Panasonic Lumix LX3 underwater

I have an old Ikelite Coolpix 5000 housing (circa 2003) which doesn't get much use these days, so I thought I'd try to fit my wife's wonderful Panasonic Lumix LX3.

It's a great still camera but also does 16:9 HD video and has a really nice 24mm wide lens.

With a minimal amount of tweaking, the camera now fits and I can start and stop the recording.
I tried the flat port first but that gave too much fringing and pincusion distortion so changed to the dome port with excellent results.

After 2 dives, one video and one stills, I'm thinking this is a brilliant compact underwater.
With this bodged together housing setup I don't have any controls other than shutter release (and manual flash output on my Inon Z220 optically triggered) so I used Aperture priority (f/8) with -2/3 EV (to reduce ambient exposure) and Forced Flash (which limits shutter speed to no longer than 1/30th)

Results are sharp all the way out to the corners thanks to the dome port.

Getting the camera into the correct position involved moving the tripod mount hole (and the base plate) to the left and further forward. The the camera had to be as far forward as possible without clashing with the long shaft of the knob on the left of the housing and the lens had to be concentric with the dome port.
This took a little bit of gouging and fiddling of the hole. Once I got the position right I flipped the base plate over and drilled one accurate hole.
Then added some thin plastic strips and tape to to the base plate lift the camera up a little.
I then carved a shutter release knob extension from an old nylon chopping board.

More photos and video here

Close encounter with a fur seal

Had a wonderful 30 minute solo dive with this big inquisitive fur seal at Cottage Reef.
I have seen seals here a few times but never this close.

It was obviously feeding under the deep ledges, then darting out and peering into my dome port.

Luckily I had the Sigma 15mm lens on, but there was lots of suspended sand in the water. Seems to be a feature of Cottage these days. A fair bit of clone stamp and healing brush was needed.

More shots here.

Setting sun

Rich and I have been doing the odd after work dive at St Leonards. At this time of day the sun is low in the sky which opens up different lighting possibilities.

You can shoot a subject more horizontally and still include some background sunbursts. As the sun sinks lower the sunbursts become warmer and more diffuse.

Also captured this fish-ball shot.

D80, Sigma 15mm and 6" dome.

Another Ripview Classic swim

It's that time of year again. Bit too close to Christmas I must say.

This year we swam into a decent southerly which pushed up an annoying confused chop.

Felt like a struggle all the way but my time and position was much better than previous years. Almost up to average pace!

Ikelite housing upgrade

My upgraded housing has just returned from Ikelite.

They were offering the upgrade, which involved replacing the entire front section of the housing and swapping over all the hardware, at a very reasonable US$200 plus $60 for a full service.

The housing now has 4 port locks instead of just 2 and a focus light mount on top. Also got a free swap for the new 4 lock short port body including an anti-rotation lock for the 8" and they sent back my 3 leak alarms.

More photos here

12th Dec

I have just discovered that this Fantasea LED 360 focus light has been discontinued. Apparently there have been production problems leading to flooding. Mine is still going OK but buddy Rich's has flooded.

ex HMAS Canberra scuttled

Sunday 4th October.

This very exciting event drew crowds of many thousands to every vantage point between Pt Lonsdale and Barwon Heads. All carparks were overflowing from early Sunday morning.

However the actual sinking did not happen until 2.00pm well after many had given up and gone home. Luckily I checked my sources, here and Marg B, an OG local with views from her window, to find that rough weather overnight meant it would be delayed by hours.

Virg and I wandered down to Ocean Grove aroun 12.00, met Rich M, and Mary Malloy, and Kim and Josh in the dunes. After a pleasant 2hr wait the first orange flare was sighted. I hit record on the video camera and flexed my shutter finger ready to shoot.

Spurts of water shot up the sides of the Canberra and the boom arrived a few seconds later. Over the next 2 minutes she gently settled lower and lower then with a final whoosh of spray disappeared below the surface.

Depth is around 27m with the masts just 6m under the surface.

Poly pipe RC landyacht

Still no decent diving so here's the latest landyacht design.

This one is cheap and quick to build using poly pipe and shopping trolley wheels. It's the best yet. Fast, controllable and it fits in the back of the car unlike the previous version.

Full details here

RC Landyacht

Here's another non-diving project that keeps me busy when weather and winter bugs intervene. It's also a way to go sailing without having to get out on the water.

You need a big open empty carpark somewhere to sail and nice steady wind.

This page describes how to make a radio controlled landyacht reasonably cheaply.

Using dioptres behind a dome port

Lenses used behind a dome port may require the addition of a +dioptre. The dome creates a curved image that sits 25 to 30cm out front and if the lens can't focus this close then a dioptre is needed.

My 18-55mm does work behind the 6" dome without a dioptre but performance improves with a +4. At the 18mm end there is less barrel distortion and the corners are sharper.

I never knew whether it also allowed you to get closer to the subject so some pool testing was required.

Adding the +4 brought the closest focus from 21cm to 13cm, and sharp corners only required f/16 rather than f/22. Of course you can use wider apertures if the corners are not critical.

Close focus wide angle CFWA

Here's another example of CFWA using the 18-55mm with a +4 dioptre.

St Leonards Pier again with better vis this time.

Short tailed nudibranch (Ceratosoma brevicaudatum). This is the most common nudi in Port Phillip growing to 150mm, which is big for a nudi.

Leaky shoulder valve this time! Got a cold wet left arm.

Drysuit leak

Amazing how a few grains of sand can ruin a dive.
The second I stepped into the water there was the dreaded cold dribble down my ankle.

The photo shows how little it takes to turn a drysuit into a not so drysuit.
I persevered with the dive and ended up with a very wet foot, leg and groin...yuk!

These ankle valves are not a great idea.

Mares Puck dive computer

My Aladin Sport went "ERR" last week meaning a new battery is required. S'posed to last 10 years but ours have not gone much more than 5 years each. Problem is you have to send it away and pay more than $200 for the replacement. So, it was it time to upgrade.

I looked at scubastore.com, based in Spain, and found this Mares Puck for 158 Euro delivered. That converts to $289!! Locally you would pay $690.

This computer does Nitrox, Bottom timer and displays water temp. All features the Aladin didn't have.

Ordered it Saturday and it arrived today, 4 days, via Germany, London, Melbourne, Geelong.

Amazing.

Here's a short video of it's first dive.

Bad vis, Wide angle

A perfect flat sunny day above but sandy 3m vis below and I had the Sigma 15mm fisheye on.

Luckily this lens does excellent CFWA close focus wide angle.

Just have to hide the backscatter in a busy background or position strobes out wide. The problem then of course is getting light on that close subject.

Fantasea LED 360 focus light

Just bought one of these Fantasea LED focus lights to replace the flawed Nano Fix (every one of these I know of has flooded)

Anyway the 360 has 36 LEDs and an On/Off switch so hopefully will have a longer life.
It's much bigger and brighter but still has the "Auto Off during flash" function as well as a handy continuous flash mode in case you ever get lost at sea!

I tried the focus light under the deep ledges at Cottage Reef and it worked very well allowing me to focus quickly on a seadragon in the darkness. It would be an excellent night dive torch also.

Purchased from Underwater.com.au in Byron Bay for A$84.95 + $5.50 shipping.

Additional: Price has just jumped to US$81 from Fantasea or $140 from Underwater.com.au!


Update
This light has now died (lasted 12 months). No obvious flooding but rust appearing around 2 of the LEDs. Buddy Rich's died a few months ago and the light is no longer being sold.
I'm back to using a Princeton REC 1 LED torch.

Squid-bait cam

Here's a bit of underwater video fun. Tweaked the Stingray housing so that I could leave it on the seabed with some bait dangling in front.

This 2 min video is the first attempt. Next time I'll extend the rod and position it to be more central.

Ripview Classic and Blue water Challenge

Virg and I competed in a couple of ocean swims recently.

The Ripview Classic 1.4km from The Springs to Pt Lonsdale and the Queenscliff Blue water challenge 1.2km around Queenscliff Pier to the Pilot Pier and back.

The Blue water challenge was a real challenge with very delayed starts putting us into bad current and whitecaps. What was the problem? No explainations given. It meant that many pulled out before and during the race but we struggled on and finished with times 30% longer than expected.

Here we are before a training swim around the sticks at St Leonards.

D90 in Ikelite D80 housing

It fits and is perfectly usable!

Dive buddy Richard bought a D90 so I mounted it in the housing to see what worked.
All my usual controls - On/Off, shutter release, front and rear control dials (shutter and aperture) and focus lock work perfectly.
AF, self timer/multi frame and exposure compensation also work.

You probably would be able to push Menu, WB, ISO and QUAL although they don't line up exactly.
The Mode dial knob just doesn't reach but a little rubber washer and some glue would fix that.

There is no access to the 4 way selector or OK button but that's no drama.

So that means this housing can outlast the D80 if disaster strikes down the track.

More photos here

TAKA Great Barrier Reef trip

Just returned from 5 day live-aboard trip to the Ribbon reefs and Osprey reef off north Queensland on TAKA.

This was my first venture into tropical and live-aboard diving in 10 yrs and 600 dives! In the past I have always preferred to spend money on scuba and camera gear.

Used the 15mm fisheye and 60mm macro. Started with 2 strobes then switched to 1 to make it a bit easier. Would have been better to have a serious photographer buddy.

Loved the diving, 27c and up to 40m vis in the water, mind-blowing marine life and very well run dive deck.
Wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

Things they could improve on the boat are:
Food - German chef 's last trip after only 3 weeks. Great breakfast and salads but the dinners were like poor quality pub food. Grey/bleeding meat and deep fried crumbed things.
Water urn and brewed coffee was left empty too often.
Noise level in the lounge between dives was annoying. Chef's cd player and lounge cd player competing!

However these are just minor things, the boat and crew were very good. 29 divers and about 8 crew.
The video pro Ben from Scubapix did a brilliant job of the DVD.

Photo set here and my video of onboard life here.

Back to diving at last

Got to go out to Popes Eye with Jan "Hydroids" Watson, Trev "The slug snapper" McMurrich and Bob "Nudibranch" Burn today.

Conditions were crap with lots of current, short slack and poor vis. It was a cool 14c above and below!
However there were lots of slugs to snap and nothing leaked so can't complain too much.
It was definitely a macro day so the 60mm got to come along for the dive.

Here's the collection from today.

First sailing day

Finally got a chance to launch the cat.

I also bolted on my underwater video housing to record the event.

What fun it was, great to be sailing again after a few years out of the sport.

Here's a short onboard video

Tyro catamaran repair

Still very little diving due to weather and family dramas.

In the mean time I have been restoring this 12ft catamaran, given to me by a mate to stop it rotting away in his yard.

After one month of gluing, painting and repairing it's now ready to hit the water again. Not too sure how strong the hulls are but we will see.

Progress photos here

HSP Atomic Warhead 4WD nitro buggy

Well, no diving for a couple of weeks due to weather and bronchitis but I did get time to whip up a webpage about the HSP Atomic Warhead nitro buggy.

My nephews bought it on eBay and uncle Andrew willingly became the chief mechanic.

I posted some videos on maintenance on You Tube and they have turned out to be the most popular by far. I get emails weekly asking for advice so this page is aimed at answering some of those regular queries.

It was a blast to play with, so fast and such great 4WD traction.

Atomic Warhead buggy webpage

Lots of buggy action videos on my YouTube site

Drysuit has returned

All fixed now hopefully. Seatec were very apologetic, paid for postage and re-glued the wrist seal very quickly.

Now to test it out in the coldest water this year. 10c in my semidry was not fun last Thursday. Brrrr!



This is Jan measuring her beloved hydroids at Popes Eye.

Drysuit repairs

I'm really not happy about this.

The drysuit has just returned from Seatec in Sydney for replacement of neck and wrist seals and general checkup. It took 6 weeks to come back to me and this happened on the second dive.

The seam has just peeled open. No torn neoprene, just glue letting go.

I'm waiting for Seatec's reply.

Macro at Blairgowrie

Recent gale and even storm force winds have restricted diving and the water temperature is in free fall. Down to 11c now.

However calm conditions on Friday meant we could head over to Blairgowrie to look for nudibranchs and the soon-to-be-named hydroid.

I was armed with the 60mm macro and naturally found a good wide angle subject as soon as I flopped out of the boat. This small keeled octopus hung around for just long enough to get a few shots. Lighting was difficult due to poor vis, strong current and lack of contrast between octopus and sand.

Here are some more shots of hydroids and nudis.

Fibre Optic recording indicator

Here are the latest tweaks to the Stingray housing.

The previous magnet record switch was somewhat unreliable due to alignment and flexing issues. It was also very difficult to hear the camera beeps so I was never really sure whether it was recording.

Handles and a flexible loc-line strobe arm have been added.

The magnetic switch now works by pushing or repelling a "finger" through the housing-back and I have added a fibre optic "light pipe" so I can see when the red record indicator appears on the LCD screen. This fibre optic bundle comes from a $10 fibre optic lamp found at Toy Kingdom in Geelong West.

More photos here

Magnetic record switch

Here's what I came up with to stop and start recording underwater. The magnets came from Jaycar, a magnetic handy strip for less than $15. This plastic hanging strip contains about 8 magnets encased in a long plastic strip which can be cut to length.

An external magnet attracts the internal magnet operating the right angled lever. More photos here.
Works like a charm, if everything lines up properly.

The camera beeps to let me know if it's starting or stopping record mode.

UK light cannon 100 as video light

I adapted a stingray housing to fit my Canon MVX430 DV camera, which worked pretty well, but it really needed a video light.

These excellent HID dive torches are available for around $300 posted on ebay from lightcannontoys

Here is a 5 min video from Cottage Reef showing the Light Cannon in action.

I'm now working on a magnet switch to operate the record button while underwater. At the moment I have to start recording before the dive and just let it run for 1 hr. Makes editing a pain.

Photo book

After my sister Viv suggested we create photo books instead of buying presents for Christmas, what a brilliant idea, I started looking around at what was available.

Photo books are offered at most printing outlets now like Camera House, Office Works etc.

The business I decided to try was Snapfish
You go to the website, create an account and upload your images, then start laying out the book.

As a first trial I created a 10 page, that's 20 sides, A4 hardback book choosing a variety of image sizes and backgrounds.
The book arrived less than a week later and I was amazed at the printing quality. The images looked just like they did on my iMac screen and were printed using proper publishing quality offset printing. Just beautiful!

The book cost $39.95 with about $5 post. If you order more than one at a time the subsequent copies are 20% off.
I'm now trying a 20"x16" poster print to check their normal printing quality....watch this space.

+4 dioptre investigation

Flickr contact Rikke Lind commented that it would be interesting to see a comparison of DOF, zoom level etc. with and without the +4 dioptre and I had to agree. I have always wondered whether dioptres actually magnify or just allow closer focus, so here's a series of images showing what happens.

The tests show that adding a +4 dioptre.......

Set focus of 1m reduces to 38cm and Infinity changes to 39cm.
Closest focus of 24cm reduces to 22cm, giving 1.44x mag.
So the focus range Infinity - 24cm changes to 39 - 22cm. Interesting, I thought the closest focus would be a lot closer not just by 2cm.

If the camera stays in one spot, the +4 gives a little bit of magnification, resulting in slightly reduced depth of field,
But if the camera is moved back to keep the image size constant then the depth of field is not reduced.
Note: Depth of field only depends on image magnification, (and aperture and sensor size) not which lens you use.

At 18mm zoom, aperture 3.5, the +4 changes barrel distortion into pincushion distortion and reduces corner blur and vignetting! Didn't expect that.



The reason we use dioptres underwater is mainly to enable your lens to focus on the virtual image created by the dome port, many lenses cant focus close enough on their own.
Or, as with my 18-55mm, to bring the closest focus to about 10cm from the dome for our rich but murky sub-temperate water.