Sealife Dc1400 Pro

[snorkymn]

Got my DC1400 Pro system today. I hope to have it in the water on Sunday for some test pictures. I used to use a little Fuji F30 and Fuji Case, so this will be a bit different. First time with an actual Strobe, and a camera more truly designed for underwater.

I did some tests here at home and got over 240 flashes on the strobe before I gave up testing. (Using auto on the dc1400 and 4 Eneloop 2000mAh batteries.) Bought an EconoMax 1500mAh battery for the camera, it had no problem with the 240+ flash pictures. Will keep testing it next week and hopefully post more during the week, or after I get back from a trip.

What I wonder is how people get the strobe to actually focus on super macro stuff that you have close? The strobe doesn't seem to bend that far to point more towards the lens to get the light correct.

 

[snorkymn]

Just back from a week of using my Dc1400 while diving in Puerto Aventuras.. First thing was one of the zipper tabs broke within a day on the housing case.. plastic doesn't work well on the case.. come on guys! Now to find a key ring or something to put there to be able to pull it open and closed.. Camera really doesn't like any silt or sand or anything in the water.. no matter where I put my strobe, the reflection was always there. Couldn't figure out where to put strobe to get any good macro shots really without "breaking" the arm to hold the stobe in my hand and not on the arm.. not ideal though..
Anything greater than 6 feet was too far for any light, so shots of really large sponges couldn't happen with any color.. Was a real pain to switch to manual mode to try to set the white balance.. Video mode when set to white balance of > 25 feet didn't seem to make much difference at all in the WB.. Need a quicker way in both modes to manually set white balance quickly. No way to change the exposure control up or down even though it's on the camera.. Auto mode on flash usually overexposed things.. manually trying to change the strobe was trying tons of times to get a level that worked. When setting macro mode, should have a macro mode which will auto set the flash to macro mode at the same time so you don't have to go through other buttons to do it. Will post pics when I get a chance.. facebook doesn't seem to like the size of them or something though. Anyway, the verdict is still out on this one from my perspective.
Would be nice to see some info on where people are placing their strobe for best light for different modes of shooting.
Oh, and Scuba.com sells a higher mAh battery that's supposed to be compatible in the camera.. and it does work.. but the camera won't charge it, it just gives an error. Seems like a software glitch or intentional programming to not allow longer lasting batteries to be used in the camera. The regular battery was barely getting 2 dives in, especially if using more than a minute or two of video. Will be taking it out again in 2 weeks for tons of dives so will give it more of a workout there as well.

 

[snorkymn]

I used my DC1400 In Roatan a couple weeks ago. I had an issue with the zoom lever sticking one way, and at one point I couldn't get the auto-focus to actually focus on anything. The auto focus issue seems to be taken care of if you don't have the camera on for extended periods, but not sure about the sticking lever. I try to rinse well, but it seems to happen at random times, and some of those can be underwater, after it had been working fine a bit earlier.

I did post the pics from my 2 trips using the camera. If you want to take a look what kind of pics you can get, check out Xtcscuba and XtcAdventures And just look for the Roatan and Puerto Aventuras pics.

 

[deeper thoughts]

thnx for the info

 

[SeaLife Joe]

If you have any questions about the functioning of your SeaLife product, best to contact our service department @ 800 257-7742 and they can help you out.

Joe