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Testing out our new toy

Aside from being Aids’ birthday and Valentine’s Day, February 14 also marked the day our department got our brand-spanking-new Ikelite underwater housing for our Canon G12. YAHOOOOO!!! Unfortunately, Kring was too afraid of wrecking it  (and the camera) to actually test it out. Fortunately, I have no such fear 😛

I tested the camera and housing this morning on a dive on the Miniloc house reef and it was glorious. As with all new gadgets, it took some getting used to. For one thing, the camera itself was unfamiliar. Haha. The G12’s been with Kring since it arrived last year so today was the first time I’d actually used it for an extended period of time. Case in point: I plugged in the strobe plug in the camera’s hotshoe. The thing is, I didn’t have a strobe. HAHA. End result: I disabled the on-camera flash and left myself with no other light source *facepalm* Second, the housing is humongous compared to the Canon S95 ultracompact housing that I’m used to. You need both hands to operate it – not easy when you’re trying to line up your shot and the current has other things in mind. Ah well.  Every dive is a learning experience 🙂

I did manage to take some decent photos:

Red lionfish (Pterois volitans). General rule of the ocean: if it's colorful and moves slowly, it's dangerous.
Giant trevally (Caranx ignobilis). This guy can reach up to 1.7 meters long!
Bigeye scad (Selar crumenophthalmus). They're not particularly colorful but they're pretty impressive when you see them in schools.

Here’s to more outings with our new toy!

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