-a**ed mistakes, weird problems and frustration for the Atomic 4 marine engine community.
We're a weird bunch of boaters who like these old gas engines, which for their size have lots of power, are quiet and generally fairly dependable if kept up. Don Moyer at Moyer Marine is a great resource and have bought stuff from him for years now. I have his original newsletters for 1994! What a nice guy, happy to talk to his customers and help them, he has an on-line forum as well.

Anyway, I humbly submit myself for this week's dumb a** award.

I've been busy this winter doing a bit of an overhaul on my AT4 in my Islander 28 sailboat. Replaced a cracked head, head studs, put in studs on the water jacket plate, r/r the carb, etc. Still need to replace the rear seal. The engine was running fine prior to my work.

I replaced the coil as part of the process, even thought the old one was working fine. I have an Ignitor magnetic ignition and consider it probably the best engine upgrade I've put in.

After replacing the wiring, I couldn't get it to start. Checked the plugs and have lots of fuel. Found that I had inadvertently put the main ignition + source on the neg terminal of the coil. Switched it and still wouldn't start. Checked the spark and there wasn't any at the plug, nor from the coil to ground or distributor cap. Hmm, must of fried the $60 magnetic ignition. Drove home to buy part. (I keep it in Blaine, WA, about 120 miles north of my home in Seattle.)

To continue the above saga of woe. I drove back up to the boat. Jump on the boat with a new Ignitor part. Pull off the distributor cap and install it. Replace the rotor, but didn't put it FIRMLY into the camshaft. Tried to start, but of course the rotor was free spinning. Scratched my head for 1/2 hours, then found the rotor problem. Ha!

Except that in replacing the cap I managed to get the @#**& red wire stuck under it and shorted out another Ignitor. Poof, smoke, $60 gone.

OK, I'm gonna get this beast going one way or another. I pull out the old (like 10 years) distributor plate with points and condenser. Install it. Cannot get it to start. Move wires around on the distributor clockwise one hole, and she starts!! Whoohoo happy dance! Runs great, idles great. Warm it it up, stop it, torque the head bolts. Restart and warm up agian.

Shift into power and it stalls. Restart, apply some gas, shift and she runs, but it has a rhythmic power up and down, doesn't change when I adjust timing, etc. Shut it down and re-torque bolts again. Pour whiskey and scratch head.

Next morning I put in some new fuel and dryer. Check carb bowl, gas very clean, no problems (the carb was just cleaned). Check compression, and its fine (95-110). Plugs look ok, except #3 has some dirt on it.

Call Don. He thinks I have the distributor in wrong. OK, tells me how to make a TDC timing mark, align the distributor, etc. I do so, find that it's 90 degrees off, makes sense, even find an old timing mark. All's good.

Go to start and nada. Nada damn spark. Nada off coil wire, etc. Numerous calls to Don, VU meter tests, try to trace it down, etc. I show juice to coil, from coil, juice and continuity at the distributor, good ground everywhere, etc. I even tried another coil and replaced the condenser. I get juice up to the points, can even get a spark from them to the breaker plate, but no spark when I push the points apart, with ignition on, or when I crank. No spark from main coil wire either when I crank while holding the wire to the head (although I did get a spark from neg terminal to head when cranked).

I worked on it for hours yesterday, wore poor Don's ear off and gave up. I have no idea why it would run one time and not the next, again all wires are fine, new coil, new plugs, new condenser, points (they looked ok, and I got continuity). Wires checked for continuity.

I guess my plan is to go back up with yet another Ignitor system and install it. But I'm not sure why I'm still not getting a spark from the coil. Some little thing is not making contact or acting intermittent, I think, but damned if I can find it.

Your humbled mechanic of sorts...

Went out on my dive buddy Doc Kay's boat Saturday for a couple of dives across the sound on Blakely Rock. We finally have been getting some nice weather and Saturday was fairly warm and sunny, with calm seas. Of course we Northwesterners break out the shorts and sun-tan oil when it hits the 50's these days...

We knew it was going to be a rough morning as the tide exchange was like 12' with a 3kt current out in the middle of the sound at max. Blakely Rock has several dive sites and I knew that China Wall is quite doable on the ebb as the current runs south from the mouth of Winslow Harbor and is blocked by the rock and wall for the most part. We maneuvered in and set a stern and bow hook, as the last time we tried it the wind veered and we almost swung into the rock.

Denise had to sit this day out having had both drysuit problems and a sinus block the week before on a training dive. So it was good to know she could come get us in the inflatable if we got blown off the wall.

I was diving with Phil and Doc was going to scooter around. Unfortunately the scooter died at 20' (switch issue) and we lost track of him when he went to return it and check the hooks.

I had briefed everyone on the site, cautioning them to go due west at 60' to hit the top of the wall, any shallower and you miss it (which also happened last time). I swam down and over and hit it right on the money thank you very much.

The viz was fairly crappy with the large exchange stirring things up and raining silt down on us from the top. Which suited my purposes as I was bound and determined to figure out lighting for wide angle in these conditions. I had just read an article in the new [i]Scuba Diving[/i] by Steven Frink on various lighting techniques. As I am bound for Bonaire in a month I wanted to get some practice with my Sigma 17-70 macro in a dome port. I feel I pretty much have the 60 macro down, but don't usually shoot with the Sigma much due to conditions.

Most of his advice in reducing backscatter gets boiled down to getting close and wide, having your strobes at 45 degrees (or more oblique) and lighting your subject matter - not the water column. This is one case where shooting up is not always the best idea.

There wasn't a lot of subjects, a few agitated Ling Cod on eggs, so I shot some starfish, as there was a great variety and they were colorful. One of the nice things about this lens is that you can shoot moderate macro and wide angle all on the same dive.

The second dive was at just past slack out on the outside of the rock. Even at slack there was a lot of current. Strangely it slacked as the dive went on, instead of building, leading me to believe that some sort of backeddy sets up an hour past slack.

These were all shot at about 1/60th f/7.1 with the Sigma 17-70 Macro in my Fantasea FD80 housing with 5" dome and ext ring. Two Inon 240z strobes on manual.


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Jack,

I have a Fuji E900 and Ikelite housing. What strobe would you suggest for this set-up and what price range am I looking at? I would appreciate your help.

Thanks,
Laurel

The E900 is a great little camera, I shot mine for 1.5 years with good results. I get asked this same question by many underwater photographers looking for an external strobe to use with various cameras. The below information is derived from my experience and pertains to most point & shoot cameras and housings.

An external strobe is a way for photographers to add more light to bring out colors and detail that would otherwise be lost and creatively light their subjects, to emphasize, or de-emphasize subject matter. Also by angling the light away from the subject directly, you can you can reduce backscatter; particles in the water that reflect light directly into the camera lens.

When buying a strobe, you pretty much get what you pay for in terms of features, power, coverage and speed. It's important to consider what subject matter and shooting conditions you will be diving in. Wide angle photography requires much more powerful strobes, really 2 strobes, for success. You have to light a wide swath of reef or larger subjects. For macro and fish portraits, you can get by with much less. In turbid conditions the same applies. I'm making some generalizations; it is quite possible to do close-focus wide angle photography and use only one strobe. It's good to also consider your long-range photography goals as well, do you eventually want to upgrade to a DSLR for instance.

There's lots of manufactures and options for strobes. Remember that you will also need a tray, handles, arms and sync cord to use it. Here's a few that I'm familiar with.

I've used a variety of Inon strobes, they are very good, physically small, but sort of expensive. They also tend to be a bit negatively weighted in the water. The Inon z240 & 2000 has S-TTL and an external auto mode (works ok for close-up stuff), as well as 13 steps of manual control. The S-TTL mode will work with most any camera, measuring the light output automatically, but as it makes the camera do a full dump of light (instead of what's necessary for exposure), it can be slow to use, around 11 secs between shots on the E900!

I've used an Ikelite DS-50 with an external manual controller as well (the auto TTL controller is not compatible with the E900). Again, its very slow to work with that camera, due to making it do a full dump. It was better with the Fuji F810. I had problems with the manual controller flooding and it's another piece of gear to mount and swim with, although a fairly powerful little strobe. I think overall the setup is bulky and not as full featured, when compared to other strobes on the market at a similar price point.

I now sell the Fantasea NanoFlash ($99), the best-selling Sea & Sea YS-27 ($350) and the Sea & Sea YS-110a ($634). If you want a huge reef-lighter the Sea & Sea YS-250Pro is also available at $1069.

New to the line up – and a great starter strobe – is the Ultramax UltraPower UDXL strobe that comes with a sync cord for only $148. It is a significant step up from the NanoFlash, is a true underwater strobe with 4 power settings, 5 pre-flash settings so it will work with any camera, a magnetic on-off switch, LED indicators, sealed battery compartment and more. It's weak point is a 60 degree beam angle and somewhat slower recycle time than the Sea & Sea units. But it's more than $200 less, for that you could buy two of them for wide angle use.

The Fantasea NanoFlash or the UltraPower are great starter strobes and could be used as a slave to the others if you upgraded. Its pretty good in clearer waters for macro, or close-in fish portrait photography. It is very small and light, making it easy to swim with. But it's not suitable for wide angle photos, or "lighting up the reef".

With most cameras, I'd recommend either of the Sea & Sea strobes, leaning toward the YS-110a. It is more powerful, has a wider beam angle, has 13 steps of manual control, vs 8 on the YS-27DX. It also has a target light, and can be used with a DSLR should you upgrade in the future. It does have a D-TTL mode (like Inon's S-TTL) that might work with your camera, depending if it uses multiple pre-flashes or single. The YS-110a has been recently updated and works with a much greater variety of cameras and pre-flashes in D-TTL. I do think it is much easier to use with gloves than the Inons, as the knobs are a bit larger, and there's less knobs to deal with to operate it. They are considerably cheaper than the Inon strobes, and tend to be lighter in the water.

All of these strobes work with a fiber optic sync cord, with one end of the cord velcroed on the outside of the camera housing and the other plugged into the light sensor of the strobe. You should black out the camera's internal flash on the inside of the housing with some electrical tape, except for a small area under the connector to trigger the external strobe. This will reduce backscatter and let you control the light.

To control backscatter, you have to have your strobes pointed away from your subject and use only the edge of the light to light it. Basically you have the lights pointing forward and away from the center. This allows the light to reflect away from the camera lens for particulates in the water column.

A focus light is very necessary for you to see to frame and your camera to lock auto focus. They are particularly convenient for night diving. Popular ones are the Fantasea NanoFocus or the new Big Blue 1x5.

I sell all of these strobes in various lighting packages of trays, arms, handles, sync cord and choices of focus lights on my website at reasonable prices. The Optical Ocean packages are modular and work with most any housing; you can add different components to each package to customize to your desires. I especially like the new Wide S-Tray that adjusts in and out to fit various sized-hands and housings. It can be configured for either ball & joint or flex arms.

Another low-cost option is to consider using a red filter on the port of your housing, it will reduce the cyan cast and give a much more natural color, especially when used with manual white balance.

(This article has been updated as of 2/09).

New underwater lighting packages offered by OpticalOceansales.com include a line of reasonably priced modular trays, handles, arms and clamps. Unique, thin but strong, "bar-bell" style arms are available in two styles; ball-to-ball and ball-to-strobe YS mount in 3.3, 4, 6 and 8” sizes. Handles feature rubber grips with a ball mount that allows for precise control of the camera system.

Made from high quality, black anodized aluminum, these lighting parts can be purchased separately or together in many different single or dual lighting packages. Choices include Fantasea or Sea & Sea strobes, sync cord, focus lights and more. Shown at left is the OpticalOcean Ultimate Lighting System with the Sea & Sea YS-110 strobe. Adapters are available for other strobe brands. They can also be optionally bundled with a choice of Fantasea Nikon CoolPix housings, including the popular FP5000 housing (shown) for the CoolPix P5100 camera at attractive savings.

OpticalOceanSales.com is a Fantasea Line dealer and ships worldwide.

More information:
Lighting Packages
CoolPix Housing Systems
Trays and Arms