July 12^th Meeting
SEASPACE is Over:
Time for a (Re)Breather

By Leonard Cichowski

First and foremost, I would like to welcome all of the new members to, what I consider one of the premiere underwater photographic societies on the face of this Earth.

I don’t know about you, but SEASPACE was nothing but a spectacular time for me.  How often does one get to partake in the opening of an IMAX film?  Coral Reef Adventure was nothing short of fantastic.  And to have Howard and Michelle Hall be at the opening of their wonderful work was icing on the cake.

HUPS was very fortunate to have Marty Snyderman as our guest speaker at our last meeting.  Marty put on a spectacular presentation; showing us some of his favorite dive destinations and many of his best and cherished photos.  If you were present at the meeting, you may have picked up that Marty is a very unique and special individual.  He loves his work and even more, he loves the ocean and all of its creatures.  There was a great respect for the ocean environment that was quite evident.  I would like to thank Marty again for sharing time with us...and sharing his adventures with HUPS.

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July 12th Meeting from previous column

For our July meeting, we are going to depart from the norm.  With all of the talk from Howard and Michelle Hall and Marty Snyderman about the use of rebreathers, I thought it might be fun to see what these things are all about and how they may benefit the amateur underwater photographer.  Is this equipment affordable to the sport diver?  Can they be rented?  Are there special certifications or training offered?  What’s a closed system vs. an open system?  Our Speaker, Dennis Camp, of W.W.Diving Company will be able to answer these and many questions concerning the use of rebreathers.  Dennis has been involved in diver training for more years than he would like me to put in print.  He is one of the few individuals in this area, involved in the sales and training for the use of rebreathers.

Dennis is currently involved with an exciting project in North Sulawesi, Indonesia called the "Twilight Zone Expedition."  Dennis and several other technical divers are utilizing rebreathers to document marine life at depths between 300 and 450 feet.  The expedition has used housed video cameras to document several unidentified species.  More on the expedition can be found here.

In addition, we plan to critique several photos, as a segway into our monthly photo contest.  An explanation will be given as to how judging is conducted, topics, and categories.  We feel that the photo contest is a great teaching tool.  Therefore, it is important to participate in these contests for one to gain maximum benefit.

One last note, the HUPS Bonaire Shootout will be happening July 10-17.  If you haven’t picked up your airline tickets, contact me or Henry Ragland.  Please get all waivers into me as soon as possible.  We are looking to have a wonderful time.  The judging on the images will take place at our September meeting.  Judging will be done by the members that are present at that meeting!

As usual the meeting will be at the Bayland Community Center starting at 7:00 PM.  A map and directions are at the end of this newsletter.

Happy Diving,
Leonard

President's Message
The Future of HUPS is Now

What a month!  It all blasted off at SEASPACE (June 4-6) which can only be described as another fantastic success.  The setup on Friday was an all-day affair with Joe Nicklo and David Lenderman getting all of the display boards rounded up and over to Reliant Arena.  From that point on, the rest of the crew started showing up to get things assembled.  By about 1 pm, we already had over almost a dozen people clustered around our double booth area and over by the LAUPS photo display area.  Jack Andrews, who handled most of the organization for SEASPACE, worked with Joyce and Frank Burek to get the LAUPS show attractively hung.

Meanwhile back at the booth, we were experiencing a major brain-lock trying to figure out how to arrange the display boards to get the most prints up for people to see.  We finally settled on a "U-shaped" setup that lost a couple of display surfaces but really worked well.  By the time all of the prints and lights and other displays were up, it was 6 pm and they were telling us to vacate the building.  Needless to say, the finished product was spectacular.  It’s probably not possible to list everyone that showed up and contributed to the effort but Jack and Tammy Allyn, Dennis Vernon, Yvonne Jensen (brace and all), Chuck Jensen, George Freeman, Mike Epstein, Jean Himes, Shan Hodges, Kathy Ringrose and Jan Roush come to my mind.

I certainly don’t want to forget everyone that volunteered to work the booth during the weekend, but it was kind of hard to figure out just who was on duty considering the number of HUPS members in and out of the booth at any time.  It was obvious from the number of non-HUPS people surrounding the booth all weekend that people liked what we had to show.  The raffles on Saturday and Sunday went very well and we pulled in more that $850.  I heard comments from a number of people that HUPS display was the best at SEASPACE and I have no argument with that either.

In the end, we managed to sign up 17 new members with more signing up at the Post-SEASPACE presentation on Monday, June 7, featuring none other than Marty Snyderman.  Marty had told several of us earlier that he had done workshops and seminars at Seaspace but he was more nervous about the HUPS presentation because of the quality of work he had seen at the booth.  Notwithstanding, after Leonard Cichowski introduced Marty to the group, he proceeded to blow us away with a combination of superb images, lessons on anything from what he did to capture a show to what not to do in a group of squid at night.  His stories were both amusing and illuminating.  Marty was another in a long line of great Post-SEASPACE guest speakers and it was gratifying to see that 93 people showed up that evening.

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President's Message from previous column

With all of this finally behind us, you’d think we would be able to take a break.  Certainly not!  The next weekend, James Wiseman gave a 3-hour workshop on “Digital Workflow – What to do After the Shutter Clicks”.  The presentation, hosted by Henry Ragland at his office, was a big success.  I counted 36 people in the room and about half that many portable computers.  If it wasn’t obvious before now that we’re about to get taken over by digital technology, sitting in that room listening to James and all of the dialogue from the audience should certainly convince you that we’re at that point.

So what does this have to do about the future?  Everything, I say.  HUPS is in the midst of explosive growth in not only membership but the quality of service to our members.  It all boils down to a few basic things; involvement, love for what we do, and the willingness to share.  Oh, and did I mention the astonishing quality of the people in HUPS?  This is anything but a 1-person show.  Every time I turn around, I see new people stepping forward. What a nice feeling!

In the next 12-18 months, HUPS will continue to grow.  Where we end up is anyone’s guess but I think that it’s safe to say that we have one heck of a tiger by the tail.  Starting at next month’s meeting, the Mentor Program under Chuck Jensen will get kicked off to help new members feel at home and learn what we’re all about.  Joe Nicklo’s workshops will continue to give a professional quality product for the low cost of a year’s membership.  We will have been to the Bonaire Shootout, and more ambitious trips will be planned for 2005.  Pat Miller will continue to work on HUPS.ORG to add new features and keep everyone informed about what is going on, we will continue to have more outstanding programs at our monthly meetings, and the Newsletter will continue under David Lenderman to be the shining jewel that it has become over the years.

The one thing that we will always need is more members to offer their talent and effort.  We will continue to need new people for the Board of Directors, officers, and committee chairpersons.  It is essential that we continue to circulate new blood into these positions of responsibility.  So, just remember, the future is now for HUPS and the future is in your hands.

Safe Diving,
Dennis Deavenport

Jackie Reid on Scubadiving.com

Recently Jackie Reid was Photographer of the Week on Scubadiving.com.  Check out his work here.

July Photo Contest

There are no contest winners for June because of our special post-SEASPACE meeting.  If you want to be a winner for our July meeting, pick out your best three Cephalopod images and bring/email them to the meeting July 12th.  We will have digital and slide contests this month and you can enter both.  Digital contest entries must be emailed at least 48 hours prior to the meeting.  Images are to be named as follows: first initial-last name-1, 2 and 3.  For example, if John Doe entered three images for the contest, his files should be named jdoe1.jpg, jdoe2.jpg and jdoe3.jpg.  If you plan to enter the slide contest, just bring your images to the meeting.  Please see the complete contest rules here.

 

News from the DEA
By Joe Nicklo, Director of Educational Activities

WOW!  Talk about a full house.  We had 36 attendees at James Wiseman's workshop on June 12th.  That is the highest attendance we have had at any workshop!  As always, James, the digital wizard, was very well prepared, did a superb job and agreed to stay afterward to answer the many questions the attendees had for him.  I don't believe there was a single moment during the three and one-half hours that James didn't cover some important and relevant information on WHAT TO DO AFTER YOU PRESS THE SHUTTER.  I learned many new things and I'm certain everyone else did too.  Thanks, James!  You are an excellent teacher!  A special thank you to Henry Ragland who provided the room where the workshop was conducted.

A brief comment regarding SEASPACE; first, to all the members who provided photos, thank you.  Without your work, we have no gallery.  I personally want to express my appreciation to those who devoted their time to help with the booth setup and tear down.  I also want to thank those of you who worked the booth during the SEASPACE weekend.  I think I can say with authority (maybe a little prejudice), we had the most impressive booth at SEASPACE.  I believe we dazzled our audience!  I heard many congratulatory comments from other photography club members and professional photographers attending SEASPACE.  You all deserve a special pat on the back for a job well done!

The next planned workshop will be September 18th.  Dennis Deavenport will do a repeat performance of his Photoshop Techniques workshop.  Don't miss the July 12th meeting when we will all get an education from Dennis Camp, of W.W. Diving, on the merits of using a closed circuit rebreather.  He has some rather impressive stories and photos.  See you there.

Bad News for Bonaire
Submitted by Chuck Jensen

According to Undercurrent, the famous dive on Bonaire’s Town Pier may be a thing of the past. The area may soon be fenced off to comply with the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, to make it more secure from terrorist attacks. Bruce Bowker, proprietor of the Carib Inn, told Undercurrent: "I'm not at all sure what will happen immediately, but I would assume that security will be set up at the piers and diving will possibly be banned." This will most likely happen at other locations around the world where dives are made on piers that handle international shipping.

UpComing Meetings & Events

July 12, 2004 – HUPS Meeting
Dennis Camp - Rebreather Diving

August 2, 2004 – HUPS Meeting

September 13, 2004 – HUPS Meeting

September 18, 2004
Dennis Deavenport - HUPS Photoshop Workshop

October 4, 2004 – HUPS Meeting

November 1, 2004 – HUPS Meeting

December 6, 2004 – HUPS Christmas Party

FOR SALE

Two Ikelite SubStrobe 200 (orange) with batteries, quick charger and 2 diffusers -- $900. All work great and one just serviced by Ikelite

Ikelite flat port for 50 Micro Nikkor (#5502 for lenses < 3.5" max extension). $25

Photos of these items are viewable at http://www.seabelow.com/uwphoto4sale.  All prices OR BEST OFFER.  Contact Dave Van Rooy at dvanrooy@seabelow.com.  Dave has been a member of HUPS for over 15 years and currently resides in Bali.  All equipment is in good working order, and he will guarantee money back if not satisfied.  Equipment is located in and will be shipped from Austin, TX.

Up until recently, I have seen many discussions online about "Which film is best?"  New films aren’t released too often, but the introduction of Velvia 100 seemed to bring up a lot of these topics up again.  As film shooters know, all films record light differently, so results from Provia may be suitable for one scene, and Velvia is preferable for another.  It’s also pretty well known that Velvia is great for recording eye-popping reds and deep blues.

Digital cameras and media are a "very different animal."  While each digital camera and its sensor records light differently, the media that this information is recorded onto (some kind of memory card) is generally the same.  So for film shooters converting to digital, while some card manufacturers like to call their product "Digital Film" that’s not really appropriate.  The "film" in a digital camera is actually the CCD or CMOS sensor, so you won’t hear photographers saying, "My Lexar card renders really great blue water," or similar comments – at least if they know what they’re talking about...:-)

From a practical point of view, what this means for us is that all digital media is capable of recording our photos in exactly the same way.  Therefore, the important factors to consider when buying memory cards are: speed, compatibility, battery consumption, and reliability.  I’ll address compatibility first; unfortunately, not every memory card will work in every camera.  For this article, let’s focus on Compact Flash cards, as these are the most popular.  Some cameras use SD (Secure Digital) cards as well as Compact Flash due to dual media slots, but for the purpose of this article, I’ve left SD media for future discussion.

Before buying a card, do a search on the net to find a list of compatible cards.  The factors that will influence this are the card capacity (cards over 2 gigabytes require a FAT32 file system in order to utilize all of the space) and the card controller.  A good example is the Fuji S2, as it just seems to have trouble with the internal circuits in some cards.  For DSLR shooters, a good place to start your research is Rob Galbraith’s website.  Rob is a professional photographer and imaging consultant and he has put together quite a database of information about compact flash cards; here’s a link to the information

Select your camera from the pull-down menu to find a list of compatible (or incompatible) cards.  You’ll notice that Rob has also tested the cards for read and write speed for each of the cameras in the pull down list.  To me, the most important quality for a memory card is the write speed – how fast does the camera write a shot or shots to the card before we can take more.  Based on the write speed data that Rob produced, I’ve put together some tables which we can use when making flash card purchasing decisions.  You’ll also find the given retail price for each card, as listed on the B&H website.  I’ve gone to one of the big online shops to obtain these numbers for uniformity of comparison as I wanted to find all of the top contenders at one store.  Keep in mind that these may not be the best prices that you can get – as it pays to shop around.  The one card highlighted in red (1GB Microdrive) was not available at B&H, but is still readily available through other sources.  Another card that was hard to find was the Ritek/Ridata 512 and I had to go outside B&H to obtain a price for this item as well.

I’ll present the following tables with a short commentary for each.  I wasn’t able to easily locate this information for the popular compact cameras, but if you know of a ready source, please let me know and I’ll incorporate it in later revisions.

Nikon D100

The most cost effective card for use in all of the cameras tested is the Hitachi 4GB Microdrive, at a mere 12 cents per megabyte.  This is half the cost of the highest priced solid-state cards.  With the D100, the 4GB Microdrive is about three-quarters of the speed of the fastest flash cards.  Note that a few of the less expensive cards beat out the Sandisk Extreme 2GB card in Rob’s tests.  The fastest card for the money is the Sandisk Extreme 512MB, which when used with the D100 will store about 50 uncompressed RAW files.

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Digital Media Compared from page 4

Nikon D70

When it comes to write speed, the D70 is an absolute screamer. With the fastest flash cards, it will write over twice as fast as the D100! The Microdrive (1GB or 4GB) is not a very good performer in the D70. The fastest card for the money is the Sandisk Extreme 512.

Canon 300D

Write speed tests for the Digital Rebel again show the Microdrive at the bottom of the list.  The fastest card for the money is the Lexar 1GB 40X with Write Acceleration.

Fuji S2

The Fuji S2pro’s write speeds are nearly the same as the D100 so it appears that Fuji’s engineers have done their homework (or vice versa).  Surprisingly, the fastest card for the money is the 1GB Hitachi Microdrive - but it’s not so much of a surprise when you learn that the S2pro was actually designed for use with this drive.  The S2pro will fit about 72 RAW files on a 1GB Microdrive.  Even the most expensive cards aren’t written to much faster than the Microdrive.  It’s also good to note that if you are looking for a solid state card for your S2pro, then the Sandisk Ultra II 1GB card performs just as well as the Microdrive and at about the same cost.

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Digital Media Compared from page 5

Canon 1Ds

These results were a bit of a surprise as well. The less expensive Lexar 1GB 40X WA card beat our many of the more expensive products.  However, the fastest card for the money is the Sandisk Extreme 512, which is a shame, since you can’t fit many of the 1Ds raw files on this card.  Again, the 4GB Microdrive stores the most files for the money.

Kodak SLRn

Another surprise – the 4GB Microdrive is the fastest media card when used with the Kodak Pro SLRn.  Couple that with the fact that this is also the most cost-effective storage and this card becomes a very attractive purchase.

With that last table in mind, let’s take a closer look at Microdrives as this is where the other important factors become important.  Since the Microdrive has moving parts, it is not as durable as solid state flash media and these moving parts also use more battery power.  If your camera has a large battery pack, or you intend to change batteries as often as necessary, then the Microdrive may be an attractive option.  Personally, I have not had any reliability problems using Microdrives for over 2 years, but on the other hand, the Microdrive is the ONLY media card that has ever failed on any of my friends and fellow photographers.  For "mission critical" shooting situations, it’s prudent to go with a higher priced solid state flash card, but in many situations, it’s simply not worth the money.

In this short article, I’ve addressed some of the common questions about digital media and I’ve provided some useful data about card compatibility, speed, and price.  The other factors, battery consumption and reliability, will vary widely depending on your shooting style and how you treat your equipment, so I’ll leave judgement about these factors to the reader.  A special thanks goes to Rob Galbraith for doing the testing and obtaining the data that I used in this article.

Member Profile - Ross & Terri Whiteside

Ross grew up in Luling, Texas, a long way from Terri’s home state of New Jersey.  Somewhere along the line they met and were married in 1996.  Terri, a diver since 1985, convinced Ross to get certified about a year later.  Since then they haven’t looked back.  Ross and Terri are both SSI Dive Control Specialists (Divemasters) and are PADI certified Master Divers.

Ross and Terri are both rated experts in Tropical Western Atlantic Fish Identification and are both members of REEF's Advanced Assessment Team (http://www.reef.org).  They teach Fish Identification Courses using Joyce and Frank Burek's fish images.  They conducted a workshop on Advanced Fish ID at SEASPACE 2003 and write monthly fish articles for HUC's Scubaprose.  I’ll bet you they can name every fish they see at Roatan, their favorite dive destination.

The Whitsesides are relatively new to underwater photography, having started in 2000.  They currently shoot with a digital Sealife Reefmaster DC310 with a Reefmaster external flash.  Their favorite subjects are, what else, reef fish.

When not counting fish Ross is a chemist and Terri is a HR Manager.  Ross also enjoys playing the saxophone.  He plays sax with Vince Vance and the Valiants when the group is in the Houston Area.

Quick Tip

An easy way to improve your photos is to avoid shooting down at your subject.  When possible try to compose your shots so that you are at eye level or below your subject shooting upwards.  This isolates the subject from its background and places it in a position of prominence.

If you have a dive, photo or travel related tip to share with fellow HUPS members, please email it to David Lenderman.

Check it Out on the Web
Submitted by Joe Nicklo

So you were a child of the 70’s and enjoyed all those black light posters?  Well, you can create your own psychedelic effects in underwater photos.  Many divers are aware of marine creatures that fluoresce, but how do you capture that on film (or digital media)?  A company named NightSea has a line of products to help you do it.  Check out their website http://www.nightsea.com. The site has numerous images depicting fluorescence in ordinary marine critters.

HUPS SEASPACE Booth

For those that didn’t make it to SEASPACE, here are a couple pictures of our booth.  It really did look great.  Thanks to everyone who helped out.  A special big thank you goes out to Dennis Vernon and Joe Nicklo for fabricating the display boards.
 

Photos by Frank Burek.

The Houston Underwater Photographic Society (HUPS) meets the first Monday of every month at 7:00PM at the Bayland Community Center, 6400 Bissonet, near Hillcroft.

Social time begins at 7:00PM for members and visitors to get acquainted. Visitors are always welcome to join us. So, stop by and see what we are all about!