April 4th Meeting with Jesse Cancelmo
Humpbacks of the Silver Banks

By Chuck Jensen

Our April show promises to be very exciting!  Long time HUPS member Jesse Cancelmo is going to share his images and the knowledge he gained while snorkeling with Humpback Whales on the Silver Banks of the Dominican Republic.  Jesse is an accomplished underwater photographer, author, and photojournalist.  His articles and photographs have appeared in numerous diving and wildlife publications.  He has authored two books, DIVING CAYMAN ISLANDS (1988), and DIVING BERMUDA (1990).  Jesse is a contributing writer/photographer for Dive Training Magazine.  A Native of Philadelphia, Jesse was scuba certified in 1970 and cut his teeth on Jersey wreck diving in the early ‘70s.  Jesse is a PADI Divemaster and was recently certified as a technical trimix diver (TDI).  In October ’99, he dived the famous Civil War ship, USS Monitor, located off the coast of North Carolina in 230 feet of water.

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March Meeting from previous column

Remember the meetings are starting sharply at 7:00 PM now with social time starting at 6:45 PM.  As usual, the meeting will be at the Bayland Community Center, and a map can be found on the back of this newsletter.  See you there!

Let’s Dive....
Chuck

Thank You James

For those of you who missed last month’s presentation by James Wiseman, you missed out!  The program was very informative.  James enlightened us all on the Digital process and how to deal with your images on the computer.  He gave tips on what to do with your files and the benefits of shooting in the "RAW" format.  He explained how to catalogue and file images, how to convert a RAW image to a JPEG and how to enhance you’re shot to make a good shot look better!  His knowledge of the digital process is a real asset to this club.  Thanks James for a job well done!

HUPS Booth Volunteers

HUPS members, once again it is time to show your support for your club.  We need volunteers to work the HUPS booth at SEASPACE.  During the past three-years, you have seen membership almost double.  The reason for this increase is your efforts and the various activities, workshops and seminars we now offer.  However, the single most important activity contributing the largest increase in membership is our effort at SEASPACE.  SEASPACE gives us the opportunity to extoll to many fellow divers the benefits of being a HUPS member.  It is easy to sell something you believe in, have experience with first hand, and now know is beneficial to becoming a better underwater photographer.  So, now is the time to "give back" to the club that has given much to you.  Volunteer at the next monthly meeting or contact Joe Nicklo at jnicklo@aol.com.  We can’t do it without you!

President's Message

It’s this time of year when our thoughts start turning toward SEASPACE.  Not just because of HUPS’ ever increasing presence at this impressive event but because of the privilege we have living in Houston where it all takes place.  I’ll say it now, up front.  If you love diving and underwater photography, you owe it to yourself to mark these days on your calendar and participate as much as you can.  For full SEASPACE information, go to http://www.seaspace.org.

Where else can you see such a variety of dive-related stuff?  You want equipment?  It’s all over the place with vendors more than happy to show you their latest and best gear.  Going somewhere special?  Spend some time talking with the "wheels and gears" of the world’s best dive operations.  Looking for UW camera gear?  There’s a lot of that too.

And then there are all of the seminars that are available for a little bit more than the cost of admission and the workshops that cost a bit extra, but are still your "best buy" for concentrated learning.  SEASPACE’s management team has consistently put together an excellent exhibit and this year’s show promises to be as good as or better than any to date.

Film Festival – The Film Festival which is on Saturday night will feature two of our friends and world-renown underwater photographers, Norbert Wu - Under Antarctic Ice and James Watt - Ocean Gallery: Images from the Living Sea.  As a special added attraction, HUPS has been invited to present a short 7-9 minute digital presentation showcasing the talents of our members.  For our part, we are asking HUPS members to submit their best digital images (scanned or shot digitally) to us on CD or by email.  Many of the images in this show will selected from the winning images from the monthly slide and digital contests.  Our team will be selecting the images for the show over the next 4-6 weeks and we need everything in our hands soon.  Check out the “HUPS Film Festival Presentation” article in this newsletter for more details.

Photo Display - For the past several years, HUPS has put together a great display at our booth.  In 2003 HUPS was invited to put together a photo display for SEASPACE.  What we did that year was pretty amazing.  We had to organize a construction crew just to build the 8 large display boards that were used to mount over 80 prints from our members.  This year, David Lenderman has agreed to lead this effort.  He will be needing volunteers to help get this all pulled together.  Above all, we need your best images to be printed up and mounted appropriately so we can use them in the display.  Check it out at http://www.seaspace.org/photogal.htm

HUPS Booth – This is the heart and soul of HUPS SEASPACE presence.  Joe Nicklo will be organizing this very important operation.  For the past couple of years, our booth has been one of the hottest spots on the floor.  Why?  Because it’s been a fun place to visit with lots to see.

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President's Message from previous column

Traditionally, we have signed up a number of new members at the booth and we expect to continue this trend this year.  When prospective new members see all that HUPS has to offer and talk with any of many members surrounding the booth, it’s not a difficult sell to get them to sign up.  Many of our most active and talented new members signed up at the booth.  Other things to look forward to: Print Raffles on Saturday and Sunday, continuous slide shows, mini-workshops, handouts, and other things that Joe and his crew will be organizing over the next two months.  I encourage all members to contact Joe and offer to help.  There are a lot of things that he will need help, with including assembling and tearing down the exhibit and taking turns manning the booth over the two days.

Finally, I want to mention something to everybody reading this article.  SEASPACE is an extraordinary event.  We should all feel privileged that we have the opportunity to experience it every year.  The crew that organizes it does an amazing job putting together an outstanding event.  We as dedicated, enthusiastic divers and underwater photographers need to show our support for this event.  The vendors depend on this show to advertise their products.  Please take time to visit as many as you can when you are at the show.  Take full advantage of the outstanding variety of seminars that are offered for next to nothing, and if you really want to learn how to get better at something, lay your money down and attend a workshop.  The health of the dive industry depends on all of us.

Come to SEASPACE and the Film Festival.  Get involved.  Enjoy the experience.  Learn from the best.

See you at the next HUPS meeting, 7:00 pm April 4.
Dennis

Nudibranches & Worms

The April photo contest topic is “Nudibranches & Worms.”  So we are looking for images of nudibranches, flat worms, tube worms, Christmas tree worms, feather duster worms, bristle worms, etc.  Everyone has some good images of one of these critters.  We will have both slide and digital contests.  Entries for the slide contest should be brought to the meeting.  Entries for the digital contest should be mailed to photocontest@hups.org at least 24 hours prior to the meeting.  This mailbox is reserved for entries only.  If you have a question regarding the digital contest, e-mail James or Dennis.  Complete contest rules can be found here.  If you do not follow the rules for digital entries your images will not be judged.  You can’t win if you don’t enter.

Get a Printin'

HUPS has been invited to provide the Underwater Photo Gallery for SEASPACE 2005.  We need 70 – 80 or more dynamite prints to hang on the display boards to show SEASPACE attendees what we are all about.  This is your chance to show off your best work.

We are looking for 16x20 and 11x14-inch prints.  The prints must be mounted on foamboard or Gatorboard.  Start picking out your images and getting them printed and mounted.  We will most likely gather up all the images at the May HUPS meeting.  So that gives us roughly one month.  If you have any questions, contact David Lenderman.

SEASPACE Film Festival
We Need your Images – Soon!

HUPS will be putting together a 7-9 minute digital presentation at this year’s Film Festival.  In 2003, HUPS produced a show titled Capture the Light that featured images collected over the years by our members.

This year, we will do it again.  The team of James Wiseman, Christa Loustalot, and Dennis Deavenport will be taking on most of the work to create what we are confident will be another outstanding showcase for the talents of our members.

What can you do to help?

We need your best images to work into the show.  A lot of the images used in the final version will come from scanned slides and digital images from our photo and digital contests and our HUPS Shootouts.  However, we need more resources than this.

We can accept the following:

• Digital images (JPEG format only) on CD or by email: We can use file sizes up to 400 to 600 KB and images formatted to 1024 by 768.  And PLEASE... don’t overwork the images.  Too much contrast, color intensity, and sharpening isn’t a good thing.  Take my word for this.
• Slides: OK, it’s not as easy but we can scan and edit slides if you can’t do it for us.

Best way: Pull your stuff together and give it to us at the April meeting.  You can also get in touch with me and I’ll arrange to pick up your files or slides.

Next best, send images to:

    ddeavenport@houston.rr.com with "Film Festival" in the title line or

    photocontest@hups.org with "Film Festival" in the title line.

UpComing Meetings & Events

April 4, 2005 - HUPS Meeting
  Jesse Cancelmo
May 2, 2005 - HUPS Meeting
  Jeff Penn - Nikon Representative
June 4 & 5, 2005 - SEASPACE
June 6, 2005 - HUPS Meeting - Post-SEASPACE
  Photographer Norbert Wu
July 16-23, 2005 - HUPS Shootout
  Scuba Club, Cozumel

FOR SALE Complete computer editing system for slides, film & digital shot editing.  This system comes with a Compaq computer, monitor, keyboard, Nikon Coolscan LS10E with Photoshop editing software and MS Windows.  Instruction booklet also comes with this good, ready to use "turnkey" unit.  ONLY $200.   Contact John Anderson.

Monthly Contest Winners
March 2005 – Crustaceans

Digital
1st Tie	Ken Knezick, Mary Lou Reid x2
2nd Tie	Jackie Reid x2
3rd Tie	Frank Burek, Mary Lou Reid
Slide - Novice
1st Tie	Paul McDonald, Dennis Vernon x2
2nd	John Van Atta
3rd	Dennis Vernon
Slide - Advanced
1st Tie	David Lenderman x2
2nd Tie	Gary Merritt, Mary Lou Reid x2
3rd Tie	Gary Merritt, Sue Watson

Basic Digital Image Editing
Part III in a series
By Pat Miller - HUPS.ORG Webmaster

After using the Levels - Histogram tool to adjust overall exposure (see last month’s newsletter), you might look at your image and decide you want to fine tune exposure a little more.  Say you have a nice black or blue water background behind your primary subject, and you want to brighten up the subject’s highlights without messing with the generally dark background.  The Curves tool in Photoshop lets you modify exposure and contrast affecting certain brightness/darkness ranges more than others.  You can focus on certain ranges specifically while leaving others alone.

By the way, do not touch the Brightness/Contrast tool!  (Put down the pliers, Eugene!)  The Brightness slider in that tool changes every pixel’s brightness by the same amount I believe – it’s a global change.  So it screws up that nice exposure adjustment you just made with Levels last month.  And I don’t know for sure what the Contrast slider is doing, but I don’t like it.  Levels and Curves give you a lot more control, so I recommend you leave the Brightness/Contrast tool alone.

In Photoshop, click on "Image" on the menu bar, then "Adjustments" (or "Adjust") and "Curves..."  Here’s what the Curves tool dialog box looks like when you first open it (Figure 1).  The diagonal line in the graph going from the bottom left (darkest levels) to the top right (brightest) is the curve that you will manipulate.  It maps Input values along the horizontal X-axis to Output values along the vertical Y-axis.  When you first open the tool, the curve is a straight line from corner to corner, indicating no changes yet – input equals output.

Curves dialog - Figure 1

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Image Editing III from previous column

Here are several versions of a picture of an angelfish, examples to introduce you to what Curves can do.  The first image (Figure 2) is with Curves open with no changes yet.  I clicked the mouse once in the center to add a point – notice that the Input and Output values are the same at that point, 128:

No changes yet - Figure 2

For the next image I clicked on the center point and dragged it to the left (Figure 3):

Center point dragged to the left - Figure 3

And for the next I moved the center point by the same amount but I moved it up instead of left (Figure 4). Notice the shape of the curve for these two is almost the same, so the changes to the picture are almost the same – the black point and white points are left alone but the mid-tones are lightened considerably, with the most brightening in the exact center of the brightness range:

Center point dragged up - Figure 4

Now, if I wanted to make the darker pixels a little darker and lighten up the brighter pixels – increase overall contrast – I could drop two points and make an S curve:

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Image Editing III from page 4

Click in the lower left quadrant and drag the curve down and to the right, and click in the upper right and drag the curve up and to the left (Figure 5):

S curve - Figure 5

You can click on the curve anywhere and put more than one point down, and you can then drag the points around one at a time.  The points that you don’t move act as anchor points and keep the brightness levels in their area from changing.  For example, if I wanted to brighten up the face and yellow flecks on the angelfish but leave the blue water background and darker parts of the fish alone – brighten the upper midtones only – I could click and put down four anchor points in the lower left quadrant and then drag a point in the upper right quadrant up and to the left.  It’s a subtle difference that you might not see in print, but compared to the original image (Figure 6) the fish’s face and other upper midrange pixels are brightened while the darker pixels are left alone (Figure 7):

Original - Figure 6

Edited - Figure 7

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Image Editing III from previous column

I could take up a lot of space with Curves examples, but it’s a lot easier to do than read about.  You can do some very subtle changes to only certain pixels, and you can also do some really bizarre tweaks.  Try it out.  Next time we’ll look at the Color Balance tool.

Quick Tip

Don’t chase the fish. Chasing fish to get their photo will result in only one thing... images of fish butts. The photographers who get the really good fish shots never chase them. When you see a fish you would like tophotograph resist the temptation to rush in and get the shot. Take some time and observe the fish from a distance. This will allow the fish to adjust to your presence. By observing the fish you can also determine if it has a pattern as it travels over the reef. Often a fish will have a short swim pattern that it repeats. Out of the crevice, around the sponge, over the brain coral, on and on. Watch the fish and plan how to best intercept it. While observing the fish notice any particularly attractive feature of the reef that would serve as a good background for your fish portrait. When working on the close approach exhale gently and approach very slowly. By taking several minutes to move in you will increase you odds of getting a really nice full frame shot of your subject.

If you are unable to get close enough to the fish try another individual of the same species. You may luck into one that is less timid, or maybe just dumb.

If you have a tip that would be of interest to fellow members, please email it to underh2o@mail.ev1.net.

Upgrading Your Digital Camera Kit – Part II
By James Wiseman

If you missed part one, it is in the February newsletter.

How I Did it
I knew that I was going to have to sell all of my photo equipment as I simply cannot afford to have two different systems at the same time.  I phased my sales and purchases so that I would always have a camera and general lens available for taking product shots.  The first thing that went was the D100 body and housing and a few lenses that I rarely used.  Next, I sold all of my Nikon lenses and flash and purchased a Canon 20D kit and a flash.  Finally, I sold the Kodak body and bought a 1DmkII, Seacam housing and the lenses I needed.  I’ll be buying a housing for the 20D soon, but I’m waiting on the manufacturers to release new models and fill backorders.

The table at the bottom of the page shows everything I sold and how much I sold it for as well as what I purchased to replace everything with equivalent equipment.  This table does not include E-bay fees – they took about $350 for their service.

Isn’t this an astounding and unexpected result?  I sold my used system and bought equivalent mostly new equipment for about $1,000 more.  I did have to replace a few Nikon lenses with Sigma, but for these, I selected carefully and even tried out a few lenses on the camera before I picked one which I think is equivalent to a Canon brand name lens.

So how did I do it?  The reason is something that we all have a hunch about - lenses hold their value very well.  By using my knowledge of E-bay selling techniques, I was also able to get the "high end" of the fair market value for my equipment.  I’ll share a few of my tips here but of course they are not a complete guide to selling on E-bay.  I’m sure if you do a web search, you can find something a bit more comprehensive.  These are just a few tips I’ve picked up lately that are especially applicable to camera equipment:

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Upgrading Part II from previous column

• Take good photographs of your equipment: A good photo of the actual item for sale will beat out a stock photo every time.  Set up a "studio" using a nice backdrop – you can even use your strobes and diffusers as studio slaves.
• Save all the original packaging and include this in your E-bay photo and when you sell the item.  Don’t bundle anything.  You will actually get more money selling everything individually than if you try to put together a "package deal."
• Selling internationally: Since the dollar is weak right now, overseas buyers – especially from Europe – can afford to spend more dollars on camera equipment.

This is the photo I used when selling my Kodak ProSLRn body on Ebay. Note that everything included in the auction is shown in the photograph. I also included close-up shots of the front and rear of the camera body.

Body Differences
Canon and Nikon bodies are significantly different, so if you switch, the first couple of weeks of shooting will require an adjustment period.  I found that the Canon controls were not intuitive, and I actually had to refer to the manual and a few online resources in order to get everything set up the way I wanted it.

Upgrading Part II from page 6

I think the same would be true for a Canon owner switching to Nikon – but I want to mention it here so that people know what to expect.

Some significant changes that I noticed right away:

• The lens mounts in the opposite direction to the Nikon F-mount
• Canon zoom and focus rings may or may not rotate the opposite direction to Nikon.
• Canon cameras (save the new 20D) have no directional pad. To scroll down through menus you must use a wheel on the back while holding a button down.
• Scrolling through menus and making selections requires that you hold a button down and turn a wheel.  Then press a different button, release it, then press and hold it while scrolling again, then release on the selection you want.  The directional pad is about 100 times more intuitive and ergonomic.
• The "wheel" is fast.  Rather than push a left or right arrow to scroll through images to review, just rotate the wheel smoothly and quickly with your thumb.
• Some buttons you have to press and hold, others you press and let go.  For example, press the Flash Compensation/Metering button and turn the wheel and you change the flash compensation.  Press the Exposure Compensation and LET GO then turn the command dial to change the exposure compensation.
• Sometimes you have to press TWO buttons while turning a wheel or dial.  This is something I’ve NEVER had to do on a Nikon.
• No M-S-C switch.  If you want to change focus modes, you will have to press buttons or go into a menu.  No longer do you have single or continuous focus, now you have AI-Focus and AI-Servo.  To learn more about the Canon AF system, check out this excellent article by Chuck Westfall: http://photoworkshop.com/canon/EOS_Digital.pdf
• With the 20D, the CF card mounts in the side of the camera, not the back.  This is convenient when using the camera in an underwater housing.
• Canon calls the AE/AF lock button the "*" button.  When set up using the custom function menu on the Canon camera, it can be made to perform any of the functions that the AE/AF lock button can do.  On popular use it to set it to AF-ON, in which case, the shutter button has no AF function.  When the * button is pressed, the camera locks focus and you can take as many photos as you want, before changing and locking focus again.

Lens Selection:
This table shows which lenses I sold and what I replaced them with.

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Upgrading Part II from previous column

Keep in mind that I spent a lot of time using a 1.5x cropped camera, so my Nikkor 105mm behaved like a 150mm.  When I upgraded, I took this into account with my macro lens purchases and didn’t get another 60mm equivalent macro lens.

My Canon underwater lens selection. The 15mm fisheye is not shown as I have not received mine yet :-)

Macro:
Canon offers a 50mm, a 100mm USM, and a 180mm macro lens.  Unlike the Nikon 60mm equivalent, the Canon 50mm will not focus to 1:1 equivalent.  An option that many are using is the Sigma 50mm DG EX lens which is comparably priced and will focus to 1:1.  On the flipside, the 100mm USM provides better performance than the Nikon as the Canon lens will allow full-time manual focusing.  In essence, with the Canon lens you can switch between auto and manual focusing by pressing a button on the camera (the * button) and just grabbing the focus knob, so this means that no AF-MF shift collar is needed with USM lenses.  I decided to buy a Sigma 150mm f2.8 instead of the Canon 180mm because of the Sigma’s faster f2.8 rating as well as the fact that it costs over half as much.  I had a tough time finding a way to replace my Nikkor 70-180 macro zoom as Canon does not have an exact equivalent.  What they do have is a 70-200 f4 L lens with USM focusing.  When used with a +2 diopter, at 200mm this lens will close focus on a frame 50mm wide (in air) when using my 1DmkII and a field 35mm wide when using the cropped sensor 20D.  With the diopter mounted, the lens’s infinity focus yields a 120mm frame when using the 1DmkII and about an 85mm frame when used with the 20D.  This is all at about one foot from the tip of the lens which is great for macro.  Since a diopter is used, the infinity focus is about 2 feet from the lens tip, which is fine.

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Upgrading Part II from page 7

Wide angle:
Canon makes a 16-35 f2.8 and a 17-40 f4 lens for use on any camera body.  They also make a 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 which will at the time of this writing only work on the 300D and the 20D as it will only fill the image circle for a 1.6x crop sensor, and requires a special lens mount/mirror system.  I considered buying the Canon 17-40L for use with the 1DmkII and the Canon 10-22 for the 20D, but at a combined cost of ~$1500, I decided it would be a better idea to get a Sigma 12-24 as it is compatible with both bodies.  It’s equivalent to a 16-32mm on the MkII and 20-38mm on the 20D.  I have read that this lens performs very well if you get one that is aligned properly – Sigma apparently has poor quality control so some of them will show softness on one side or the other.  I tried 4 samples at the store and examined the results, then purchased the best one.  After testing the Sigma 12-24 in the Seacam Superdome, I think it is as good, or slightly better than the Canon wide zoom.

Users have been reporting that for use on a full frame camera, lenses must be of the highest quality, or the corners will blur.  There appears to be a high degree of variability in the Canon wide zooms, with some users very happy with theirs and others disappointed.  Canon does not yet offer a full frame fisheye specially designed for a cropped sensor camera, like Nikon has done with their 10.5DX.  On my 1DmkII, a 15mm fisheye yields a very wide field of view, but on the 20D it acts much like a wide angle lens of 22mm with a lot of barrel distortion.  With the 20D the photos look much like what comes out on film when you use a Nikonos + 15mm.  I can’t say I’m unhappy with it, but 20D users would sure benefit from a true fullframe fisheye.

Underwater Support
Underwater support for Canon film cameras has historically been poor.  This changed dramatically with the introduction of Canon’s digital SLR camera, the D30.  It was one of the first digital SLR cameras used underwater because of its price (~$3,000) and because UK-Germany made a compact aluminum housing for it.  At the time, the dollar was strong vs. the Euro, so it was possible to order one from Germany for a "reasonable" price.  It was certainly considered reasonable when compared to the only other digital competition, the Nikon D1x ($5,000) in a Seacam housing ($5,000).  At the time of this writing, here in the US there are three popular housings available for the Canon 1D series cameras (Subal, UK Germany, and Seacam) and four for the 20D (Ikelite, Subal,UK Germany, and Aquatica).  I’m projecting that in the next few months, there will be a housing available from Sea and Sea as well.

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Upgrading Part II from previous column

This mix provides a good selection of housings and ports, and the fact that Subal and UK Germany will be making housings for both cameras means that if you go with that brand, you can have one of each in your "dive family."

Two housings for full-frame cameras, the Seacam 1d series for Canon, and the Aquatica Pro14n for the F-mount fullframe Kodak ProSLRn

Wrap-Up
I hope you’ve enjoyed this lengthy article.  I’ve described why I decided to switch systems, how I went about making the switch, and finally, some observations now that it’s done.  If you thought reading this article was a chore, just imagine the process I’ve just gone through! :-)  All joking aside, I assessed my needs, my budget, and my "gut feeling" about the future of digital cameras for underwater use, and I decided to make the switch from Nikon to Canon.  I was a little unsure of myself at first, but now that I was - what I consider - successful at selling my old gear and buying new, I’m very happy I decided to take the plunge.

Check it Out on the Web!

Stephen Frink put together a nice review of the Photo Marketing Association trade show for Scuba Diving Magazine’s website.  This trade show was held in late February in Orlando.  In the article Stephen does a nice job of covering items of interest to underwater photographers.  Here’s the link.

Tex-Mex Anyone?

For last several months a small group of HUPS members have been going to Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant following our monthly meetings.  Care to join us?  Leaving Bayland go left on Bissonnet, left on Hillcroft and right on 59 north bound feeder road.  It’s about 100 yards on the right.  Can’t miss it.  Save some salsa for me.

What’s HOT at SEASPACE

Adventure Sports and Exotic Travel – SEASPACE is the largest and finest show of its kind in the Southwest USA.  Our Hall of Exhibits is packed with 200+ colorful and informative booths representing scuba diving and a variety of other outdoor adventure sports.  Travel resorts join us from quite literally around the world, representing the finest beach and water sports destinations to be found.  If you’re not already high on life after exploring the relative merits of Cozumel, the Cayman Islands, Bonaire and Costa Rica at SEASPACE, then we suggest a trip up our Climbing Wall, or the chance to blow some SCUBA bubbles in our swimming pool!

Underwater Film Festival – For 2005, the SEASPACE Festival moves to Reliant Center.  You can enjoy our Exhibit Hall until closing on Saturday, June 5, and then simply ride the escalator up one flight to enjoy a show packed with premiere presentations.  Explorer and cinematographer Norbert Wu will share his bone-chilling experiences filming "Under Antarctic Ice."  World-renowned wildlife photographer James D. Watt will share his "Ocean Gallery – Images from the Living Sea."  SEASPACE is also honored to announce that celebrated artist Guy Harvey will be featured as he presents, "Portraits from the Deep – Sailfish in Isla Mujeres."  There will be only one showing of this exclusive program, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $10, and seating is limited, so get your tickets now.

HUPS will also be featured at the film festival with a show assembled from images submitted by it’s members.

Photo Gallery by Houston UPS – Another audience favorite is SEASPACE’s annual Gallery of Underwater Photography.  Returning to our talented friends right here in Houston, the SEASPACE 2005 display will feature artistic images submitted by photographers of the Houston Underwater Photographic Society.  In addition to colorful images from the Caribbean, Atlantic and South Pacific regions, this distinctive show will include pictures from off the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the Flower Gardens Banks National Marine Sanctuary.  You will find the Houston UPS Photo Gallery in the center of the SEASPACE Hall of Exhibits.

Pool Party with DAN – On Friday, June 3, Divers Alert Network (DAN) joins SEASPACE in sponsoring our kick off party.  Hosted around the pool at the Holiday Inn Astrodome, you’ll enjoy the chance to meet our featured SEASPACE speakers, and chat with DAN luminaries such as DAN CEO & President, Dr. Michael D. Curley, who will be greeting DAN Members and donors.  Entertainment at the party will include music by The Scuba Dudes, and a cool hula dancing show.  You will also have the opportunity to win some nice door prizes, including an original work of art donated by marine artist Ron Rogest.  Get in the swim and join us for a fun Friday night as we kick off SEASPACE 2005 in fine style.

Plenty of Action in the SEASPACE Pool – Kids of all ages will enjoy a unique opportunity to really get wet at SEASPACE.

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HOT at SEASPACE from previous column

For adults, we’ll have FREE introductions to scuba diving and kayaking offered throughout the day.  Children may try SASY and view a really cool Scuba Rangers demonstration.  If you are ready to get wet, please plan to bring a bathing suit and towel to SEASPACE, and your nondiving buddies.

Virtual Scuba Dive sponsored by HUC – Sponsored by the Houston Underwater Club (HUC), the Virtual Scuba Dive is a truly distinctive experience designed especially for children aged 5-12.  Entering into a large plastic bubble, kids explore a virtual coral reef cleverly devised from an array of recycled materials.  They will fill in a dive log as they find everything from different species of coral, to schools of fish, octopus, lobster, and a friendly moray eel.  New reef elements have just been added to the Virtual Dive site, making it more captivating than ever!  Adding to the enjoyment, children who "certify" as Virtual Divers earn personal dive bags loaded with goodies, and a very cool Virtual C-card provided by our friends at Dive Chronicles.  Bring the young ones to Kids Place at SEASPACE to enjoy this virtual voyage of discovery.  It’s unique, educational, fun, and FREE!

SEASPACE features events for kids of all ages, but special attention is given to providing educational and entertaining activities for children.  Kids 12 years of age and under are admitted to the Exhibit Hall free of charge.  We encourage you, and your friends, to bring the entire family to SEASPACE.

Spend the Weekend at SEASPACE with Great Hotel Packages – We have two excellent host hotels, each offering super low lodging rates.  Both hotels provide free parking and complimentary shuttles to Reliant Arena (morning and evening).  To receive the discounted rates, be sure to tell the hotel you are a SEASPACE participant.  Please do not delay in making your booking.  Availability is limited and rates are subject to change until booked.

Holiday Inn Astrodome – $79/night + tax
Phone: 713-790-1900; Fax: 713-799-1378

Hilton Houston Plaza – $89/night + tax
Phone: 713-313-4000; Fax: 713-313-4660

Digital 1st place - Mary Lou Reid ©2005

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!