I am looking forward to when the Vemma Verve Energy Drink is launched. This energy drink will be great for when we go scuba diving especially when we go on boat dives. We usually do 2 boat dives fairly close together, and often have to unload all the gear from the boat, change our tanks over, then off we go again. It gets a little tiring, so a healthy energy drink in between dives will make a huge difference.

I will post when the drink is launched in a few weeks.

I thought I would give a comparison of the Sealife DC550 with the Sealife DC600 that I received a few weeks ago. Sealife gave it to me because the DC550 was taking photos that were very over exposed.

My first thought when I turned on the camera was “great, it’s more like a computer”. Instead of the rather complicated menu system on the 550, with the Sealife DC600, there is a Mode button to select Photos, Video or Playback.

Each Mode has it’s own menu, accessed by a “Menu” button. Press the menu button, and there are 3 tabs ( like on a number of computer software applications ) Scrolling through the menus is very easy ( Much easier than on the 550 ) Even with the Underwater casing, accessing the menu is very easy.

The LCD monitor is flatter and I’m sure it’s a little larger, and it’s much easier to see the LCD display underwater.

I find the Flash setting a little confusing, and haven’t worked it out yet. The flash setting depends on what “Scene” is used.

Underwater ( with the casing on off course:-) the buttons seem easier to find, mostly because it’s more simple.

The first time I went scuba diving, I put the camera on Video mode before placing it in the underwater casing because I couldn’t find out how to change the mode back and forth between video and still photos. I read the manual a couple of times and couldn’t find out how to change it. So, my first dive was all video - it was a very bad day for diving so can’t show you the video. Visibility was about 1 foot ( maybe ).

Before going diving again, I looked on the sealife website, at their FAQs. Guess what the first FAQ says? They must have forgotten to put it in the manual:-)

1. How to select video or playback mode when the camera is in the housing.

When the camera is in Sea, Ext Flash or SplashWater modes, you can push the LCD display button to toggle between picture, video and playback modes. When the camera is in any other mode (and outside of the waterproof housing) you can use the slide switch on top of the inner camera to switch between video, playback and picture modes.

So, overall I think there’s a definite improvement in the DC600. A strange thing happened on my second dive though. My husband took the camera when we went off the boat. It was set for video and so he pressed the “Power” button, then Shutter to start the movie. He pointed the lens towards his subject for awhile, then pressed the shutter down to turn it off. And, it wouldn’t turn off. He showed me and I couldn’t turn it off either, so we didn’t know if it was still shooting movie. When we got back to the beach, the camera was still playing. By the time it dried and I was able to take it out of the casing, the battery had run out. The camera is okay, so that’s good.

One more thing I forgot, the Power button and the Shutter button have switched places which was a very good idea!

I’ll post some photos after I go diving next.

I have some video here that I took with the camera on it’s own. It takes great video.

Bear in mind though, this video has been compressed for YouTube, and the picture you see before clicking the play button has been compressed too. When the play button is hit, the picture is very clear. The first photo you see ( before the movie ) was a snapshot taken off the movie, using “Windows Movie Maker”. Very clear don’t you think - I didn’t do anything to it in Photoshop either.

Many scuba divers use a nutrition supplements to improve their health, so they can go diving as much as they want. It’s great to get through winter without the flu so you can go scuba diving when all your buddies are going. Also, it’s much easier and more fun to dive when you are feeling healthy and energetic.

Well, I sure had some adventures with my SeaLife DC500

The first one, I bought at the local dive shop for nearly $1000 (AUD). I used it a few times, then one day ( it happened to be my birthday last year:-) I went for a dive at Byron Bay, here in New South Wales, Australia. The water was a bit rough, and while climbing into the boat, the camera fell off my arm. We all looked for it for awhile, then the others had to go before the boat went out to sea by itself. My husband and I stayed back to look for it, but it didn’t want to be found by us.

So, after a month or so, I bought another brand new sealife from a store on Ebay, for about $600 (AUD). Buying one from the US was less expensive because of import taxes not having to be paid.

The camera worked really well, until one night in Las Vegas, in the middle of taking a movie of The Pirate show, it went weird. I had to take the battery out to stop it going weird. After that, there was too much light exposed in all the photos, and they looked all white. We were disappointed because we had a lot of pictures to take in Vegas.

I sent the camera back to the U.S. and got a brand new replacement. I had that for a few months, and took it up to the Sunshine Coast recently. I took some great movie of the HMAS Brisbane ( in a previous post ), and then a couple of days later, was taking some shots and the photos went all white again, just like they did in Vegas.

So, I sent the camera back again, and this time, they sent me the upgraded model. So, now I have a brand new SeaLife 600. Will write about it another day. It’s a beautiful camera!