first a95 pics

[cra2]

I've had the a95 for a few months now and love it.
(never had a digital camera before so I'm easily impressed. lol)

Inspired by some of the gorgeous photos I've seen on here, I decided to splurge and get an underwater housing for it. Also, because some of you suggested not even bothering with accessories like lenses and strobes yet, I held off on that stuff and just decided to try to learn the camera in Bonaire a couple of weeks ago.

Wow... I love it. Dive photography is fun!
And I can see how you can HOOKED on it.

I've got a few HUNDRED pics now. lol. But I haven't had time to label, crop, rotate, etc. each one yet. But I did crop and upload 3 to my gallery a minute ago. http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/24596 Hope you enjoy!

 

[alcina]

Welcome to the addiction!

Loving the first three Looking forward to more!

 

[Puffer'J]

U mean u took these pics with just basic camera and housing?!!
WOW~ I'm impressed!!
My first underwater pics was so blue =(

 

[LegoPacific]

Great pics. If you hadn't said it was your first time, I would have never guessed.

 

[cra2]

U mean u took these pics with just basic camera and housing?!!
WOW~ I'm impressed!!
My first underwater pics was so blue =(

short answer:
yeppers, just the camera and canon housing.

long answer:
I came VERY close to buying a fancier housing and a strobe and a lens or two.
But after reading all the advice on here and looking at the incredible pics some of these guys like Lego were taking without a strobe, I decided to follow their guidance.
They said "just learn the camera first". Take all the surface photos you can.
ESPECIALLY learning the macro and manual settings.
So I took it to Costa Rica with us (no housing) and took close-ups of the jungle critters (scorpions, snakes and such).

Then, for Bonaire, I bought the housing and again followed their advice - to just learn the camera and its limits before investing in all the accessories.
So I figured, of all the places to sit still in clear water with good light and learn the camera, Bonaire's gotta be the best. No currents to deal with, great light, LONG bottom times, no rushing. Just waded into the water every day and started shooting.
I EASILY could have sat there right next to the dock(s) in 10' of water the whole trip!
There's SO MUCH LIFE there, right next to shore... eels, urchins, anemonae and tons of fish and cucumbers. Amazing.

And remember, this is digital. lol. There's probably 30 deleted "blue" pics for every good one I captured.

I can definitely see where a strobe would've helped though. There were times when I wanted a shot of a larger fish (or my wife) farther out than 2-3' and I couldn't capture that with the built-in flash - not without a bunch of backscatter. I'll probably push this camera-only thing for a while though, before investing in a strobe.

P.S. I followed the advice on here about the maintenance of the housing too.
I think I'd come out of the water, rinse the camera with a gallon-jug of water, then drive back to the resort where I'd throw it in the gear dunk tank (they didn't have a camera-only tank). That'd only be about 5 minutes or so while we rinsed all the gear and swapped tanks. Then I'd go back to the room and soak the housing in the sink for 15-30 minutes. Then I'd pop it open, pull the camera out and check the O-ring for debris. If none, and it still had a "greasy" sheen, I'd pop in one of those silicone dry-pouch thingies and cover it with a paper towel or something to keep the dust out til next use (usually a few hours away). With this method, I went about 5 dives before pulling the O-ring out and re-greasing it. No leaks (so far). Was trying to strike a balance between the manual that says grease it every dive, and the guys on here who said the more you play with the O-ring, the quicker it'll wear out.

So, thanks for the advice and inspiration guys. Everything worked out well so far.
And I just had a lady today ask if she could get prints to hang in her Bed & Breakfast here in Florida.

P.S.S. I just posted some more cropped images, but in some of them I have no idea what the little creature is. Drop me a line if you can help identify what they are.
Thanks

 

[Chad_Ordelheide]

Nice Shots! Just a Comment! I see you uploaded your photos in pretty high resolution. If you going to post more than 50-70. I would suggest scaling them down a bit before you upload them!!
Keep on shooting and make the Canon Corner Proud

 

[cra2]

yeah, I'll have to scale 'em down once I get a lot of pics. Right now, I've only used the camera on this one trip and don't know when the next trip is (sigh), so....

But thanks for the tip, and thanks for being one of the inspirations on here that caused me to try out the camera without any external strobe or special lenses.