I have for sale an Aqualung Patriot BCD in excellent condition (still looks brand new) if anyone is interested.  It is a full weight integrated recreational tech BCD capable of using twin tanks, aswell as singles. I have never used it with twins, only singles. The power inflator is in perfect working condition. I have done approximately 70-80 dives with the BCD, but to look at it you would never know it. The size is "M". RRP when I purchased the Patriot was over AUD$1200 3yrs ago. Here are the specs on the BCD

PATRIOT SPECIFICATIONS

Type of BC - Black Floatation
Fabric - 1050 Denier Nylon
Weight System - Fully Integrated
Waistband - Multiset Waistband
Backpack - Contour Pack suitable for two tanks
Pockets - 2 Large Zippered Pockets with Pull Chords
Clips, D-rings - 2 Adjustable Shoulder D-rings
Dump Valves - 2 Shoulder and 2 Lower Rear
Sizes Available - S, M, L (adjusts to XL)
Lift Capacity Lbs/Ltrs - 50lbs / 22 litre
Colours Available - Black

Other Features include:

I've just arrived back from a week diving Sipadan Island off the east coast of Borneo. After doing only half a dozen dives for the first half of 2007, it was great to actually do a full week of diving. In all, I did 18 dives for the trip. One of the dive sites at Sipadan is called "Turtle Tomb" which I managed to put together a small video of the dive (see below). Turtle Tomb is a cave dive that starts with a big cavern in about 20 meters that heads in towards the island for about 80 meters, followed by a tunnel around 1.2m high that continues about another 15 meters before opening up into a large cave under Sipadan Island. It is called Turtle Tomb because of the turtle skeletons that are found inside the cave. There are two theories as to why the turtles die here. The first theory (and most obvious) is that the turtles enter the cave through a small opening in the reef known as the window during the day, fall asleep, wake up when it is dark, then can't find the way back to the window to exit and end up drowning. The second theories is that it is a place sick and elderly turtles go to die. The second theory is definately the more romantic of the two, and there are a few people that actually believe this to be the correct one for various reasons. It wouldn't be the first time that wild animals seek out a specific place to die. It is rumoured that there is a place called The Elephants Graveyard where elephants go to die. This place is said to be either in Africa or in Saudi Arabia deep in the desert near Yemen. Whatever the reason, Turtle Tomb is an excellent dive, and makes for a nice change to the usual dives encountered at  Sipadan and other great dive holiday destinations.

 Note: This was shot on my Canon IXUS 850IS digital stills camera in Canon underwater housing

A few weeks ago I took the Friday off work and headed down south to Dunsborough with the boat in tow to do some (long overdue) diving on the HMAS Swan. It was a trip that had been planned a few weeks earlier with my brother. Having a quick look through my dive log, it appears that the last time I dived the Swan was way back on the 9th January 2005. Up until now, I had dived the Swan no fewer than 17 times, but I had never gone this long between dives. Between 1998 and the start of 2005, I had been diving the Swan at least once a year. So over two years since my last visit, I was really looking forward to getting back and to see how much she'd changed.

The HMAS Swan is a River Class Frigate Destroyer which served in the Australian Navy for 26 years from 1970 to 1996. When in service, the Swan carried 250 officers and seamen. The HMAS Swan is 112.8 meters long, has a beam of 12.5 meters, a height of 23 meters and a full load displacement of 2700 tonnes. She was decommissioned on the 13th of September 1996 and was given as a gift to the Western Australian Government, who in turn gifted the HMAS Swan to the Shire of Busselton to sink her as a dive wreck. Over the next year, volunteers prepared the wreck for sinking, taking out anything that could be hazardous to divers and the marine environment. On December 14th 1997, the HMAS Swan was eventually scuttled 1.3 nautical miles off Point Piquet Meelup. She now lies upright at a depth of 30 meters in the waters of Geographe Bay.

We'd arrived in Dunsborough probably a little bit later than we expected. The traffic getting out of the city was slow going for a while due to a nasty accident involving a motorcycle on the freeway. Once that cleared it was pretty much smooth sailing all the way down to Dunsborough. Our first stop in Dunsborough was Cape Dive. To dive the Swan on a private vessel you need to purchase a dive pass which, among other places, is available at the dive shop. We also needed to hire another tank. Due to the lack of diving this year, I totally overlooked the test dates on 2 of my cylinders. The day before we were due to head to Dunsborough, I realised that 2 of my 3 cylinders had been out of test for over a month. And what's worse is that they were empty, so I couldn't even use them for one dive!!!

By the time we sorted out the dive pass and gear, and after stopping briefly on the way to the dive site to watch a dolphin after it showed us some aerial acrobatics right in front of the boat, we splashed into the water pretty much right on 3pm. Even after diving the Swan no less than 17 times, I still got quite excited as I started the descent. David had only dived the Swan once before. We didn't have too much of a plan for this dive, other than to head up to the bow. David saw a classic photo of the bow in the dive shop and made mention of it, so the bow was an obvious place to start. I also wanted to head down to the magazine room, which is also towards the bow. We actually descended onto the top of the bridge and then headed straight to the bow. After spending a few minutes hanging just off the bow and looking back towards the rest of the ship, we descended to 30 meters and made our way along the bottom of the hull to find the opening to the magazine room on the port side. The last time I was in the magazine room was on a night dive with Rob a few years ago. This time wasn't nearly as spooky though. A brief look around the magazine stacks, we then exited through a hole in the starboard side of the wreck and slowly made our way back along the hull and entered the wreck again through another hole at about 25 meters. We spent the next 10 minutes or so inside the wreck before existing somewhere around the mid ship and made our way back up towards the bridge. We spent the last few minutes of the dive hanging around the main mast at 9 meters watching a few of the resident batfish that have made the wreck their home.

It was now time to get the boat on the trailer and head out to our accommodation for the weekend - Bunker Bay Resort. David had received a free weekend stay at the resort almost a year earlier. That is one of the reasons we were in Dunsborough, it needed to be used. When he suggested taking the boat down and going diving for a weekend and to stay at the Bunker Bay Resort I just couldn't really say no. It was quite funny rocking up to a 5 Star resort towing a boat with my brother for a "weekend away for two". Thankfully they obeyed our request for a room with two beds.

The next morning we planned to be back to the wreck around 9am. All good in theory, but after a late dinner and a few beers sitting around the fireplace at the resort the night before, those plans had slipped away from us. Instead, we eventually hit the water again at around 10.50am. This dive we decided to head towards the stern of the ship. This is where we went on David’s only previous dive on the Swan. As usual, the were plenty of small snapper hanging around under the hull. We then continued on along starboard side of the hull and entered a hole that I had not before been into to. In here we found what was assumed to be the propeller shaft. From here we ascended through a small hatch to the deck above and continued inside the wreck to mid-ship. On this dive we took my camera along. David wanted to try his hand at some underwater photography. After taking a few snaps myself, I handed the camera over to David. Upon reviewing the photos once on the boat, it seemed that David is pretty good at underwater photography. Not one of my photos turned out good at all, but David took quite a few excellent photos. Most were in focus – none of mine were. I put it down to beginners luck. Just before the end of the dive, I came across a nice wobbegong shark lazing on the deck. I signaled the find to David who immediately thought it was a shark swimming around. After looking out into the blue for a while, he eventually saw the wobbie and took a few photos of it (which turned out pretty good). We then went up and checked out the bridge for a few minutes and made our way back up main mast were David took a few photos of the resident batfish before making our safety stop. To date this had been the best dive I had every done on the Swan.

The next few hours were spent trying to catch some salmon close in to the shore. This proved to be quite an unsuccessful exercise. After admitting defeat, we decided to head back to the resort, stopping on the way to grab a bite to eat at the bakery and to get a few refreshments for later on that night.

We woke up the final morning to a cloudy day. We wanted to make a third dive before heading home. After having a few battery issues the day before, we headed straight to the service station to get a new battery before stopping off at the dive shop to pick up a tank. Once out at the wreck, we found that the surface conditions had changed a fair bit from what we had seen over the previous two days. The wind had picked up and there was a bit more swell running, but this wasn’t about to stop us from making a third dive. We knew that once under the water, the conditions on the surface wouldn’t have changed the conditions below much. As I mentioned earlier, the previous dive was probably the best dive I had ever done on the Swan, so we decided to follow a similar plan. For the first part of the dive we retraced a lot of what we did on the second dive, but instead of exiting the wreck mid-ship, we continued inside the wreck all the way to the bow. This was cool. I’d only every done this once before but in the opposite direction. Again we entered into parts of the wreck that I had never seen before. Towards the end of the dive we came across another wobbegong, but this time inside the wreck itself. As David mentioned later, it would have been easy to descend through a hatch straight onto the wobbie if you didn’t have a good look before hand. After ending the dive, it was time to head back to the dive shop to drop of the hire tank and make our way back to Perth.

After the first dive for the weekend, I didn’t think the wreck had changed that much since 2005. The one thing that was noticeable, is that the wreck is definitely starting to lean more to it’s port side. After the second dive though, I realized that there has been considerable more growth on the wreck over the past 2 years. Hopefully I won’t have to wait another 2 years before I get a chance to see any new changes.

We are now 120 days into 2007 and I'm ashamed to say that on Saturday I made my 4th dive for the year. I'm even more ashamed to say that one of those dives I wouldn't really count as a dive - Rob and I attempted a shore dive for some crays and exited the water about 5 - 10 mintues later cause the visibitly was poor and the surge was so bad it was making me sick and the other two dives were for work.  I've been trying to think up some good excuses for not diving, but in reality I don't really have any. Sure the weather this summer hasn't been the best. I may have been working some undesirable hours. And yes I have been getting out on the surf ski and (more recently) out on the (new) mountain bike alot more. But as many would agree, there really isn't an excuse for not getting out diving.

What makes things more annoying is that since December, I've spent a fair bit of money servicing the boat and dive gear (of which I have 3 sets) and haven't made the time to use them. I attempted a dive about just before Easter with Dave and Ricky, only to be towed back to the ramp before we even left the marina because the steering on the boat seized up - another $250. If I consider my dive on Saturday as being my first dive for the year, it is without a doubt the most expensive dive I've ever done.

The dive site we chose to dive was an old favourite out off Mindarie. It was the site that exactly one year ago today that my brother David caught the biggest crayfish either of us have ever caught. Surface condition were pretty much pretty much perfect. After dropping the anchor and taking a good 10 mintues or so to get ready, by the time we got in the water, the anchor rope still hadn't settled. The boat had barely moved. Conditions underneath the surface were pretty much standard for the site - visibility was the same as most days and there was a constant surge (even though the surface very calm). The lack of diving throughout the summer quickly showed. As always at this site we took a catch bag and cray loop (when in season of course). The lack of diving proved to be very bad for my skills (or lack there of) for catching crays. For the first time in a long time, there were actually quite a few decent sized crays there. But do you think I could catch one??? After spending nearly five minutes getting frustrated trying (and failing) to catch one cray, I thought I better find the other two. Just as I caught up with Dave and Ricky, we came accross a ledge with quite a few very respectable sized crays. This was actually the first time I'd ever dive dived with Ricky. It was also the first time Ricky had ever dived with a cray loop. I don't know whether Dave and I are to blame for not showing Ricky how to use a cray loop properly or not, but watching Ricky trying to catch a cray was one of the funniest things I've seen underwater. What made it even funnier was that Ricky was going for the same cray Dave was. To quote David at the end of the dive, "how can the cray be kicking up that much silt". You really had to be there to appreciate it.

As you may have already guessed, we came up empty handed. The one cray I did manage to loop had an unfortunate demise when it decided that it didn't want exit the (tiny) ledge that it inhabited. It was last seem by Dave walking out without the end of it's tail followed very closely by alot a little reef fish looking for a free feed. By this time it was time to turn around and head back to the boat. When we dive this site, I have a rule - 100bar, turn around and head back to the boat. This dive was no different, but by now Ricky was probably a little lower on air than I would have liked, as was David - they'd both overshot 100bar. As always once we turn we head straight back to the boat - no site seeing on the way. But as is usual, at least one person I dive with  tend to be very low on air by the time we get back to the anchor line. This dive was no different. Actually, there was one difference with this dive  - I had to worry about two people being low on air instead of one. Although I had plenty of air left, I only had had one occy.   As always though, we surfaced with the air-hog/s having at least one breath of air left in the tanks.

Even though we came up empty handed, all in all it was a very pleasant dive. And it was great to (finally) get back into the water again after being absent for way to long.

I am happy to say that in 2 weeks time I will be heading down south for a few days for  bit of diving on the HMAS Swan. Not having dived the Swan for nearly 3 years, I'm quite excited to see how much it has changed. And even more exciting is that come July I'm heading over to Sipadan for a week diving with David. One more place to tick off the "to do" list. I'll keep everyone updated on these two trips and any other diving I do in between (which will hopefully be alot more than what I've down over the first 4 months of 2007)

The Anaconda Adventure Race in Geogrpahe Bay has now been and gone. And I'm happy to say that my team managed to complete the course, within the time allowed, even after a few last minute surprises to the course layout. A few days before the race we found out the the Mountain Bike leg was actually a bit further than first thought. The MTB course was meant to be 20km, but was infact 20miles. This meant the MTB's had to ride 32km. Whoever measured the course originally must have had the GPS set wrong. Our second little surprise, this time the day before the race, was that there was a compulsory swim section in the RUN. Everyone knew that the competitors would be running through water as some stage...but swimming!!!. This was never mentioned before hand. To most this wouldn't be a great deal, but our team runner was less than impressed due to the fact that her swimming experience is very very limited. It was ridiculous to have a compulsory swim in a run leg.  We mentioned our little predicament to one of the race organisers, that our RUNNER couldn't swim, and that there was never any mention of a COMPULSORY swim in the run course up until the day before the race. We were told that if the swim was not completed that we would incur a 30min time penalty. We reassued our runner - who by now was visibly very nervous about the swim - that she didn't have to do the swim. Take the 30min time penalty, after all we were only competing for fun. I don't know if this helped in any way.

The morning of the race we arrived in Dunsborough (we were staying in Busselton) around 6.20am. The race was due to start at 7am.  The next 30 minutes more and more people gathered on Quindalup Beach for the race start. There were 304 entries totalling 801 competitors competing in the inaugral Anaconda Adventure Race Geographe Bay. I can remember thinking that I was glad I wasn't doing the swim because it was "bloody cold". We kept reminding our swimmer of this, who responded with a nervous laugh each time.  Speaking of nerves, our runner was starting to get very nervous, almost to the point of being sick worrying about having to go for a swim herself. The run leg was up next after the swim.

About 10 minutes before the start of the race the swimmers were all asked to head to the starting line. We said good luck to our swimmer who was about to head of on his 1.9km swim and headed closer to the shore to get a good vantage point for the start. The official start of the race was the moment "Anaconda Man" - a guy dressed up as a super hero in an orange lycra suit - made a mad run towards the water and completely submerged himself. The race was now underway.  It was time for the rest of us to make our way up to the run transition and final finishing line some 2km up the beach and wait for our swimmer. The next time we would be standing on Quindalup Beach together would be a few hours later in the final team run to the finish line.

Just under 58 minutes later, our swimmer emerged from the chilli water of Geographe Bay and into the transition to pass our race bib and timing chip onto our runner who wasted no time in heading out for the 12.5km run (and swim) over rocks, along beaches and through water along the coast to Bunker Bay. After congratulating our swimmer on a job well done is was now time to get breakfast, so it was off to the Dunsborough Bakery for a.....meat pie.

The next time we saw our runner she had just completed the "compulsory swim" and was no starting to look relaxed. She managed to get through the little swim section with the help of another runner. Whoever that runner was, thanks for helping out our swimmer and avoiding the 30min time penalty.  After seeing our runner again on Meelup Beach and suppplying her with another drink we decided to make our way up to Bunker Bay and wait for her at the transition.

2 hours and 9 minutes after setting out on the run, our runner appeared at the transition and it was now time for rider to head of on his 20mile (not 20km) ride from Bunker Bay to Ngilgi Cave and back again. Once at Ngilgi Cave he needed to get off his bike and find 3 check points before being able to make his way back to the transition.

As there were no vantage points to see the bike leg from, the rest of us waited at the transition area for our rider to return. We also tried to estimate what time I would be heading out for the paddle. Due to the difficulty of the course this was no easy task. Our swimmer would normally swim 1.9km in around 40-45 minutes and he took just under 58 minutes. Our runner usually runs 12.5km in around 1 hour, but took 2 hours and 9 minutes. How long would it take to ride 32km??? The cut off for the ride was 1.30pm. At 1.20 I was waiting in the transition and an official rounded up everyone who was still waiting and informed us that in 10 minutes if our riders were not back we would have to start the paddle. No official result would be recorded but we were allowed to finish the race if we wanted to.  Five minutes later and our rider still wasn't there. 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes 1 minute and still no sign of him. Then the official started to count down - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6...."wait one more" I shouted, our had rider arrived. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 GO.  Everyone remaining took off towards the beach and out on the paddle...except me.  Our rider had literally made it back in time with 5 seconds to spare. Now I had to change into the team race bib, put on the timing chip and run down to the beach by myself for the 14km paddle back to Quindalup Beach on my Finn Affinity Surf Ski.

I was stuffed before I even sat down on my ski due to the run down to the beach. As our team was still in the race, I thought I better get paddling as soon as possible. I didn't want to be the last team to cross the finish line. The paddle was alot of fun.  The wind was at my back and there was a few nice swells to help push me along. I aimed to make sure I finished the paddle leg within 2 hours. My goal however was to do it in 1hr 45minutes. Some time into the paddle I stopped to have a quick drink and checked my GPS to see how far I had come. The GPS had read 356 meters. Bugger, I had covered the reciever for the GPS in my PFD. My guess was that I had already covered about 6kms. I left my GPS on my lap to find the satellites again, and when it fixed my position a few seconds later I was very surprised to find out that I had actually paddled 8km (assuming I had paddle in a straight line directly from the beach)  It then recalculated my time and I realised that at this pace I was on target to complete the paddle in 1hr 45min. By this stage I had passed quite a few people (mostly the paddlers who left before their rider came in) and I was literally paddling by myself. The closest person in front of me was about 500m away and the closest person behind me was even further back. Once I could see the 2 pine trees that indicated the finish line of the paddle, I paddled a direct line towards them.  I was a bit surprised to see all (but one) of the paddlers in front on me not taking the direct line towards the paddle finish line. This would have added a fair bit of extra distance to the leg. It also helped me pass about 3 or 4 more people on the way in.  As it turned out, my GPS read 13.8km at the end of the paddle leg. Considering my GPS had dropped out for nearly the first 8km, I probably paddled just over 14km.

1hr and 38 minutes after leaving the bike transition I was back on Quindlup Beach where I had been standing some 8 hours earlier. I had completed the paddle 7 minutes quicker than I had planned. I was impressed. I can't remember what the rest of the team said when I arrived on the beach, I told them that I could take 2 hours, but after we got my ski out of the water I can remember our swimmer telling me that it wasn't over yet and we still had a 2km run up the beach to the finish line. That quickly took my mind off the time I finished the paddle in. I am definately not a runner. As someone mentioned later on that evening, I am more accustomed to the water than I am to land. The next 2kms confirmed that. As I mentioned earlier, the paddle was fun. I found it reasonably easy once I got going. The same can't be said for the run. My back ached everytime my foot landed in front of me. I somehow bruised my left heel about a week before the event and had to run on my toes - not exactly a great way to be running. I would be regretting that for the next 2 days. The rest of the team kept telling me that we had to pass the team in front of us. Easy for them to say...they can all run. We did manage to pass 3 teams along the way, including one in a sprint to the finish - well, we were sprinting, I don't think the other team really cared. The 2km run to the finish line took 12min 59seconds. Our total time for the 63.1km course was 8hrs 18minutes and 57 seconds. And we had completed the race within the time given.

They say everything happens in 3's. I just had a 3rd surprise when checking the split times for our team. According to the results for the race, the swim leg was actually 2.6km not 1.9km as first stated. 

Here are the split times for each leg:

00:57:57    2.6km Swim - Rob    

02:09:32   12.5km Run - Bruni

03:19:40   32km MTB - Dave

01:38:49   14km Paddle - Me

00:12:59   2km Team Run 

08:18:57   TOTAL TIME

Apart from the few little surprises thrown in during the lead up, the race was a very good event. For me it was the first time I've ever really competed in anything like this. Before the race I did have thoughts of doing it solo next year, but I think I might stick to doing it in a team. We managed to have fun and that is what is was meant to be about - for us anyway. I will definately be competing again next year, lets just hope the rest of the team will aswell. A solo performance from me might have to wait till at least 2008.

Here's an interesting article I found in Underwater Photography magazine with some good tips on using and getting the best results with a digital compact camera underwater. UWP Mag is a free web magazine (PDF format), and this article is taken from Mar/Apr 2006 Issue 29. The PDF version also shows some photos to illustrate some of the results.

TRULY COMPACT

By Alexander Mustard with Veruschka Matchett

It will only take you a few minutes browsing the internet to realise that digital compact cameras are capable of taking stunning pictures underwater, which are often every bit as good as those from larger more expensive DSLRs. However explore a bit deeper and you’ll soon find that to get the best out of a digital compact setup most photographers are adding a couple of strobes, strobe arms, synch cords and external supplementary wide-angle or close-up lenses. And pretty soon their rigs are anything but compact!

I would never dispute that these accessories make a massive difference to the images that compact cameras can produce. But not every compact camera owner wants to spend the extra cash or have the hassle of dragging that lot around the world or, for that matter, a divesite. The aim of this article is to look at how to improve your pictures from a basic compact, without adding any expensive external accessories, so the camera remains small enough to slip in and out of a BC pocket. In other words a truly compact compact!

The weapon of choice for this article was a Nikon S3, a camera I bought because it would fit easily in to the pocket of my jeans on land, rather than for any underwater photographic capability. On the plus side, being slim on land also meant that the housing is tiny and certainly lives up to the name of compact. My main use for this camera underwater is as a prop in model shots, but I have to admit that I really enjoyed shooting it on the couple of dives I made for this article! This camera doesn’t offer much in the way of manual control, so all the pictures here are shot in AUTO, but there are several ways of tricking it into doing what you want. Understanding how to make a compact do what you want is one of the fundamentals to getting better images.

The obvious place to start is with close up/macro photography. Nearly all digital compacts have very good close focusing abilities, which makes this type of shooting fairly straight forward. Once you have got in nice and close to the subject the internal flash will be powerful enough to illuminate the subject and because of the small amount of water between the camera and subject, backscatter won’t be a big problem. Furthermore the camera’s electronic metering should be able to deal with judging the exposure in this relatively simple shooting situation, so these shots should be point and shoot simple.

Generally for close up shooting I would suggest zooming the lens to the widest setting and then getting as close to the subject as possible to fill the frame, for the reasons stated in the previous paragraph. However, some cameras will overexpose pictures if you get too close. If your camera does this there are two easy solutions. The elegant one is to back away a bit and then zoom the lens in to achieve the same framing as before. The extra camera to subject distance will dissipate some of the light from the flash and will allow the camera to judge the correct exposure. The less elegant solution, which is the one I prefer because it is less fiddly (and I am lazy), is just to slide my finger slightly over the flash, which has the same effect in reducing the flash output to manageable levels. Compact housings with chunky ports can cause shading problems for the flash at very short working distances. This problem is also be cured by backing away a bit and then zooming in.

The next step is controlling background exposures – getting the black or blue water colour you desire. If your camera offers manual control over aperture and shutter speed, then this is easy. Simply slow down your shutter speed for blue and speed it up for black. For the fully automatic camera this is where you have to get creative and trick the camera into doing what you want. Most compacts will record black backgrounds by default when set in macro mode where the flash is the dominant light source (unless you are in very bright shallow water). So to get blue backgrounds I often use the “night portrait” flash mode, which basically extends the exposure to record the blue. Alternatively you can leave the camera in standard “flash on” and influence the water colour by the angle you shoot. Downward cameras angles shooting into open water give dark backgrounds and upward camera angles aimed towards the surface give lighter colours.

If you are choosing a camera from scratch I would suggest getting one with manual control over aperture and shutter speed and also a more powerful inbuilt flash than my S3 (which never has the overexposure problem!). Also a few cameras will turn off their internal flash when in macro mode, and these are probably best avoided if you are planning to use them without accessory strobes or close-up lenses.

Fish photography is a fairly simple step on from close up/macro, and the techniques remain pretty much the same. The key to successful fish photography with a compact is in subject selection. Try to stick with cooperative slow moving subjects: frogfish, scorpionfish, seahorses, moray eels etc will produce much better results that chasing after a fast moving jack or browsing parrotfish. The other important point is to shoot what is common and cooperative on a dive, rather than go in and spend a whole dive looking for a specific creature, which when you eventually locate it really doesn’t want to be photographed.

So far we have been playing it safe and working to the strengths of the compact. Where the basic compact traditionally struggles is in shooting scenery and divers. The internal flash is pretty much useless here because it is not powerful enough to cover such a large area, and even it was the additional camera to subject distance will increase backscatter from the flash to unacceptable levels. This is the classic conundrum that drives people to their credit cards! The accepted solution is to add a wide-angle accessory lens and a strobe or two on long arms, where they are able to illuminate the subject without illuminating particles in the water and causing backscatter. This solution really works, but it comes at a hefty price and your compact camera will no longer be… well compact.

The alternative approach is to switch off your flash and try a filter. It is a different way of shooting and requires learning how to set the white balance on your camera, but to me this seems a small price to pay in return for the transformation it makes to your images. For these tests I used a Magic Filter, which would have cost me just £19, although actually for me it was free for reasons disclosed in UWP 26! This filter was designed for use with DSLRs, but works very well on compact digitals too, as long as they have a manual, custom or preset WB setting. To attach it to the camera I just taped it to the front of the lens, which took about 2 seconds, and slid the camera into the housing.

The first advantages you will notice with the filter are that the battery life of your camera is greatly improved and you won’t get any condensation problems, which are caused by the internal flash heating up the inside of the housing when it fires. But what is really remarkable are the types of images you can now take. To shoot wider scenes you just back away a bit (as you would on land) to fit in the scenery you want, and because you are not using strobes you do not have to worry about flash fall off and backscatter. OK, there is a limit to how far you can back away – a good rule of thumb is to never shoot from further than 20% of the visibility (so in 10m/ 0ft viz, you can back off to 2m or 6ft). But in reasonable diving conditions you will be able to shoot reefscapes, schools of fish, features of wrecks and divers. In full colour.

The main technique you will have to learn is how to set the white balance of your camera manually, so that the filter will produce the best results over a range of depths. The details of setting the white balance vary from camera to camera, but basically involve taking a test shot of the reef at the depth you want to photograph and the camera does the rest and calibrates the WB from that. This only takes a couple of seconds once you have practiced it and when it is done you can snap away as if you were shooting on land, getting colourful shot after colourful shot.

It is worth bearing in mind that you will need to shoot with the sun coming from behind/above you to illuminate the subject evenly and secondly you need to have good buoyancy skills so you can hold the camera still to avoid blurry images. Also filters tend to work best at shallower depths above 15m/50ft, so this isn’t a technique for deeper dives. On the plus side auto exposure and auto focus will take care of everything and images are point and shoot simple to take.

In conclusion, a bit of thought about techniques and an inexpensive filter can really transform your compact camera into a versatile tool for underwater photography, without the expense and bulk of buying accessory lenses and strobes. However, if you are keen on your photography then you will inevitably want the flexibility offered by these accessories. But maybe if you are looking at spending this much, you might be better off considering a DSLR, because once you have added these accessories to a compact, the name is hardly appropriate.

The full colour article (with photos) can be downloaded from www.uwpmag.com (Issue 29)