New camera: Canon s410 / DC800

[ethanb]

I finally got a chance to take my camera somewhere worthwhile - the Prins Willem (now if only I could combine two threads). Last Friday evening we went out on Points North's charter boat, . Viz was probably 50 feet and the surface temp was 62F, but it dropped to ~40F below about 15 feet.

Even with the good viz, I was initially a bit disappointed. Without the flash, the camera needed a fairly long exposure time - so long that many of the photos turned out blurred. Towards the end of the dive I experimented with forcing the camera to use a high ISO, which produced grainy images, and bracing the camera while taking photos, which had much better results. I am thinking about getting a cheap tripod, weighting it, and taking it along, so I can do longer exposures without blurring.

With the flash, many of the shots were pretty badly speckled. I expected this from the on-board flash, but not to this degree, especially considering how clear the water appeared. I did get good results when I brought the camera very close to the subject. I think I'll end up getting an external flash at some point.

I'm including some of my favorite shots from this dive. They're not all great (or even good), but I still thought I'd offer them up here from comments and suggestions. I couldn't find any protocol for posting images here - I tried not to make them too big, since I'm sure many people are using dialup. I've included 12 images and the total size of this page should be about 1 MB - at 57.6kbits/s that should take 2-3 minutes to download.

Workbench with tools


Engine Cylinder Head (with two zip ties)


Box (in one of the levels below the bridge, I believe)


Blower vent on deck near the bow:


Diver (Isaac Gomez, DM)


Mast (converted to B&W)


Mast (in color)


I think this is some kind of heat exchanger


Name on stern ("Will")


Name on stern ("Willem")


Name on stern ("ins Willem")
Everybody be sure to scrape off zebra mussels when you're back here!


Natural light entering windows (looking forward from level below bridge)