Get rid av waterdrops on a dome port

I will go to Dahab in Two days to photograph a Freediving competition

In the past i had problems with waterdrops on Half /half or above the water photos.

Any tips how I can get rid av them?

Normaly I just freedive and meet the diver on his way up I follow him shooting photos and when he surface I surface with him taking the last photos

So everything is going very fast

Any tips about how I get it better are welcome....

Lambis.. Sick with Flu :-(

I got great results with my 5050 with an INON glass dome. I though I really ruled the world.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall..._over_under.htm

BUT I have never been able to come close to the results I got now using Ikelite 6" or 8" plastic ports.

Thus I believe, perhaps incorrectly, that glass is much better than plastic for split shots since water seems to sheet off of glass better than plastic.

Peter I ahve to a Glas dome Nexus 120-7

But still I have some drops. I dont remember but I have read somewhere that Lemon or somthing like that will help??!!

Lambis

Some ppl swear by "Pledge". Don't know if you have that in Sweden and Greece though. It's stuff that highly domestic ppl spray on dusters (or is it directly on furniture?), has something to do with keeping dust away.

keeping dust away... Hmmm Intresting

If I was not a chicken i will test some on my port but I must be sure....

Lambis

I found a product called Rain-X Wipes. They are like baby wipes, but soaked w/ Rain-X. Works like a dream on my Seacam glass port. Just pack a wad of them in a zip-loc baggy and take them w/ you.

James

I use Rain-X on my Seacam dome ports too, and it works great. Some people use baby shampoo, and reckon it's as good. Besides, it works on acrylic ports too, unlike Rain-X.

Cheers,

Mat

Thanks Guys RAIN X is not easy to find in Sweden BUT Baby shampoo!!

So you just clean the port with babyshampo before you go in the water??

Lambis

I haven't tried it yet, but am planning to on my next dive trip...

I suppose you'd use it as a mask defogger, i.e. apply a thin layer before the dive, then rinse and dive in...

Cheers,

Mat

Thanks Mat

I will try it in Egypt... hope its help

Lambis

i have absolutely no experience with this (other then 2 or 3 shots on the end of a dive, where either above or under water was in focus)

since it is to decrease the surface tension, the stuff my father used for his car window might also be usefull. after impregnating the window with this stuff, you can drive through a rain storm and don't have to use the wipers at all.

I will ask him tomorrow what it was called

Gerard

I've no experience here either but I am interested in the choice between glass and acrylic ports. Is it really the case that droplets are less likely to form on glass than acrylic. If so I wonder why?

With regards to furniture polish - these products usually contain amongst other chemicals, silicones. From my chemist days silicones would be effective at lowering surface tention and so presumably help water run off.

Rain-X really does work (on glass ports), though it's not always 100%. I was lucky to find some here in Indonesia - I never could when I still lived in Hong Kong. Other than denatured alcohol, I'm not sure what it really contains, but it's made by Pennzoil-Quaker, and very flammable, so petroleum distillates seems a reasonable guess. After cleaning and drying the dome exterior, apply the rain-x on a small patch of clean cloth using overlapping circular motions. Remove the haze by buffing with another clean piece of cloth.

It's fairly clear that it would NOT be ok to fly with this stuff in your baggage on most airlines. I plan to preplace a bottle on the liveaboard I'm next going on so I won't have to worry about it. But if someone were to ask (just hypothetically of course) what the best way to try to get it past a more cursory inspection, someone might reply with a suggestion to put the yellow plastic Rain-X bottle in a suitably-sized zip loc bag, do the same with several different similarly-sized plastic bottles of sun screen or similar., and then putting all those in another larger plastic ziploc and putting that in a bag with dive gear. But it wouldn't be me who said that, of course.

The important advice I will take responsibility for, however, is that before attempting to shoot over-unders deep in the mangroves, cover your head and neck with the strongest and stickiest DEET you can find, and try to keep it from washing off. And/or wear a hood. I ended up with bites on top of bites all over my head, neck and ears.

Barrel sponge and soft coral under mangroves, Raja Empat

Archer fish under mangroves, Raja Empat

Frogfish

Very intresting this with Rain X. I may found a shop that have some :-)

How offen you apply the rain-X? Every day every dive ,???

Its sounds like you need to apply this only one a week...

Lambis

..other then 2 or 3 shots on the end of a dive, where either above or under water was in focus

Me to my friend me to... I just cant make photos with both parts in focus

Hey Lambis here is a link in Sweden for Pledge product.

http://www.scjohnson.se/products/brand.asp?idb=6&idr=1

Never heard about that stuff when I was a bachelor, then I got married

You can use it for your over/under and when your finish shooting u/w make your girlfriend happy by polishing all the furnitures. you will score good point!

I use a simple mask spray that you use to defog a mask. You can buy it in any dive shop for a few bucks.

Cor

Thanks Guys..

I have found RAIN-X. Great tips by the way.

Jean ... I try not to polish the furnitures.

You know..i have given her some fingers and whant to keep the hand for me

Lambis

How offen you apply the rain-X? Every day every dive ,???

 

Its sounds like you need to apply this only one a week...

 

Lambis

Me to my friend me to... I just cant make photos with both parts in focus

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Unless you're shooting with a fisheye, you probably need a split diopter, basically half of a +2 or +3 diopter glued to half of a neutral density filter. The magnifying part goes on the bottom and makes it possible to focus on both the u/w and above water parts of the scene. The neutral density filter on the top half helps reduce the difference in illumination between the u/w and above water parts.

Over-unders aren't really something you can just do at the end or beginning of a normal photographic dive. You need to set up for it. You will need the split diopter with most wide-angle lenses, and you have to line up the boundary between the two parts of the diopter with the water surface, which can be tricky. Extra flotation on the housing helps. I also set up the strobe arms so that they are basically inverted, with both the strobes and arms underwater when the housing is half-submerged, and so that I don't have to support the additional weight of the arm sections above water.

If I didn't have a split diopter and wanted to try to do an over-under, I'd probably try kicking up the ISO/sensitivity level to 400 or 800 get a tight aperture and hope there would be enough depth of field to get acceptably sharp focus in both parts.

I needed to redo the rainex before every dive that I used it on.

Frogfish (Robert Delfs)

The best way to shoot droplet free split levels is not to let the top half of the dome get wet in the first place. Get in the water and keep it dry.

Do your split levels first and then submerge to do your other shots. Sounds simple - but nobody ever does this.

Alex

If I didn't have a split diopter and wanted to try to do an over-under, I'd probably try kicking up the ISO/sensitivity level to 400 or 800 get a tight aperture and hope there would be enough depth of field to get acceptably sharp focus in both parts.

I do have a Dome port, but a small one. But I will try with a a tight aperture

and Iso 400.

Thanks guys for the tips.......