G9, Ikelite in Little Cayman

[dcscot]

Just got back from Little Cayman with new presents which included the G9, Ikelite Housing, Ikelite DS-125 and a Fisheye FIX focus light.

All in all I was very impressed and had a great time. I put up the whole trip at mcpeek's photos- powered by SmugMug , the topside pictures are mostly with an S60 while the underwater pictures are with the G9.

I lost my first dive to a bad setting, IS Mode, which is Image Stabilization, when set to anything but OFF, I had blurry pictures underwater. Does anybody use this underwater?

I also had to be very careful with Ikelite Shortcut knob on the housing. Twice it got lodged against the housing when it was being closed. The first time I did not notice it until I put the camera into the fresh water rinse tank at Little Cayman Beach Resort. The result was a few drops of water that got into the TTL circuitry, which mean no external flash on the afternoon dive. I let everything dry out overnight and it worked the next morning.

I was shooting with a 4GB card which was good for two dives. I would change out the Canon battery after two dives as well. The DS-125 and Fisheye batteries easily lasted for three dives.

I generally shot with Aperture Priority although by the end of the week I was going Shutter Speed Priority if I wanted to get fish shots. Learned a lot all week and can not wait to get back and try new stuff.

 

[jdcpa]

Nice photos.

What dive site was the seahorse on? It looks like it was on the north side.

 

[dcscot]

Nice photos.

What dive site was the seahorse on? It looks like it was on the north side.

You are correct, it was Charlie's Chimneys. I actually missed another sea horse on a previous dive. During the week that we where there, we have 10 out of our 17 dives on the north side, it was way to rough to do them all on the north though.

 

[dougsturgess]

Hey Dcscot,

I'd love to talk to you before my trip. I'm heading to Grand Cayman, Roatan, Belize & Cozumel in April. I've just upgraded my G2 to the G9 and I'd like to talk to you about your experience. I found it interesting the image stabilization had to be turned off. Any idea why? Good to know the smaller batteries still last for 2 dives. I've always shot with just the onboard flash. I haven't committed to the external strobes yet.

Anyway, if you wouldn't mind talking by phone sometime, I'd like to talk. My email is dougsturgess@yahoo.com I have past underwater photos posted at Doug Sturgess's Photo Galleries at pbase.com and Travel Photography Photo Gallery by Doug Sturgess at pbase.com

Glad to find another G9/Ikelite user!

 

[peterbj7]

Interesting, as I've considered getting a G9. But my present camera (Casio) will do 7 dives and several hundred pictures on one charge, which means I never have to open the housing during the day.

Nice pictures though - I'm tempted by the G9. Have you post-processed any of the pictures, or are they as they came from the camera?

 

[okiediver1]

Why must the IS be turned off? First I have heard of that...

 

[dougsturgess]

Thanks. All the pics were taken in RAW, white balanced in CS2 & back scatter was cleaned up. Some of the color may have been bumped up, but that's all.

 

[dougsturgess]

I read that in Dscot's post at the top of the page:

"I lost my first dive to a bad setting, IS Mode, which is Image Stabilization, when set to anything but OFF, I had blurry pictures underwater. Does anybody use this underwater?"

 

[dcscot]

Interesting, as I've considered getting a G9. But my present camera (Casio) will do 7 dives and several hundred pictures on one charge, which means I never have to open the housing during the day.

Nice pictures though - I'm tempted by the G9. Have you post-processed any of the pictures, or are they as they came from the camera?

I actually was able to get three dives out of the battery, but that was pushing it. The big factor was that I was shooting RAW + JPEG, which came out to almost 20MB's a shot. This would eat my 4GB card pretty quick, then if I took a movie, well you get the idea. Since I was replacing the card after 2 dives, I would change the battery as well.

Also, as I was learning the best way to shoot with the G9, I set an option where it never went to sleep, so it was always ready. Since it was driving the 3" LCD all the time, and we are talking about 2+ hours of diving, I was ok with the duration.

 

[dcscot]

Why must the IS be turned off? First I have heard of that...

That is the answer that I would like to know as well. In my topside tests, I had IS Mode set to Continuous without any problem. When I was hunting around for the problem during my 2nd dive I finally hit on the IS Mode. My only clue was that I had the hand Icon up on the screen, which is camera shake warning, it would never go away with IS Mode on.