Matti Ovaska: My diving history.

I first started diving back in January 2000 with my open water course in Cairns, North Queensland, Australia.  Since this time I have progressed with an advanced diving course a nitrox course and I am currently lining up to complete an Advenced Nitrox course and Decompression Procedures. Since my first dive in 2000 I have dived in Bikini Atoll, Chuuk Lagoon, East Timor, Indonesia, New Zealand, Palau, Paupa New Guinea, South Africa, Thailand, Vanuatu and of course Australia.  I have survived over 500 dives and will be doing more as time allows.

I started taking under water photographs in June 2003 when I purchased a Sony P10 with the matching Sony housing MPK-PHA, from this basic set-up I added a couple of accessories, Sea & Sea LX-25 Video Light, Sea & Sea lens adaptor, Sea & Sea 16mm wide angle lens, Sea & Sea T2 macro lens and an Inon D180 Strobe. All of these item are mounted on Fish-eye tray and arms and a modified Sea & Sea lens caddy. 

I have upgraded this as my P10 decided to die on me.  So as of December 2005, I now use a Canon 20D in an Ikelite housing using a Canon 10-22mm Wide Angle Zoom with a 6" dome port and a Canon 100mm Macro using a flat port combined with dual Ikelite DS125 Substrobes.  A part from a couple of pool dives and a quick shake down dive of Stradbroke Island my real test for the new set-up is a trip to Palau and Chuuk Lagoon in January 2006. So all photographs from January 2006 onwards will be with the new set-up. I hope that you enjoy the results. 

I have recently purchased a set of Magic Filters for ambient light photography, I have not had a chance to try the filters out as yet but it is something that I will be trying in particular clear days and shallow water. I will post updates of my trials with the filters as oportunity allows.

I have finally got around to using the magic filter on my recent trip to Vanuatu and used of natural light a the deco stop while diving the President Coolidge and also a number while diving on the USS Tucker wreck.

I tried to use magic filters on my last major trip away to Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands though found most of the wrecks to deep for this to be effective so I will have to find more favourable conditions to expand my experimentation with the magic filters.

I have also recently purchased a new 8" dome port for use with the 10-22mm lens as I was finding the 6" dome port leaving the images soft in the corners, early trials with the new dome port are looking very promising. So all wide angle shoots underwater from August 2007 will be with the new dome port. 

For land photography I using the following equipment: Body-Canon 40D (replacing the 20D),Lenses: EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5, EF 24-70mm F/2.8L, EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L, EF 2x -II Extender, 580EX Flash, Manfrotto Monopod, Manfrotto Tripod 055-PROB with RC322 Ball Head, Camera bag: Lowepro Dryzone 200, Filters, Hoya Circular Polariser, Hoya UV Filters and some Conkin Neutral Graduated Filters.

I have now bought a Canon 40D for my trip to South Africa (will be using 20D as well due to the housing), Happy about the improvements over the 20D except for one major thing ( in my opinion) you cannot get third party flash unit to fire on 2nd curtain sync, this is reserved only for the latest Canon flash units.

I have sold both my 20D camera and recently the Ikelite Housing for the 20D. I have now got an Ikelite Housing for the 40D  and as of 1st of September 2009 all under water photographs will be with the 40D. I have also recently aquired a Canon 5D MKII with a 16-35mm F2.8 MKII and a 15mm fish-eye. I will be housing the 5D MKII in an Aquatica housing which arrived just in time for my dive trip on the SS Yongala, so now all the underwater photographs will be with the 5DMKII and above water a mix of the 40D and the 5D MKII.

I have purchased a 2 more underwater strobes (Ikelite DS161 along with my existing DS125's which will be the slave strobes) and also some slave triggers so that I can set-up strobes remotely from the camera for more creative lighting effects in particular when dealing with caves or wrecks.  I  have all the gear ready for a trip to South West Rocks to dive the famous Fish Rock Cave and hopefully also be able to convince some of my fellow dives to be models and assist with the additional lighting, I will have to see how this works out as I would then like to expand this for a wreck diving trip to Sri Lanka and dive the HMAS Hermes.