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Gar Cropser13-Jul-2019 03:32
Beautiful images. Thanks for sharing them with us.
Guest 15-Jun-2007 10:39
Pure display of talent.
Guest 08-Mar-2007 06:58
It's a pleasure to spend a lazy evening sifting through your pictures.
Walter 14-Sep-2006 22:41
best regards, nice info
Roberto 09-Sep-2006 17:01
Nice pics. Come Stann Creek on your next trip. Keep it up.
Andreas Berglund06-Jun-2006 17:11
Great Work Eli! I love the variety and i'm always partial to underwater images!
yimiy@yahoo.com 04-Jun-2006 12:08
Guter Stil mit Info und Geschmack. Muss schon sagen das nicht viele Seiten im Netz so sind.
kmilj@yahoo.com 27-May-2006 22:20
Sehr nützlich, informativ und anschaulich!
ofer zilberstein07-May-2006 05:24
Very nice photos,
I like your crystal work.
Judy Misquitta28-Apr-2006 05:53
You have a fabulous collecton here! Enjoyed the Bronx Zoo ones! Also the underwater photos. Wow! And thank you so much for your comment in my gallery.
Kathy Pilgrim26-Apr-2006 00:03
Hi Eli: I saw your request in regards to painting your tree lined path on my PBase gallery. I would be honored to paint your wonderful photo. I tried leaving a message on the URL where you left the photo, but I am not seeing it appear there. I will leave a message in your guestbook again when I have finished it. You can let me know how you want me to send it to you. I have had a look around your wonderful galleries. They are SUPERB!
Bernard Bosmans25-Apr-2006 10:10
Eli thank you for visiting my simple galleries and your kind comment.
I just had a look at your great collection of images and they are "bonzer", as we say in Oz.
Guest 03-Apr-2006 23:47
Hello;
I am a recent enthusiast of underwater photography. I am completing my open water in Akumal in May and recently purchased a Sealife underwater camera. It has the single strobe attachment and is the 35mm type. In your opinion, am I going to be disappointed witht his camera. OR, will it keep me busy for my first few years of SCUBA. Also, is 800 speed the right speed of film to use.
Thanks, Keith
P.S. Agree with all others, beautiful galleries you have here.
Jeremy12-Mar-2006 03:27
Beautiful collection of galleries you have here. I am amazed by the underwater photography. Thanks for sharing. Cheers.
Eugen Rotter 26-Jan-2006 03:52
Beautiful Web Site, good pictures and I like the way you write the captions, some are very funny.
I enjoyed the underwater photos, well done. Congratulations.
Rod Andrewartha30-Dec-2005 23:41
G'day, thanks for coming by my galleries and leaving a kind comment. I ended up browsing your pics for about 30 minutes and you've got many terrific shots. Naturally I love your underwater stuff. Keep up the great work! Cheers, Rod
Cheryl Scott 18-Nov-2005 00:12
Eli, I wonder if I could get permission to use your monosodium glutamate ("coral") pic in a journal article layout? Fully credited, of course... Drop me an email for more detail... -- Cheryl Scott, BioProcess International
Guest 15-Jun-2005 04:39
Eli, this is my answer I posted to your question at my site about the 8800 and the FZ20 in case you don't get back over there:

They are both good and to have them both is the best! The Nikon is slower, especially shot to shot. It does not write to card as quickly. Good if you are a leisurely photographer doing landscapes and macros and posed photos in good light. I do shoot outdoors in burst mode and that helps. Very good macro camera even without a macro lens, good at panning. High photo quality, color very accurate and metering very predictable. But it does have a slower lens and you cannot zoom much past wide angle indoors. The FZ20 will be the quicker camera, better at motion, better indoors I think, better at higher ISO than the 8800, but the 8800 will best it at baseline ISO with lower noise levels. The noise of the 8800 at ISO 50 is very much like the noise of the FZ10 at ISO 50. The 8800 will have more features and be more ergonomic. The FZ20 will feel the most responsive. The FZ20 will have the extra 2X of course. Tell him to buy both if possible! I love them both. And what he chooses should depend on what type of photography he does. If he primarily shoots indoors or wants to do sports, I would say get the FZ20. If he does primarily macros or landscapes and is more of an outdoor shooter, get the 8800.
Darlene
Eli Finkelstein13-Jun-2005 13:25
Not to my knowledge. My families roots go back to Lomza, Poland so if they had relatives from that town then perhaps we are related.
Efrain 25-May-2005 15:37
HI ELi,

I dodn;t know if you remember me, we were on a bout heading towards Caye Caulker Belize it was me and my friend michelle adn yu took some picures of us in a golfcart I was just wondering if where they were alson on Saturday we say you on San Perdro you and your son. my email address is efrainserrano@hotmail.com . Great pics they are UNBELIZEABLE
Guest 30-Apr-2005 17:29
Eli, thanks for visiting my gallery and commenting!
I really like your underwater and crystal galleries, you have many great pictures and unique subjects. Excellent!
Regards,
Anders
Eli Finkelstein25-Apr-2005 02:11
I know of him, no relation to me. His website:
http://www.natfinkelstein.com/
Mansour Mouasher27-Jul-2004 03:10
Beautiful galleries, magnificent images, very expressive!
Cheers
Gary Mullen 20-Jun-2004 10:38
Doc
Photos look great I lost your address let us know what your up to.
Eli Finkelstein23-May-2004 13:05
Thanks Jeanne. The photos are excellent, your explanation makes them even better.
http://www.pbase.com/ntebrd/postcards_from_lodz
Jeanne Newman23-May-2004 03:42
Eli --It's something of a long story, but...my father emigrated from Poland surviving the Holocaust, losing about half his family. He had grown up quite wealthy and educated and very sheltered from the rapidly deteriorating situation in Central and Eastern Europe. When I was a little girl, my father would tell me stories of his beloved Poland and the city where he grew up, Lodz. He would tell me it was a city of princes and princesses and towers and beautiful buildings and elegance and Old Worldliness and cobblestone streets that were made from rainbows...the image stayed with me forever...I was a junior in college and about to go to Europe to study when one day, my father and I were sitting in the kitchen having coffee and I asked him what he meant by the streets in Lodz being made from rainbows...he laughed as he hadn't thought of it for quite some time and told me that this medieval city of his was a major texile manufacturing center and that with the constant run-off of dyes from the factories, the cobblestones became stained in rainbow-like stripes, thus the idea he had when HE was a little boy that they mjust have been made from rainbows.I took a look at the gallery of sink images as a whole and all of a sudden it struck me that they looked like the rainbow streets in Lodz as I had seent hem in my mind's eye...and the dimensions of the images on the page to me all looked like postcards...Thank you so much for commenting on my work. - Jeanne
Clive P19-May-2004 16:57
Eli,

I really like the u/w photo's. I've done a lot of diving, but not much underwater photography. I have a Canon S30 and Canon Housing, and - based on your results - I just bought a YS-90DX strobe (used - on Ebay) and a standard Sea & Sea Arm/Stay/Fibre optic cable. I'm hoping to get similar results to you, and will be trying it out on a dive trip in July. You mentioned that you usually set the camera to aperture or shutter priority. What do you set the light level control dial on the strobe to? Do you set it to the same as the aperture setting on the camera?

Any advice much appreciated.

Best regards,
Clive.
Eli Finkelstein12-May-2004 02:01
Well thanks for your kind remarks Steve & Becky. Ill rename my anemone Clematis ("Clem" for short.)
Guest 11-May-2004 23:04
After visiting your galleries, I renamed my clematis picture "clematis anemone".
Your work is simply great. I have visited before and still enjoy seeing what you have accomplished. I dove in the Pacific and elsewhere years ago and understand that underwater photography is difficult and you seem to have got it right.
Eli Finkelstein08-Feb-2004 11:57
Why that very kind of you god@yahoo.com. Give my regards to your son!
holier than thou 08-Feb-2004 11:00
Simply amazing. i hear you have a hot daughter.
Guest 15-Oct-2003 03:44
Excellent Work Eli. Very Impressive Underwater Shots.

Brad
Guest 12-Oct-2003 03:38
By the way, looked at your BVI underwater gallery too. Very nice. And then noticed the National Aquarium seahorse photos. I saw that show too about 2 years ago. I tried taking a few pictures but decided the flash on the glass made it not worth the effort. I don't know what you did to get around that but you did a great job.
Guest 12-Oct-2003 03:31
Hi Eli, this is mandrake from the scubaboard discussion on color-correction. Just wanted to mention that I checked out your underwater gallery and thought you had some really nice stuff. Dave Kusner http://www.pbase.com/dkusner)
summer 12-Sep-2003 02:12
Hi, just chanced upon your site while surfing...simply love your pics, esp the underwater ones..keep up the good work!
Pete Ganzel13-Jan-2003 06:33
Eli:
Thanks for posting in my guest book. Your polarized microscope shots put mine to shame!
I'll have to get some Vitamin C. It is truly amazing how common items can be made so beautiful. I see you use a 990. What microscope do you have? Thanks again,

Pete Ganzel
Eli Finkelstein14-Nov-2002 01:56
Thanks for the compliments Laurent. I havent used the internal flash alone underwater. However, in tests on dry land, the internal flash works well except for the macro setting in the underwater housing. At close distances with the macro setting the lens port on the underwater housing blocks the internal flash and the lower right hand corner of the photo is underexposed. Ellen Muller has the nicest underwater photos Ive seen, using just the internal strobe, and a dive light in the Sony DSC - P series of cameras. Seehttp://www.pbase.com/imagine .Note that Ellen uses Photoshop to process her photos. Processing your photos in the digital darkroom is a key part of making good images. (It is not considered cheating, all pros rely on the darkroom)
As far as what setting to use, a good article is on the scuba board discussion group.
http://www.scubadiving.com/talk/read.php?f=1&i=386586&t=386586 .Although this discussion is for the Olympus series of cameras, its advice is true for any camera.
In general, get low,ie at the same level as your subjects. Get close, as close as your diving skills and the critters will allow. Use a narrow aperture (f-stop) for best depth of field. A dive flashlight helps the autofocus work on any digital camera. I attached a small divelight to my rig with a rubber band, so that I always had one hand free.
I personally shot either aperture priority or shutter priority mode, using auto white balance most of the time. The internal flash was set at -2, to save battery juice (use this setting only if you are using an external strobe). I used the highest resolution JPEG setting. The strobe strength I manually dialed in on the Sea & Sea YS90DX strobe. The most common setting I used was shutter priority at 1/1500 second, internal flash forced on and at -2 strength, auto white balance. On our camera if the shutter is set at faster than 1/250 second with the flash, the camera defaults to 1/250 second, and instead decreases the aperture. Thus most of my photos were at 1/250 f8.
I didnt experiment at all with white balance, figuring I could alway use photoshop to adjust the colors. The professional photographers recommend usingthe cloudy setting.
Alternatively, you can custom set the white balance by test firing on a white or gray object underwater. Or you can use the RAW mode, which allows you to set the white balance afterwards. Best of luck and enjoy your trips! -Eli
Laurent Jedeloo 13-Nov-2002 18:59
Dear Eli,
I really like your underwater photgraphs. I am an owner of the same underwatercamera and the same housing. I am saving now for an external strobe. I only made some pictures in the Mediterenean. Next your I am going to Thailand and the Maldives.
What are your experiences with the internal flash? What settings of the camera do you use when you use the strobe? I see almost all your pictures are close-ups. How is the camara acting in the deep blue? My last question: did you try to use the sea and sea macro or wide angle lenses that you can attach to the housing?
Eli Finkelstein20-Oct-2002 22:19
Thanks Tom. Yes, an external strobe is helpful for any shots greater than arms length away from the camera. But alot can be achieved with color correction in Photoshop! I like many of your shots, the twin lobsters are especially nice! http://www.pbase.com/image/4210063)
Guest 18-Oct-2002 05:29
great photos. i have an S30 but no external flash and i suffered for it (www.pbase.com/tomzinho/fernando_de_noronha). i'll have to pick up one next time i go underwater. cheers, tomzinho (tom@baileyweb.org)