Yesterday at Sund Rock

[guitarmaker]

A buddy and I hit Sund Rock yesterday (Friday) and had the place all to ourselves. It was a great day to tryout my new camera and housing, a Canon G12 w/Ikelight housing and a recycled (from my water-logged Sealife setup) Intova flash.

First, there were ocoto’s and wolfeels under every ledge and under every rock: Every place you thought there should be one (and many places you didn’t!) they were there. Unfortunately few of them presented enough of themselves for a decent pic. On the other hand, Nudi’s and one grunt-sculpin patiently cooperated with me while I fumbled with unfamiliar controls. Here’s a link to the pics.
https://picasaweb.google.com/1083324026 ... slideshow/

Thanks to all of you who contributed to the thread “Entry Level Camera”.
(see http://www.nwdiveclub.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16110 )
With your advice I got a great high-resolution camera with good out-of-box macro capabilities and enough manual control to make an old canon F1, match needle, kodachrome guy happy. I now have a great setup I can grow with. BTW, I ordered my housing from Optical Ocean Sales at 11:AM on Friday and it was delivered Saturday PM. Cool!


Your opinion and advice helps!
Thanks,
Ron

[cardiver]

Nice pics! How did you go about hooking up your fiber optic cable to the Ike housing?

[mz53480]

Nice pics!

[guitarmaker]

Thanks Ron. Seeing what you do with a camera, a compliment means a lot! You zero’d in on the weak point of my kit. I use one of those hinky stick-on-velcro tabs with a fiber optics cable - It works but is less than ideal. Saving beer cans to pay for a TTL strobe I can hook to the hot shoe.

[cardiver]

Thanks Ron. Seeing what you do with a camera, a compliment means a lot! You zero’d in on the weak point of my kit. I use one of those hinky stick-on-velcro tabs with a fiber optics cable - It works but is less than ideal. Saving beer cans to pay for a TTL strobe I can hook to the hot shoe.

That's my biggest problem with Ike and the reason why I wont buy their product. I really despise how proprietary all of there equipment is! I also dislike the lack of a spring return of the zoom control on most of their housings........

[wcricple]

I have a G11 and Ike housing with the ttl cord and Ike strobe. I have gone though 3 of the cords in less than 2 years.
Ikelite has replaced them every time but what a P.I.T.A. ! They keep telling me that I need to be careful of the cord at the back of the housing. I've reinforced the strain relief with zip ties and shrink sleeves, but they only last several months.
I glued a 3/4" block of acyclic on top to link to my other flash which is controlled by an optical cable (and also provides a base to mount a focus light, which Ikelite doesn't provide on their housing BTW) . You could do something similar to provide a spot to attach the optical cable; drill a 1/4" hole (or 2 if you use 2 strobes ) in a block of acrylic and glue to the housing with acrylic glue. You need the optical sync cords with the round end of course. scraps of acrylic and glue can be had at any TAP Plastics store around the area.
One thing I've noticed when using the camera flash to fire strobes with that housing, you get a reflection off the inside of the lens port when you have a dark background. It appears as a crescent shaped artifact on one side of the frame or the other.
Still I'm sorry I went with the electronic synch cord and Ike flash, I'd never do it again.
It's a great camera anyway.

[cardiver]

The only housings that I would look at if I lost my mind and traded my XZ-1 for a Canon would be the 10 Bar and the Recsea.......

[dphershman]

Thanks Ron. Seeing what you do with a camera, a compliment means a lot! You zero’d in on the weak point of my kit. I use one of those hinky stick-on-velcro tabs with a fiber optics cable - It works but is less than ideal. Saving beer cans to pay for a TTL strobe I can hook to the hot shoe.

That's my biggest problem with Ike and the reason why I wont buy their product. I really despise how proprietary all of there equipment is! I also dislike the lack of a spring return of the zoom control on most of their housings........

The ikelight folks really want people to pay a bit more for their EV controller instead of the velcro stickies. I'm inclined to agree with them, if you can't do ttl then their EV controller is a better option than and fiber optic solution.

[cardiver]

Thanks Ron. Seeing what you do with a camera, a compliment means a lot! You zero’d in on the weak point of my kit. I use one of those hinky stick-on-velcro tabs with a fiber optics cable - It works but is less than ideal. Saving beer cans to pay for a TTL strobe I can hook to the hot shoe.

That's my biggest problem with Ike and the reason why I wont buy their product. I really despise how proprietary all of there equipment is! I also dislike the lack of a spring return of the zoom control on most of their housings........

The ikelight folks really want people to pay a bit more for their EV controller instead of the velcro stickies. I'm inclined to agree with them, if you can't do ttl then their EV controller is a better option than and fiber optic solution.

I hope you mean that it is a better solution only for the Ike housings and not in general.