My new toys for underwater photography"

So, I've been quite busy these past 6 months. First I was in the Navy, and now I am at the norwegian maritime museum. Which has given me a more nuanced view of many things, among them being maritime archaeology. more of that later.

Whats cool is that I have recently gotten some UW-photo guff! the last year I have been pretty annoyed by the fact that simply stuffing my P&S nikon coolpics into an underwater housing posed serious limits on me when trying to get decent pics in a dark and cold enviroment. the main challange has been the lak of usable natural light and the uselessness of the built-in flash on the compact digital camera. At work I got to use a D300 in a Subal UW-housing with a seriously huge fisheye, which instantly made just about everything into Fine Art Prints.

Well, the toys have I have gotten should hopefully help. I got a UltraMax UltraPower UXDS-1 Strobe, a Fantasea M46 Fisheye and some other stuff'n'guff. The flash is extremly simple and seemingly well-built.

U got 4 switches: magnetic on/off, Test (simply fires the strobe), power (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) and a pre-flash setting. thats it, and for small point and shoots, I am hopefull that it's all I'll need.

The button for poweroutput is self-explanatory, and once u have held the strobe, so is the pre-flash button. you simply push it to set the apropriate ammount of pre-flashes that your camera uses. Everything from 0-4. one push = 1 pre-flash, 2 push = 2 pre-flash and so on. the strobe remembers the settings once you have done it, but if the need to fix it underwater should present itself, it will require the technical comprehension level of a semi-retarded neanderthal to fix it in less than 2 seconds.

The flash uses two light-sensors on its underside to dedtect when your cameras integrated strobe goes off (one on each side for maximum coverage. So in theory, you can simply bring it with you as a handheld to be able to use it). But the cool thing is that they decided to include a fiber-optical syncronization cable with the strobe. the sync-cord comes in a neat little kit with alll you need. a small patch that slides under the rubber-covering to blind the sensor you're not using, and a similar patch with the cord attached to it to fit likewise to the ohter sensor. the end meant for your camerahousing is attached to some M3 plastic velcro (comes with spares, just in case) so that you can easily take it on and off as you wish. the specs aren't overly impressive, but it sure as hell offers some great bang for the bucks.
The strobe is powered by 4 AA batteries that sit in a separate compartment (protected by double o-rings).

I haven't actually gotten to use the strobe yet, but I'll do so in the weekend or on monday so that I write a review of it (mostly to gather my own thoughts on the product)

The Fantasea M46 fisheye also looks to be of simple well-made quality, but I am a bit more sceptical regarding the efficiency of it as it's considerably less curved than all other fish-eyes I've ever tried (not that I have any clue on what I'm talking about).
The first and most prominent potential problem i am aware of is that even though the Fantasea housing is made specifically for my camera, the camera lens sits at the top of the lens of the housing, whereas the centre of the fisheye is matched to that of the housing. What it means is that the fisheye will possibly distribute light unevenly to the cameralens, thereby creating some unwanted distribution of light and warping of the image. but we'll see. The second problem I encountered was that the lens (the part u can get a grip on when attaching or un-screwing) rotates independantly of the threads. so if you attach the lens with more than the absolute minimum of rotation, it might get seriously stuck onto the housing (thereby ruining all future hopes of nice macro-footage).

but again: we'll see how it works in real actual factual water. I'll write a review for the lens too.

Divers Night

So, next week, on the 4th of december, 2008, 20:08 a clock, we'll be going nightdiving. Diversnight has been arranged for a few years now on the initiative of the diveclub DKTV's founder. This fourth annual diversnight is again pushing for a recordbreaking dive-event by having as many divers in the water at the same time as possible - last year there was 1859 divers in the water, and hopefully there will be more this year as the popularity of the event has spread outside of Norway and Scandinavia.

There is also a set of rules that every divesite must follow to ensure a minimum of safety. Would be rather unfortunate if anyone was to have an accident.
Borrowed without permission from the diversnight.com site, but assuming it's ok as it is about safety.

"The following must be present on the dive site for matters of safety:

• Surface support; a diver in gear (PAI Rescue or equivalent*)
• Emergency Management Plan in the unlikely event of an emergency
• The diving flag must be raised
• Divers must be logged inn and out of the water
• No ‘solo diving’
• All divers must be certified , with night diving experience*
• Local emergency services should be notified of the event
• All divers must fill out a liability release form"

The liability release form is a bit fishy, but understandable. So if you wanna go dive, make sure do sign up yourself and your buddy for an independant divelocation or check if there's a planned location somewhere close to you.

Seaskin Nova Drysuit Review

This is a poor translation from the original review which I typed out for a webforum. If there's anything you'd like to know about the suit not mentioned bellow, ask and we'll see if I know the answer. (not that I aexpect anyone to read it, but hey... just in case)

The basics – what is teh Seaskin nova?

Seaskin Nova is the trilaminate drysuit from seaskin which is made to measure. Seaskin is a brand from the company Aqualand Ltd. Which is a factory making scuba-products for several brands.
Front-zip is standard on the seaskin nova, and instead of a regular telescoping torso, they have chosen to go for just some extra material in the back which is secured to the front via a stretchy crotch-strap. go to Dry Suits from Seaskin Custom Drysuits home page for further details (but take em with a pinch of salt).

The process:

So… I was in urgent need of a drysuit, but living on a student loan, funds were short. But wait! What was it I glimpsed there in the back-alley of teh intarweb? A made to measure drysuit fir 400 British pounds/monopoly money? Surely it had to be the Nigerian mob after my money again... but if it was a scam, someone had gone through a lot of trouble making em fake forum-posts (have a look at the Yorkshire-divers forums), so I figured I’d give it a shot. One want everything to be just so when you’re getting yourself a custom suit. I phoned Seaskin and am allowed to chat with a cheery fellow named Richard – all of my questions are met with positive answers. The missus measures me three times while muttering about me visiting a gym. An order is placed, and I send an e-mail with some lines on how I want things done. Material: 2/2 nylon, bla bla– it’s the 22nd of may. A couple of days later I call seaskin again to confirm the details. Richard is his cheery self and says he’ll staple the e-mail to my order right away. My suit should be done in 4-5 weeks, starting from the day before yesterday.
I spend 5 weeks being elsewhere, but my suit is not done when I get home. Oh-well, it should be here any day now. In the second week of July I call Seaskin again, and Richard claims that it’ll ship in a couple of days. Another week passes, new phone call, and again same answer: couple of days. After this I call weekly to get an update – surprises like a lack of hunter-boots, halcyon-pockets not arriving from supplier and not being able to bond polyurethane pads to my suit are popped on me during the phone calls. Hunter-boots are found and glued, halcyon pockets finally arrive and alternatives for the polyurethane on the bum and elbows are promised. At the end of July I run a bit anxious about not getting any dives done, so I call a couple of times a week. Having to change delivery-address because holidays are over kinda sucks.


In the beginning of August my suit arrives. At First inspection it looks extremely good, but there are a few issues that have to be mentioned: there are no of the promised reinforcements on elbows and bum. The seams are double-sticthed and not triple-stitched as the web-page says (no matter as long as it’s functional). A couple of the seams have gone wrong and don’t hold together but for the glue, and there are quite a bit of air-bubbles trapped between the material and the tape. The reflective tape that is supposed to be on the arms is not there - no explenation given. But the inside of the suit with its glued and taped seams look to be high quality and they had done the most neatly done attachment of pockets I’ve ever seen.

So I have my suit – put on the undersuit, slip the drysuit on…. good heavens! – it feels like I’m wearing a soft jumpsuit! – the mobility is superb and the fit is just great! There is a bit of excess of material at the left shoulder by the zipper, but the suit is not tight in one single area. Frogkicks and aerobics are preformed and regarded as great entertainment for the missus.

When diving:

time to play around with weighting and trim with the new suit – its quickly done with and I can move on. The seaskin remains very flexible even when fully squeezed. The inflator is placed on the left side of the chest and I quickly discover that it allows me to have a much shorter inflation-hose (which is good). The valves preform flawlessly, the hunter-boots are flexible and have a nice fit. The warmneck which looked bulky next to the DUI version proved to be thin, robust, flexible and not in the way of movement at all.
I was a bit concerned about the arse of my suit being roughed up a bit as I use this particular part of my body to sit on while in a boat, sitting on rocks before and after a dive etc. but so far so good.

After 20 dives on various wrecks, including snagging on lots of the wreckage on Tirpiz, the suit looks good as new. The material cleans off easily and dries in minutes. The suit itself is very lightweight and overall it appears to be good quality. As you can see from my review, I am not particularly impressed by the customer service of Seaskin – sure the representatives of Aqualand and Seaskin are a friendly bunch, but there's a lot more to customer service than a cheery and positive staff. Don’t get me wrong: the customer service wasen’t bad, just not in any way as good as I had been led to believe through the statements of others.

In conclusion, I can, believe it or not, recommend you to try the seaskin nova drysuit if you are short on funds. I don’t know if I would have bothered with the 2/2 nylon on a second go-around seeing as there are none of the promised reinforcements. The cutting and most of the stitching is nice and precise work. The fit is excellent as long as you measure yourself properly, and the price is simply just unbeatable. I’ve tried several makes of DUI and they are unquestionably a tad better than the seaskin, but seriously… it’s not worth three times the price of a seaskin. I will probably consider a new seaskin when this one wears out.

Diving in Malta

Divetrip to Malta

Me and the girly went to Malta this June - I had read quite a bit about the diving in malta, and was really looking forward to it, seeing as I had never ever dived wet before. Malta turned out to be a not-so-great place with every single corner serving "english breakfast" which might have been a by-product of all the fat brits huffing around. The islands also sported a range of fantastic historical architecture and archaeological sites which lost some of their beauty to the fact that a majority of them had flashing neonadds bolted to the walls or a sweaty Macdonalds cramped into it. The food was everything from awfull to the best I've ever had. The best food Iæve ever had was probably awfull too, but I had treated myself to a couple of liters of sangria and a cheap bottle of local redwine prior to the meal. We didn't go there primarily to dive - allthough I have to admit that it was my primary motivation for choosing Malta from the multiude of cheap package hollidays. We were going to be there for two whole weeks, but we were short on money so finding the right divecentre (right beeing, unfortunatly, the ones able to compete in price) was essential, and luckily, the small islands have something like 44 of them to choose from. We went to a lot of centers, that quite honestly, scared us a bit due to seemingly low standards on rental and safety equipment, but then we stumbeled upon a newly opened centre that is run by a likeable and entertaining british couple: http://www.corsairdivingmalta.com/. We went pretty early in the season, so we lucked out and were able to pick exactly when and where we wanted to dive - having noone to bother us but the instructors. They picked us up from the hotel (the hotel being a whole sad story of itself ) in the morning, brought us to the centre for e briefing and then drove us to the divesites. There was no timeschedule, so there was no sense of rush at any point of the days spent diving.
The divesites themselves were in one word: fantastic. a lot has been done to create interesting sites where there are none, and let me assure you: there are very few places on malta where there are no interesting sites. The underwater limestoneformations is worth a multitude of dives by themselves. Huge arches, small grottos, swimthroughs, octopusses, moray eels, baracudas, seahorses, fireworms, parrotfish and much more hiding in the cracks. the Viz was supposedly not great, but imo. it was better than good. I've only seen better during mid-winter in northern norway. I used a shorty, which, tbh I don't think I really needed (the water was warm), and a halcyon eclipse 40'. My longhose drew some snide remarks from the snorkelinstructors and bubblemakers, but didn't seem to be an actual issue.

If you get the chance to go to malta to dive. do so, but opt for Gozo instead of the main island. If you have to choose between the red sea, malaysya etc. and Malta, don't go to Malta as a first choice unless you are short on money or have already been to the countries and sites which are a step up on the ladder on the scale of exotic. Gozo rivals everything else out there, but main Malta is simply just good enough.

Diving

So I was out diving here the other day. the viz was awfull - between 1 and 4 meeters depending on debth. I had a couple of drysuit newbs with me and I was a bit conserned that one of them would find the garment constricting and thereby panic, be afraid, hurt themselves, hurt me, hurt each other etc, but it turned out that there were no apparant major issues. I was somewhat expecting something bad to happen, and I am a bit ashamed to admit that there was a tiny bit of disapointment when everything went swimmingly. I spent most of my time turning this way and that, trying to keep track of both of them at once, so I didn't get to enjoy the muddy green water and empty bottles as much as I had wished for, but hey.. atleast I got to be in the water.