Scubacam Computer Bling

I thought it was a good idea to decorate the office computer a bit. I did. This is the end result. Blinking red, blue and green LEDs. Glowing front Acrylic panel…. I thought it would be like one of those deep sea jelly fishes that glows and has these undulating lights….beautiful. I hope to attempt to emulate a tidy fraction of that beauty and wonder.

Or these lights might just drive Sanah mad…. not the last of my many escapades

Here is a few more of the computer jelly fish like glow and sparkles:

Hope you enjoy it. Ciao Dave

Hello Again. It has been a while. I have been busy with ADEX (Asia Dive Expo 2011) in Singapore. Great show and thank you for coming by the booth to say hello. The highlight of the show is definitely the sundowner’s drinks on the first night, co-hosted by myself and Shawn Heinrich of Wetpixel. A special thanks to Drew Wong (incidentally also of Wetpixel!) for organizing the venue and food. Plus he did a splendid report – read it on Wetpixel forum link: http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/2011-wetpixel-scubacam-apres-adex-party/ and  http://wetpixel.com/i.php/full/adex-2011-report/

If you are wondering about my 3D stereoscopic rig…I will write about that in the near future. That contraption has been keeping me awake many nights. A little 3D movie feature is called for….watch this space.

Now. Here is something else I have been working on. Remote or Tethered digital still shooting. Or simply “remote shooting”. What it involves is the use of the mini USB in your digital camera (in my case a Canon 5D MII). You hook that up with a USB cable to a PC or Mac for complete control of your camera and file transferring. Sounds simple? Read on…..

To cut this short I am going to show you photo by photo how this could be done. I will leave out the gory details like hacking up cables; puncturing a watertight housing and a singe finger or two……

In this example I have added a PC sync connector to enable a studio flash to be used together with two Ikelite strobes. I like to make my life difficult as you can see. This setup is perfect for a studio pool shoot. Two UW strobes for fill in and Studio flash for ambient flash.

As mentioned earlier you may have to drill holes as required to your housing. I choose an Ikelite 5D MII housing. Firstly it is the easiest housing to tackle and secondly its not mine. Seriously its because the back plate is thick and the housing has some pockets of space which I could use.

One thing to note is that you need to get some USB 2 cables and parts, These are available in most computer shops. Here is a Pin Out diagram. Some ability to solder things is required. As a caveat I am not responsible if you burn your fingers or your camera for that matter. Get some assistant or help from someone who knows. Or I could do it for a fee

The pin 1 is the +5VDC usually with the red cable. Pin 2 is the – Data and usually Blue or White cable. Pin 3 is the +Data usually the Green cable. Pin 4 is Ground or Black cable. The outer shield is soldered to the connector metal rim.

Next thing to note is that for USB cable over 8m a USB booster circuit is required. The one I used will boost the signal up to 40m. However I only needed 10m for this particular shoot so plenty of redundancy signal strength.

The other cable is the PC sync for the studio flash. This is relatively easy to install as it only requires 2 pins. Trigger and ground.

Here it is all three cables in place. The Ikelite Hotshoe, the PC sync and the USB mini. One little trick I use is a 90 deg mini USB adapter so the USB cable does not stick out beyond the housing o-ring groove.

Managing where these cable go is important as space is limited inside a housing. Luckily Ikelite housing has ample space inside with the 5D MII.

I find the best position for the new sockets is top left hand corner for USB and the right hand buttom corner for the PC studio flash sync socket.

The booster circuit and LED indicator in view. Ikelite housing is made of transparent polycarbonate and is ideal for this mod. Everything is in view and you could find any problems, if any, quickly.

Such as whether the USB is connected properly.

Or whether a cable is snagged.

Everything is just snug fit in this case. And nothing gets in the way of the housing controls.

The cable for the PC sync is fitted with an Ikelite 5 pin socket. Cable should be at least rated IP 86 for UW use even in the swimming pool.

Similarly the USB cable. This cable will also be shielded to prevent signal interference.

Here it is both cables connected.

I found a handy anchor point to cable tie the two cables together. I  formed a hoop on each so if the housing accidentally slips the cables will be held by the anchor point and not being pull out of their sockets.

Testing the USB cable to the computer. A green LED on the booster signals proper connection.

Computer screen registering the 5DMII connection.

Uploading files is simple using drag and drop. You can use Canon’s DPP software with Aperture or other Canon Utility software here : http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/product/canon_software/eos_utility.do

Happy shooting Thanks for reading…

Ciao Dave.

Now where is my drill bit..?/!!!

Underwater Snoot Revisited

There appears to be a great preponderance of interest since my last blog ( blog7 ) about the UW snoot. In fact some crafty people have exploited this simple device, re-branded and commercialized it for underwater photography. I  have also been inundated for these branded UW snoots which is made from  off -the-self  studio cone snoots with some drainage parts cobbled together with some velcro patches.  Some looks like knocked up with standard parts and could fall apart during a dive shoot.

Common studio snoot

I thought I could do better than that.  Lets dissect some of the myth of this device. A snoot is just a “cone” to channel light to a point. The point of light is variable according to the length of the tube or the aperture size. That’s it in a nutshell. On the flip side there is advance mathematical formulas for calculating how to precisely polarize light to a given spot. I like the simple version. A opaque plastic cup with a hole at the base is a snoot!  It will not last long on a dive but works nevertheless. The honeycomb material people asked me about is nothing more than a bunch of smaller tubes stacked together. Yes one could get some aluminium honeycomb from panel suppliers. A bunch of black drinking straws works too. I think what this shows is that there are is a market for convenient ready-made UW snoots.

Of course not all snoot performs the same or made the same way.

Here is the good news. I have decided  to make a batch of my version. The “telescopic snoot”. What is more I have a fiber optic version made as well.

See my two version in the picture below

Left is the "telescopic snoot" and the right is the "Fiber Optic snoot"

Essentially both will do the job of channeling light to the right places on the subject. The photographer is still in charge here not the device. The effect could be achieved in various ways. A spot light on the subject in a dark background is very popular or  a back light to a  subject. There should be thousand and one ways for UW photography and the creative decision rest with the shooter. With so many snoot around  the “UW snoot shots” will soon become cliche. So it pays to decide when to snoot and when not to snoot. Choosing the right subject matters.

Telescopic snoot on a Sea and Sea YS-110 alpha

Fiber Optic Snoot on a Sea and Sea YS-110 alpha

The fibre optic snoot has more potential for creating interesting macro shots. I have managed to focus the light to all the fiber optic strands and the ends are all highly polished. This saves having to use a lot of strobe power. Save on battery charges and potentially more fiber optic could be added. With more fibre optic arms a “ring” of dots could form around a subject. This will act like a ring flash but much closer to a subject than normal ring flash.  Further control could be done by either putting tiny “snooties” on the fiber optic tips or blanking some of the tips. I know some of you will say ” this is going over the top”. I agree.  This will be investigated further in my workshop.

The fiber optic snoot in action

These snoots are made to fit each type of strobes so each will fit nicely and will take some knocks. Definitely no velcro (nothing against this wonder product BTW)

Until next time. Happy Snooting!

Plastic shark and cuddle fish caught snooting

Tonga Trip Video (click on this link)

Well the months has just gone by. I was away on dive trips. Last year I went to the Rodney Fox’s Great White Shark experience. That was quite an experience. This year in late August early September I went on Tony Wu’s Tonga Humpback Whale trip. That was a real eye opener. Nothing could prepare me for the adrenaline rush of feeling the current created by seven Humpback whales going at full throttle. I was with a group of people from different parts of the world. Really friendly bunch. All brilliant snorkelers and free divers. No wonder I was frequently left behind.   No words could describe adequately my experience so here is a short video. I hope you will enjoy it. The video was shot with a Sony CX520 in a L&M Bluefin and Fathom 90 degree wide angle. I wish I had the Fathom 110 deg lens. Next time.

David

Well how time fly! It’s been months since I last blogged. This one is all about The SNOOT – or more precisely a strobe snoot. What a funny word to describe a piece of photography equipment.

Generally it is a protruding thingy ….“nose; beak; honker; hooter; nozzle; snoot; snout; schnozzle or schnoz”

This device has enjoyed something of a revival in the underwater photography world recently. Judging from the number of winning photos using such device in UW photography competitions this is no surprise. Many of my customers are asking me do I have such a thing and yet this lighting technique has been around in studio photography since the invention of photography, along with essential gear such as the light tent, umbrellas and reflectors.

I have also come across some ingenious contraptions made by friends during my dive trips. Some are just laterally made out of plastic drink bottles with gaffer tapes and bungee while others are more sophisticated using plumbing parts, plastic pipes and drinking straws…..yes I am clutching at straws a bit with this blog.

So before you fall asleep here is my take on the subject matter – a snoot with a difference.

Dave’s telescopic strobe snoot!

Essentially it is made out of drain pipes; a rubber grommet and some…..yes straws!

And here it is all nicely shrink wrapped one. This is a cheapo solution to a simple problem. That is how to narrow the light beam down from a strobe?

I learn that a honeycomb like structure is not always necessary if the snoot has a long snout. It is however necessary if the snoot has a short snout. Short snout usually have a bigger aperture and therefore the strobe light has more power or ‘beam angle’.  A longer snout usually gets narrower at the end. Light has to travels further thus weaker as light bounce around the snoot wall. For maximum flexibility a telescopic schnozzle seems to be the best way to go.

This one shown is developed for Colin, a good friend and a customer, who uses Seacam Seaflash 150. This is a very wide angle strobe so a honeycomb structure is also included inside the rubber grommet.

The parts all dissembled as shown. As you can see there is not much to the snoot. A plastic bottle of the right size and blacken will work.

In the Scubacam tradition I do things differently and generally like to muck about. So I added a telescopic snout. All nicely machined and ready for testing.

Here is the first shot with the Seaflash! Not bad at all. So the thing really works. Camera used is a Canon 400D with 18-55 mm set at ISO 200, 1/80 and F11.

A few days later, the door bell rings and one happy Scubacam customer. Colin is going to try the telescopic snoots out soon and then I will post some of his shots here if they are as good as his PADI dive cert photos.

Oh now that I know the thing works I have made a few versions for other strobes. Here is one for Inon S2000 strobe.

In fact this has been so much fun I might make a batch of these for my friends. I suggest if you are keen to do DIY just try it – it is really simple. It works with taped up drink bottles. Save those drinking straws. Then again if you want a telescopic version I am all ears.

Till next time. Happy underwater snapping.

Welcome to my blog! This is just a quickie and may not even be considered as a blog. The following video low down of the Night Safari at Kasawari Lembeh Resort is kindly produced by my good friend Tony Wu….so enjoy!

Now that I am back from the Kasawari Night Safari trip and have sorted thousands of emails I could finally take a second look at what photos I took during the trip and what gear I have tested.

I brought along with me a fully rigged Canon S90 setup along with my Canon 5D MII and a Light and Motion Stingray plus with a Sony CX520 HD video cam. Yes I do not travel light. I will blog about these later.

I am no professional underwater photographer even though I always wanted to be. Same goes for being an UW videographer. Due to my work and other commitments I could not always go diving so I have not much time to practice but I do own the Scubacam shop so at least I get to test some of the latest gear in the market.

One of the most promising compact digicam for UW photography this year so far is the Canon S90. Although there may be other candidates such as the Panasonic GF1 or the Olympus EP 1, 2 or is it EP3 now? Or even the Canon G11 but for price and performance the S90 is pretty good value. It is a “little” sister to the Canon G11 and under the casing the S90 shares pretty much the same sensor and microprocessor. I could go into more of the technical mumble jumble but I will spare you as there must be thousands of sites and reviews on this camera. What I will show you here is what this little pocket rocket could do with the right combo of housing, lights and accessories.

I packed along for testing the S90, Ikelite (although I would love to test the Seatool FIX S90 version), Inon S2000 strobe, AD 28 converter ring for the Inon UFL-165AD Fish Eye Conversion lens, UCL-165AD Close up lens, lens holder and a mish mash of trays, arms and clamps and a LED torch that I made just for this trip. The whole lot weights less than 3 kg even with two sets of spare batteries for the strobe and LED light.

As the trip is called the Night Safari I thought a night shot was appropriate.

This was taken using the wet attachable Inon FE lens. It provides 160 deg angle of coverage and will vignette at the corners but at a night dive this is not a problem. The graininess is apparent as the camera struggles to bring out the details underwater at low light and only a fisherman’s boat lights shining down at the dive site. Still it is not bad.

This was taken during the day and the corner vignette is clearly visible so zooming in a little helped which reduces the FOV to about 150 deg. Both shots were taken without any strobe light other than the ambient or torch light. The S90 sensitivity is a boon and even at 600 0r 1000 ISO the picture grain is still smooth. With a bit more practice and patience the contrast of the sky to the scene could be more balanced.

I was so impressed with the camera setup I even attempted the half-in and half-out shots. As you can see the camera focus is confused by the water film on the FE lens and would only focus on the underwater subject. However with just three inches in diameter I was asking the FE dome to do the impossible.

Lastly I even attempted close up shots with the FE lens. This shot was taken during a night dive using just a LED light.

In conclusion I am very impressed with the Canon S90 and the Inon FE lens combination. I had the most fun with this rig during the trip. The freedom to just being able to switch from super-wide to macro on one rig will appeal to divers who “want it all” both macro and wide angle in any dive. Now all I have to do is find more time to practice.

Happy diving!

Just a quickie video of the Lembeh Kasawari “Night Safari”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scubacam-singapore/4412444689/

…more to come…

Hello !

I have just been to the world’s most magical place for weird and wonderful underwater creatures…..The Lembeh Straits. This was Scubacam’s first “Night Safari” at the top notch Kasawari Lembeh Resort, which means we dove mainly at night without a care in the world. We were constantly fed, pampered and the dive guides even carry our rigs and rinse them after the dive.  More than a dozen of us crazed underwater shooters blasted the night water with strobes and video lights. To top it off Eric Cheng turn up at the  mid-week with the Pinocchio lens. Julian brought along one too. Here is a link to Wetpixel on some of the fantastic pictures taken : http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34951

Ciao for now! D

Here is something you don’t see in every dive.

Inon's new macro wide angle lens

Inon’s new macro wide angle lens has recently received lots of attention in the web discussion forums on underwater photography. Never have such a lens been named in so many different ways; Pinocchio lens, insect eye lens, endoscope lens and my personal favorite the “bug eye lens”…I guess these names sound better than the Inon’s official version “UFL-MR130-EFS60″…..now try saying that twenty times in a row !

This came out in dive trade shows about a year ago but nothing much has been heard about it and how it works….until recently. As usual one has to find out what this lens is all about. Inon made this lens specifically for the Inon X-series housing  for the Canon Eos 40D and 50D DSLR and specifically for the EF-s 60mm Macro lens.

There were some good results by those who used it with the Inon housing but in the tradition of  Scubacam customization I went off and got something to make it even better – a Canon 7D in a Zillion housing.  The reason behind this is very simple. Canon EOS 50D is an APS-C size cropped sensor DSLR and so is the new Canon 7D except it has HD video and millions more pixels and better ISO. There was no X2 housing for the 7D.  So I went mad, purchased everything and phone up and invited a few friends over to brag about it.

Now I have all the kit of parts and ready to test my theory. In reality I was not entirely sure  how the bug-eye lens will fit onto the Zillion housing as I know  a port converter is required. Luckily Zillion send me such a thing. Inon stubbornly made the business end of the MRS60 Port II & bug eye lens not wet detachable. So the front “snout” bit has to be  mounted & sealed properly to the MRS. Its like taking a telescope apart. The neat thing about the MRS 60 Port is the focus ring which has magnets inside and the lens control is driven by magnets clamped to the lens and moves by magnetic force…..like a Maglev Train !….maybe not quite the same scale.  I was worried that these magnets may affect the Canon EF-s 60mm macro lens motor but all goes well.

According to Inon the system has to focus in manual to work well as the slightest movement will knock the lens out of focus. The depth of field is paper thin. For better depth of field and sharpness the aperture has to step down to at least F13 and even down to F32 for some subjects. Given that the Canon 7D has better ISO sensitivity than the 50D this is just as well. Naturally you will also need strobes very close to the front of the lens but tilted away to avoid strobe flares.

Its like looking through a door lens !

After I had everything set up and tested Julian was right on scheduled to drop by the shop to check it out. He booked a trip to Phuket and the Similans to try it out. From his last trip Julian was pretty spell-bounded by the same “bug-eye” lens Eric Cheng used in the dives around the Eastern Fields PNG. Now he got his own “toy” and with a much better camera.

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In two days Julian posted these fabulous pictures………!!!

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Go here to see more of the fun he had with this lens: http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliancohen/

I for one is well impressed with Julian’s pictures taken with the bug-eye lens. So what is next?…. Like a glutton looking for more punishment I have embarked on a new quest to find a similar lens that could work with the Canon 5D MII. That will be in another blog and until then here is a teaser…..   evidently the Inon bug eye lens did not quite work with the 5D MII.

Bug eye lens, 5D MII & Canon 100mm AF Macro

Hello again to my blog. This second blog leans a little towards the customization and technical side. In terms of risk and potential disaster, I mean you could ruin your equipment with one wrong move kind of disaster it is equivalent to a category 5 hurricane. So here is a WARNING – don’t do this at home!

A few months ago a friend approached me with a wager. It was a kind of wager one does with friends when inebriated with a few beverages. The challenge was to make an existing underwater housing fitted with wire sync bulkheads to work with an optical slave strobe like an Inon strobe for example. Two strobes in fact – as bravado clearly took the better of me.

A week later and the results…..?

Take a perfectly innocent looking Patima 400/450D housing preferably not own by anyone. I choose this because the camera has a pop-up flash. The canon’s eTTL flash is complicated if one has to wire it for a bulkhead and even harder to fit a circuit in-line to trigger a strobe electronically and get any form of TTL flash at the business end but there is one method that works. The Canon pop-up flash and optical slave TTL strobes like Inon Z240 Type III works well together. Another thing about the Canon pop-up flash is that it will flash even of it is not so fully popped up! This saves a lot of room inside the housing and Patima has a bit of room on top of the camera so it was destined for a make over.

The housing from the inside looks clean and free of appendages. The circle marked the spot for some major surgery.

Milling took about two 5 minutes. It was not a difficult Tracheotomy…..

Now to shape the Acrylic rods into…..

these ‘thingys’………………………….

Perfect fit!

The thingys or a more fancy named ‘optical ports’ was skewed with some stainless steel sleeves. To strengthen it and also to fit a 1 mm sheathed fibre optic cable.

A bit of epoxy carefully smeared on to hold the optical ports in place and also to seal any gaps.

Once dried testing could be done. Oh just in case any of you sharp-eyed hawks out there the port is indeed a M5 Nexus focus port which incidentally fits the Patima !

Finally the result after the test dive at Manado. Incidentally not long after this experiment Patima decided to introduce ‘optical ports’ in their housings and only for Canon. However, I have also conducted mods on Nikon D80 housing but that is another blog.  Now for the next wager…. Stay tuned. D