It's gorgeous in Kona, both topside and in the water, right now...

I'm in the dive shop for the day right now. We went out for the manta dive last night and got skunked for one of the few times this year. There was a manta around when snorkelers were first put in, but it took off, so none, or very few, of the divers got to see it as far as I know. It turned into a night dive for everone.

Business has been pretty steady throughout the summer, although right now I've got a 7 day mystery stretch of no charters for some reason. Starting the 19th, which is about when I suspected it to slow down, I've got charters lined up through the next 3 weeks or so, with plenty of other charters through the rest of September at this point.

So diving has been really nice the last little bit. We did see about a degree temperature bump in the last week, so the water's seemingly warming up. We've had some minimal swell, not enough to really affect anything. We're into the start of my favorite time of year to dive Kona. Late summer and fall are really great times to dive here... warmest and calmest water conditions usually, and once school's start up it typically isn't quite as busy for the resorts.

We were diving the other day out at Kaloko, and one of our customers was taking the Advanced Open Water course and used my camera for the photography dive, he managed to get several decent shots. Here's a shot of a pretty good sized ulua (aka trevally) he shot a picture of that was following our divers through the canyons for a while. The picture really doesn't do justice for the size of this fish, everyone diving said it was in the 36 inch long range.

Later,

Steve

Cheap, inexpensive underwater film cameras for snorkeling or scuba diving in Kona Hawaii.

A lot of people tend to think of underwater photography as a thing they're going to have to spend hundreds of dollars just to get started and don't realize there are reltively cost effective cameras available for those who just want to take a few snapshots while they are snorkeling or diving.

We carry the Snap Sights Sports Utility Cam at our shop. It's a basic housed film point and shoot camera. You'll find "underwater" single use cameras that are good to 12/15/30 feet around at a lot of places. These cameras are a bit beefier... they're good to 100 foot depths, so they're great for snorkelers, kayakers, and scuba divers. These specific cameras are quite nice in that they come loaded with 27 shots and are refillable/reusable... you can put another roll of film in when you are done and take them back underwater again. They are also quite nice in that they come with a built in flash, you'll have a chance at taking a picture with good color. Water tends to absorb color, and without a flash the pictures can look dull and bluish. With a flash, you add light back so you get your color back. The flash is really only good to about arm's length or so but it really helps bring back the true color of what you're looking at if you're about 2-3 feet away or so.

These cameras are a fun and reltively inexpensive (we're selling them for $19.99 at our shop) way to try underwater photography and bring home some memories without breaking the bank.

Aloha,

Steve

So I brought in some Intova digital camera product...

I want to carry some underwater cameras in the shop so I brought in some Intova digital cameras and assorted items (red filters, wide angle lens, strobes/trays/fiber optic connectors) to try, as well as the $20 reusable film cameras that are good to a hundred feet. The digital cameras I brought in are 12 megapixel cameras housed in a housing that's good to 180 feet. If they're any good, they're a heck of a deal for under $250.

Some time in the next week or so I'll try to get out diving with one to see what it can do. I'm looking at keeping at least one for rent on the boat. I figure $35 a charter is a decent rental price for a camera that you can take a lot of stills and video (it shoots 720P HD video too), and I'll apply the first day's rental towards purchase of the camera if anyone decides they want to pick one up within a week after trying it. I'm hoping they're relatively easy to work with, like with any camera there's always a learning curve. I'll report back after I give 'em a shot.

I do plan on carrying some other photographic equipment down the line. Gotta get a start somewhere...

Later,

Steve

I finally put a RAW editor for the Olympus Pen e-pl1 on my computer....

Aloha,
Well, it's about time. Unfortunately Adobe CS and CS3 don't support the Pen series of cameras, you need CS4 or later to find an update that'll support RAW editing for those cameras. The cameras come with Olympus' own editing and file management program. I'm working off two 4-5 year old computers and neither of them has a functioning DVD/CD drive, got on to Olympus' site this morning and downloaded their program. Yay. It's slower than Adobe's RAW editor, doesn't seem to do as many of the things I want to do, but it'll do 'til I get a new computer at some point in the future and load CS5 on to it.

I've only converted two shots so far, so I can't say much about the program. It does have a nice grey dropper white balance feature which works well for underwater shots... lots of greys on the reef with all of our hard corals. You can just put the dropper on a likely gray spot (OK, since this blog is read internationally I'm covering all my bases by interchangeablly using "gray" and "grey" I guess... Don't remember which one I should be using anymore) and click and the photo will hopefully go to it's natural color rather than the cyan/blue you typically get underwater. I should do some screen shots some day to show it. I tried it on a couple photos and they came out looking a bit too colorful, might have to tone down the saturation a bit on some pictures.

Here's a quick shot of a couple yellow tangs picking at algae amongst the finger corals. Tangs are herbivores and graze pretty much all day long. A lively reef will be coverered with numerous species of tangs.

Later,

Steve

Olympus Pen PT-EP01 underwater housing for Oly's E-PL1 camera review...

Aloha,

I just received the housing for my Olympus E-pl1 camera. I refused the urge to go down the hill and do a dive with it today, tomorrow morning I'll have to. I took the time to read the manual, it actually comes with a reasonable sized manual, something I haven't seen with a lot of housings I've had before.

My first impressions are that it's well made. In the box comes the housing, o-ring, o-ring grease, dessicant packs, rubber LCD hood, a rigid lens cover. It also comes with an application for DEPP insurance. DEPP insures gear sets and underwater photo equipment. The housing features a new-ish locking system that Olympus has come with in the last couple of years that seems pretty good. The back of the housing is a transparent polycarbonate type of material. My only gripe is that only the bottom part of the back is polished to clear so you can readily see the o-ring and check for moisture... I'd like to see it polished to where you could see the entire o-ring to check on your seal. The buttons on the back of the housing are really nice, they're larger than I'm used to on other housings, and they're labeled nicely - almost better than the buttons on the camera are labeled.

I was happy to see the lens cover and LCD hood as the company that sold the housing had those available as "replacements" and I decided not to purchase them at the time. "Replacement" to me implies they come with the original purchase, but if you look up the housing on Olympus' site, they have the zoom gear ring listed as a "replacement" item, yet it does not come with the original purchase. I think Oly ought to change their website to say "optional" on the zoom gear, as the way they have it makes it unclear as to whether it comes with the original purchase or not. It doesn't. I did pick up the zoom gear as a separate purchase. The zoom gears are basically rubber gears that fit tightly around the camera lens which matches up with a small gear on the front of the housing so you can use the zoom. It's an extra 45 bucks, but well worth it. Different sizes of zoom gears are available, as the housing has been made to accept a couple different lenses and the gear needs to fit the specific lens.

The other purchase at the time of the order was the macro lens mount. It's a rigid plastic piece that fits over the front port of the housing and will accept 67 mil threaded lenses. I have an Inon 67 mil macro lens already so I'm set there. The lens adaptor is another 45 bucks... it all adds up.

The housing itself is pretty big compared to the Canon housing I had for my G9, but it's quite comparable to the size of the Ikelite housing I had for my Olympus 8080 several years back. The Olympus E-pl1 is one of the smallest interchangeable lens cameras available these days, and the housing is also. Olympus could have made the housing a bit smaller by eliminating the space for the optional electronic viewfinder. I'm sure they put that in there to appease the people who love using viewfinders rather than using the LCD. In my opinion the LCDs with live view have sort of revolutionized underwater photography, I suspect we'll see less use of viewfinders in the future. Even with it's somewhat largish size, it's quite a bit smaller than most of the DSLR housings we see come on the boat. Price of the housing is $599, I found it for $75 less. It sounds like a lot of money, but the typical DSLR housing begins at around $1200 and can top a couple grand easily. Olympus has made it so you can get an interchangeable lens system underwater for what has been the price of just an economy housing in the past.

Unlike most of the smaller point and shoot housings, this housing is not made for use of the onboard flash for taking photos. It's set up so the onboard flash can trigger a remote flash.. that's another expense down the line. For now I'll be shooting with available light.

I can't wait to get it wet.

Just picked up an Olympus Pen e-pl1, no underwater housing yet...

Well after 10 months without a camera, the one I've been lusting after came on sale. Bill me later had 6 months same as cash and I figured it was time. I mentioned this camera several posts ago. It's a smallish interchangeable lens camera. It's bigger than my old Canon G9, but a fair bit smaller than my old Olympus 8080, just a tad bit larger than the old 3030/3040/4040 series cameras. Olympus has a housing for it right now, rumors have it that Ikelite and 10 Bar are working on housings for it as well. We're coming into our busy season (last half of summer, and to some extent the early fall) and I won't be taking cameras down on most dives, so there's no reason to rush for a housing... gotta learn the new camera and pay it off.

Yesterday I did something I rarely do... I read the owner's manual. About the only thing I've read the owners manual before using first in the past have been our chainsaws - they scare me. I'm typcially in the habit of just using the camera for 6-12 months then trying to read the manual, I had 3 hours to kill while the battery charged so I got ahead of the game this time.

Initial impressions. Neat camera. I read a lot of comments about it being slow, but coming from the point and shoot world with Canon and Olympus cameras, it seems blazing fast to me. I took a little walk at Old Airport Park in Kailua and shot some quick snapshots. It was windy and I put it in macro... focused practically instantaneously in my book. My previous cameras had a tough time locking in macro on windy days and gently moving subjects. The macro was actually a bit better than I expected, not having a devoted macro lens on, possibly a bit "closer" than the Canon G9 I'd used for a couple of years. All in all, it looks as though it'll be a very nice underwater camera once I get a housing for it down the line. For now I'll learn what it can do.

The pic at the top was of some plumeria flowers. They are probably the most common flowers you see in the leis sold to visitors. The small shot at the bottom is nothing special, just the coast on a sunny-ish day in Kailua. Notice the flat water... scuba diving conditions have been excellent now that summer's in full swing.

Later,

Steve

Olympus PEN e-pl1 Micro four thirds camera and underwater housing.... I want....

Aloha,

Haven't posted in a while. I've been busy with work and life lately, and haven't had new photos to work with too much since my camera died early last fall, so I got away from posting the last couple weeks. I have been researching camera choices though, and I've pretty much got a camera targeted.

My early forays into underwater digital photography were with Olympus cameras, I kept upgrading... easy habit to do once you get the bug... and ended up with an Olympus 8080. At the time I thought, gee, too bad someone doesn't make a camera about this size with interchangeable lenses.... After the 8080 I picked up an SP350, very easy to use and small... loved it. After that I picked up a Canon G9... loved it too, although the learning curve wasn't immediate for me with the new menus and such. When it died last fall (around August/September) I planned on waiting to see what was around the corner for cameras.

The Canon G11 had been announced, then I found out about the Canon S90 (sort of a G11 crammed into a small package). Both cameras are great and I was very interested in the S90 because of the size.... Well, a couple of falls ago Olympus and Panasonic got together and announced a new format of camera, Micro 4/3rds, which sort of is a hybrid between a high end point and shoot and an interchangeable lens DSLR. When I heard that I've been keenly watching the progress of the camera lines. Then, earlier this year, it happened.... Olympus announced and has just put out a micro 4/3 camera with an underwater housing. I think it's been decided which camera I make the move to next.

I've been researching the camera and housing a bit. Since they just came out, there's a huge lack of anything about them to be found readily on the net, coming at it from an underwater hobbyist's viewpoint at least. You've pretty much got to glean through Olympus' site and a couple of the online camera catalogs and try to figure it out your own at this point as far as for underwater use goes. The camera is getting good user reviews on dpreview.com, that's a plus, but it's all above water stuff. There's tons of 1 page "reviews" by gadget gurus which are little more than announcements, nothing that really gets into readily listing what you need to really get this camera water ready. Coming from the point and shoot world and into the world of trays, strobe arms, strobes and such it's quite a bit to sift through. I'm gonna give it a try myself... and once I've got it all together (could be weeks or months, you never know) I'll report back on my experience. I'm looking forward to another new camera learning experience that'll keep my UW photo hobby exciting for me 'til I get the next bug to upgrade.... of course this all assumes I'm getting the camera - Pat's amazed I've held off this long, but I've got a shop to put together for the summer.

I hope to be displaying some photos from a new camera sometime in the next month or so. For now, here's a repeat posting of one of my favorite shots that Pat has taken with her G9. It's of a frogfish. We've started seeing the juveniles appear again, it's that time of year. They're sooooo cool!!!

So what's this? Some kind of sea snake? Nope...

While technically there are a species or two of sea snakes that have Hawaii included in it's/their range, sightings are very very rare. We'll occasionally get snorkelers saying they saw some kind of sea snake working it's way through the coral. My suspicion is that this is the prime suspect.... what is pictured above is the body of either a Tiger Snake Moray (Scuticaria tigrina) or a Large Spotted Snake Moray (Uropterygius polyspilus), the latter of which I didn't even know existed 'til I opened the book 3 minutes ago to look up the scientific name of what I've always known of as a "Tiger Moray". I think you have to be a bit more of a science guy than I am to readily tell them apart unless you've got a really good shot of their nostrils (I'll have to take a look at my original shots to see if the nostrils above the eyes come in clear enough to differentiate between the two species).

Anyways, it's not totally uncommon to see a view similar to the above of these or other similar species of eels - body only, winding around through coral. The bodies are very tubular, as opposed to the regular morays which have tall dorsal fins, and remind people of snakes. If you are diving you can usually take a bit of a look around the coral head you see the body in and find it's head coming out somewhere. If you've got a camera - be ready, as the head will usually end up in another opening of the coral within seconds. I managed two head shots of this one before it disappeared again.

Aloha!

Steve

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.... well, not really, but these squid sure remind me of tree ornaments....

I just returned from another manta ray night dive up off of the Kona airport. There were 4 to 5 mantas tonight, it was a good show for all on board. We haven't been seeing squid the last few times out, I'm glad I had the camera with me the night this group showed up... I still have more shots I'll post later.

Aloha,

Steve

Welcome to the Kona Hawaii squid blog...

Ok, so it's not a squid blog... but I did get a bunch of photos on the manta ray night dive last night. I'll be able to keep showing squid from time to time 'til I get more regular stuff in.

These shots were taken with my Canon G9 in a Canon WP-DC21 waterproof case. I didn't use any external strobes or lenses, just the base kit. They were taken at night using some light from other divers along with a handheld LED light, primarily for focusing purposes as the onboard flash is pretty much responsible for the lighting showing in the photos.

Aloha,

Steve

p.s. I haven't shown my favorite squid shots yet.

Which Hawaiian island is the best for scuba diving? Is it Oahu, Maui, Kauai, or the Kona side of the Big Island?

I may be biased, I'll bet you can guess my answer....

So I see this question come up occasionally on the scuba diving message boards. There's usually a bunch of responses by people who've only dove one island pushing for that island. I think in reality, diving almost anywhere in Hawaii beats the heck out diving in a lake or quarry somewhere back in North America.

I have done some limited diving on Maui and Lanai and Oahu, and I get a lot of customers coming here after diving on the other islands, and while the other islands do have their strengths, it's tough to match the diving we have here in Kona. I'll make a brief case...

Geologically the Big Island is much younger than the other islands... we're talking millions of years, not hundreds or thousands... so we've got fewer rivers and streams for runoff (Kona has NO permanent streams) and less sand to cloud things up when a storm passes by... so the day to day viz in Kona is tough to match as rain does not affect our visability here. Less sand means fewer beaches, so that can be a problem for some people, although we do have some very nice beaches here if you care to look for them, but rocky shores means clear water, which is great for the diving crowd. Being geologically younger, erosion hasn't had the time to shrink the island and create a widespread fringe reef, but that means at nearly all of our dive sites you can find both shallow reef AND dropoffs into deep water without having to cover a lot of distance... this can be great fun for divers who like a variety of terrain.

The Big Island also has more healthy reef surrounding it than the other islands... This recent report has 57% of the Big Island surrounded by reefs, the bulk of which is on the Kona side, while the other islands are averaging about 20% (I'd have to find another link on the report to show you that, and I'm feeling lazy today, it's out there in all the NOAA links).

Water condition-wise, Kona is unique in the Hawaiian islands in that we have a couple of great big volcanoes that block the tradewinds. What that does is basically gives us relatively flat water all day long, whereas in many diving areas elsewhere in the state you've got the trades kicking up wind chop and swell by noon or earlier that affects the viz and can make for a crummy boat ride back to port. I'm not saying we don't have our crummy days, but you can count on big wind several days a week, not several days a year like here, in many parts of the state. In winter months the other islands to the north and west of us often block out a good portion of the winter storm swells, which can make for OK to great diving conditions here while others aren't so lucky.

Dive operator-wise, Kona has a bunch of good ones. You should be able to find one that meets your needs. If you're looking for a 6 pack boat (6 passengers max, we'll go with as few as two on day dives) with plenty of shade, generous dive profiles and bottomtimes, a sandwich lunch along with snack crackers and trailmix and beverages, as well as very experienced dive guides that know their critters, please consider us and click on the Wanna Dive links in the sidebar of this page.

I could go on and on about why the Big Island is a great place for a vacation... and maybe some day I will... but that'll have to be saved for another day.

I was looking through a few photos I took a couple months ago and I'd forgotten I'd taken this one... it's cool if you know what you're looking at. Since we have dropoffs at most of our dive sites we'll see the deep water predators such as Jacks and Uluas come into the reef looking for prey. This Bluefin Trevally (Caranx melampygus) is activly soliciting a hunting partner - the small Whitemouth Moray (Gymnothorax meleagris) underneath him. The eel was cooperative, although I didn't manage to get a picture of it out actively hunting with the trevally (they move too quickly). When these two species work together, they'll swim along at the same speed and the eel will go through holes to potentially flush something out(or in from the trevally). We see several species of fish hunting together here on a reasonably frequent basis. Multiple species of fish hunting together is referred to as nuclear hunting.

This post sort of says "advertisement" all over it, but I really do believe Kona's the spot to dive in Hawaii if you want to dive. We had a couple on the boat last week who were quite quoteable (they referred to my boat as "beautiful" and "10 times way better than the skiffs we usually dive off of in the Carribean" - also they were very complimentary of Cathy's guide and critter finding skills). They'd done a significant amount of diving in the Carribean and had dove Maui several years back and were apparently quite unimpressed. Well, they were here for several days and decided to give Kona a day of diving... afterwards they'd said the dives had completly changed their opinion of Hawaiian diving. Kona's definitly got some great diving.

Aloha,

Steve

Whew, busy, here's a quick underwater photo to tide you over while I'm not posting much...

Here's an adult male Spotted Boxfish (Ostracion meleagris). I've got a lull coming up in a few days, I'll put in an extra post or two then.

Aloha,

Steve

I feel like posting another Kona Hawaii frogfish photo....

I just rescued this photo from the forgotten bin. It was a little underexposed and I'd basically ignored it, but thanks to the fact that I shoot in RAW it was quite saveable. We saw this one on a dive last month and I haven't posted a photo of it yet.

The Kona Classic 7 - an underwater photo and video festival, competition and seminars in May of 2008

There's an annual underwater photography event that's been held here in Kona for several years now that's supposed to be fun... so I thought I'd plug it.



This year it'll be held from May 24th through the 31st. Official sponsors for the event are Jack's Diving Locker, Kona Honu Divers, and Bottom Time. The event includes a week of diving along with seminars, photo critiques, social events and a competition with great prizes. It's a great opportunity to learn and develop some underwater photography skills. There will be several well known photo pros involved, who will be rotating on the boats of the official sponsors during the diving portion of the event as well as being present at the evening and social activities.

I'll be joining in on the fun myself as I've always wanted to do it but usually I've taken part of that week off to go elsewhere (slow season). It'll be a fun event and if anyone wants to join me on my boat I will be honoring the diving prices they've set up for the event. Since I'm not a sponsor this year I won't have a photo pro onboard, but we'll have the same access as everyone else after the dives. The cost of the event itself is $350 per person, which includes the receptions, a Body Glove evening cruise, all the seminars and more, with the dive operators having agreed to charge $650 for the diving for the week for participants.

As I know more I will post more information. Get yourself to Kona this May and take advantage of this opportunity.

The photo above is of a young Hawaiian Dragon Moray (Enchelycore pardalis) our divers found the other week. These spectacular eels have a lot of color in their faces and large hornlike tubes on thier foreheads. We've seen a couple of them lately so we're hoping to see more of them. I've yet to be lucky enough to have a camera in hand when I've seen them, this picture was forwarded by customer Melinda... thanks Mel.

Later,

Steve

Arothron Meleagris - Spotted Puffer. Yellow ain't the regular color...

OK, so I can't get enough of the puffer that Cathy took photos of yesterday. Here's the regular coloration of the spotted puffers we see, it's from a photo I took about 3 years back. Quite a contrast from the yellow colored one for sure. The shot below is another pic that Cathy took as the puffer from yesterday was just inside the mouth of a cave/puka (puka is essentially Hawaiian for "hole").

Apparently the yellow coloration is more common in other parts of the Indo-Pacific, but for Hawaii it's a pretty unusual sighting. It was definitely the highlight of yesterdays outing, even though they saw a Great Barracuda, a frogfish, a couple of eagle rays, a couple groups of psychedelic wrasses, an octopus and other cool stuff.

Starting Underwater Photography - Underwater Housings for Digital Cameras

Aloha,

I get a fair number of inquiries about which camera to get for starting out with underwater photography, so I'll chime in with a few of my thoughts here.

Many people think you have to get a dedicated underwater camera, while this may be the best for some people, it isn't the only way to go. Oftentimes you can pick up a great new camera, with all the bells and whistles, and it'll have a corresponding manufacturer designed underwater housing that is good to about 130-140 feet or so. In many cases you can even find a housing available for a digital camera you may already own. There are housings avaiable for many Sony, Nikon, Olympus, Casio, Canon and Fuji cameras already on the market, and they seem to be committed to supporting housings in the future. there's probablay a couple others I have forgotten. Below are some examples available at Amazon.com. You can refresh the page for more examples, or I suspect do a search for specific cameras and housings when you get to a results page. Note: Some of the lower priced housings here are geared to snorkeling depths, make sure to read the fine print.



Remember, each housing is generally made for a specific model of camera. If you have camera and are looking for the housing, you can always reverse the process and look up the camera and see if the housing is available as an accessory. Older models may be problematic as they get discontinued as cameras are phased out.

Having picked up our first digital camera and housing in about 2000/2001, Pat and I have been upgrading as time goes so I'm semi-familiar with what's out there. I'm not going to recommend specific cameras(The big photo show is at the end of the month - everyone will probably introduce new cameras and today's stuff will be out of date shortly anyway), but Canon, Olympus and Fuji seem to be the most popular with the semi-serious underwater hobyists. I wouldn't hesitate to house a Nikon, Casio, or Sony either though. Many of the more popular point and shoots even have underwater settings built in these days.

Some basic recommendations I'd give are...

LCD screen, get it as big as possible. You'll probably want at least a 2.5 inch screeen, LCD screens that size and up are much more forgiving to middle-aged eyes, plus you'll see more detail in what you're doing while taking the photo.

Optical zoom is more important than digital zoom, you are probabaly looking at 3X-6X or so optical zoom for underwater, although I've heard people are happy with their superzoom cameras underwater, they just don't use the full zoom capacity underwater.

If you are going to be serious about it, and have access to nicer image editing programs, you might consider getting a camera with RAW. At the very least I'd recommend getting a camera with a "Manual" or "Custom" white balance setting.
_________

Many people think they have to invest in external strobes and the whole shebang right up front. That's really not the case. Take a look through my archives, there's not a picture on the blog yet that used an external strobe. They were all done with the onboard flash or with natural light. People who know what to look for can tell if an external strobe was used or not in some shots, but most people who aren't really into the hobby can't or won't care. External strobes will allow you to do more things, and get you well lit shots from further away, but you can always add them later if you don't right away.

Many of the underwater housings suitable for diving depths are running in the $150 to $225 range and corresponding cameras can run anywhere from $150 and up, but you can often get into a pretty decent little setup from $300 to $650 these days. There are higher end cameras and housings available of course.... it seems once you get hooked there's always the desire to upgrade.

Anyway, once you've got your equipment together, the best thing you can do is get to know your camera, and practice.... It's almost a lock you'll be disappointed with your initial results at first, I was, but with practice you'll get to know what you can and can't do with what you have.