While I have not posted in a while, I felt I finally had something of sufficient significance to post again.

Just returned from yet another fabulous trip to Bonaire. Won’t bore everyone with the details of the trip but I brought a new camera (Canon S90) on this trip in addition to the Canon SD850IS point & shoot camera I had been using for the last few years. The S90 is a compact digital camera with control over aperture, shutter speed plus a few more critical settings. My first two days of using the S90 were somewhat frustrating as I had trouble getting the correct settings despite seeing what others had used and posted on the web. At the urging of my wife, I took a full-day photo lesson from Tim at FishEye Photo (info@fisheyephoto.com; 599.717.2001) located at Den Laman, and this turned out to be the best investment of the trip. In the morning of my one-on-one instruction, Tim walked through details of shooting good U/W photos, specifics of using my camera, provided recommendations of settings for shooting close-ups/macro in the manual mode and settings for shooting wide-angle in the “aperture priority” mode, and a discussion of shooting with my strobe setup. He is extremely knowledgeable in U/W photography with both digital and film cameras and was quickly and easily able to convey the information I was seeking, showing by example as he talked. Following lunch, Tim and I went for a dive on Bari Reef where he had me shooting a variety of photos, watching as I did, and also took the camera from me several times to demonstrate himself how to do it. Before the dive we discussed what his plan was for the dive and how we would go about working together. After the dive, we came back and analyzed/discussed the results. All told, he spent about 8 hours working with me with only a few minor interruptions as people came into the shop, and then I went off to practice what I learned that day. I saw improvements in the quality of my photos immediately, and continued to see improvements during the rest of the trip as I became accustomed to implementing Tim’s suggestions.

I strongly urge anyone who wants to improve the quality of their U/W photos to spend the time and the small amount of money that Tim charges to take his 1-day course. To me it was an investment well made because of the pleasure I get looking at my photos.

Here are a few of my photos. These are exactly as I shot them and have not yet been edited in any way. (I will do the editing over the next few months.) These were all shot with the S90 using a single Sea&Sea YS-25DX strobe (which only has manual power settings – i.e., not TTL). I also had the opportunity to shoot some real macro using a 165 mm add-on lens loaned to me by a friend who lives on Bonaire, but the photos below (except the frogfish) were all shot with just the camera and strobe (I used the macro lens for the frogfish). If you want to see more, please send me a private e-mail (using the link on my profile) and I will send info on where I have uploaded my photos.

Followup to my OP, the photos shown are VERY low res - about 20 kB in size each, versus the 2 MB JPEG and 10 MB RAW size of the originals. As a result, the posted photos do not appear anywhere as sharp as they appear at higher resolution.

What were the most important three tips you learned from Tim?

I Think Tim is the guy for underwater photo in Bonaire, as well as Bruce Bowker is for scuba gear repair and maintenance.

At the risk of offending Bill (and perhaps several others who may flame me for saying this), but Tim’s stock-in-trade, as well as his livelihood, is his knowledge of U/W photography. As such, why would I post the three best tips Tim gave me when I took his course and possibly undermine his ability to make a living. If anyone really wants to know this information I suggest they contact Tim and sign up to take a lesson from him.

I must say "ditto" to all of the above. In April I was so frustrated with the poor quality of my pics, and went to Tim for a half day lesson. After all I've spent on my gear and trips, it was a puny investment in education that paid off brilliantly. I use a consumer grade digital camera with an inexpensive housing, and I'm now very pleased with many of my photos.

nice deb