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.

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!

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

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

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

Welcome to my first Scubacam blog. This will be a regular feature here and if you decides to visit from time to time you will find that I might have written something new from time to time.  Things like dive trips, gear, underwater digital photography and videography. The best of all for you gadget fans, I will write mostly about …gadgets….especially my gadgets!

Let’s start with a bit of ramble on a recent trip I went on August last year, the Rodney Fox Great White Shark Expeditions at the Neptune Islands, Adelaide, South Australia.
A friend, Julian Cohen organized it. In his spare time when he is not organizing or going to trips he is pretty nifty with his camera.  He takes photos both in and out of the water – take a look here. See what I mean.

Here I was testing the polecam in my shop.

Another friend, Jason Isley also came along and he is one of the first ones of Scubazoo.  Well, let’s just say he’s a real pro. Shoots all sorts of wildlife video for the likes of the BBC and Animal Planet. You name it and he has probably shoot it – including a few TV celebrities. Now he shoots mainly digital stills.

I custom made a pole-cam for Jason for the trip. It is detachable in sections and great for traveling as it weighs less than a bag of o-rings and strong enough to dangle a fully laden metal monster like a Seacam. Handy for those close encounters with the great whites.

On the first day Jason was up at the crack of dawn trying out the pole-cam instead of jumping into the shark cage (may be the cold water has something to do with it).

"here fishy fishy fishy" Photo by Matt Thorp

We waited for inestimable amount of time and no sharks appear. And as soon as Jason turned his back a nine foot GW shark suddenly poke out of the water and tried to chew on his Nexus housing.

Photo by Matt Thorp

Jason was  determined as only a pro could and was trying very hard to take “scary” close up pictures of Jaws. There was just a small problem that none of us foreseen. That is in using a dome port with a wide angle lens the minimum focus distance of the lens and port combined have to be known.  We just triggered away and got shots of tails and fuzzy shark mouth full of fuzzy shark teeth. It was really trial and error before we realized that the camera refused to trigger at the right moment, but once the distance was correctly judged Jason began taking some  scary and toothsome shots.

Photo by Jason

Now using a polecam is useless without the control. Here I am going into a bit of shameless self promotion. The Nexus is rigged up with an underwater Aquatica remote control plugged into a custom sync socket on the housing made by yours truly. The best way to appreciate the effectiveness of this set up is to take a look underwater. This is a great shot taken by Chris Swannie using Julian’s Subal housing. Julian was shark spotting in case the shark plays the same hid and seek trick again.

Photo by Chris using Julian's camera and housing

This shark came very close and almost took the rig into his  or her mouth…okay at this point I remembered I was informed by Andrew Fox that one way to differentiate a male from a female shark (at least for the Great White variety) is the claspers near the anal fins. Claspers = male??!! Well what do I know they all looked like big “bruce” to me.
Now I do not want to go into the trip details which involved a lot of flying, waiting and land transfers. I just wanted to say I had a great time and the Rodney Fox crew was top notch. I saw seven different great white sharks some have claspers and some don’t.  Want to see my shots? See the Flickr site attached on the top right hand corner. I used a Zillion 5D Mark II, Pro One dome and couple of wide angle lenses, one Sigma 15mm and Canon 17-40mm wide angle zoom. I also packed two Inon Z240 and as back up a Canon 400D in a Seatool housing.

I am planning to go back again this year. Anyone interested in coming too then email me at . August is the best time to go but also the coldest time as it will be winter there. Water temperature is hovering around 10 to 13 deg C. Scorching for polar bears but for me I needed a hood and 10mm wetsuit which requires an Olympic size weight belt to keep me from floating like a man in a very thick wetsuit. You do not even need to bring them, Rodney Fox will provide these.
I will post some HD video clips in the next few blog….so stay tuned.

What a happy bunch....