Clown fish of '02

A blast from the past. Most of my diving was (I have not been in the water for a few years now) in Indonesia but I just bought a new hard disk for my pics and videos and when transferring the files over, lurking away in old directory were some old Thailand pics from the Similans and Hin Plueng from 2002. They were old 4000 dpi scans from slides - amazing when you think back then no one wanted digital because it could not match film. When I look at the files at 100% I see how much better quality we are now getting compared to the "old" days. I am planning to return to diving soon - when I retire - I am going to pick one small relatively "unknown" area and photograph its inhabitants extensively for posterity.

Nice pictures
Do you own underwater photo gear? Or just rent it for the occassion?

You can rent small stuff from the boat/operator but everyone really owns their own. It used to be ridiculussly expensive (literally 10k++ was going in the water with you and a leak could lose you 4k instantly) but these days you can buy small and cheaper cams with housings which are just as good indeed better, Nikon even has the AW1 (I think thats what it is called) which does not need a housing for up to 20 meters.

The underwater camera housings were matched to specific cameras (its why I shoot Nikon still - because Sea and Sea and then Nexus housings only supported Nikon cameras, so I had to go Nikon and then ended up owning a bunch of Nikon glass which now dictates my staying with Nikon because I cannot afford to change over all of that glass).

All my stuff (except the lens ports) is useless these days as the last DSLR I used underwater was a D2X. I would have to read up to see what is good value these days.