Wide Angle Settings

Hi,

I am about to go for a two week liveaboard trip in Palau, but I've not had anywhere near enough wide angle use with my new Canon 350D, Ikelite Housing + 2 x DS125 strobes.

Does anyone have any recommendations for wide angle setting. I plan to mainly be using a Canon 10-22mm EFS lens, with strobes and natural light. I have a magic filter for the lens too.

thanks in advance.

Betti,

I just spent a few weeks in Indonesia, and in general I got the best WA results with fairly high shutter speeds (125th - 160th of a second) and medium range apertures (f6-8) rather than slower shutter speeds and smaller apertures (f11 or higher). If you are shooting sunbursts (even if they're behind the main subject), however, you'll want the shutter speed as high as it will sync with your strobe(s). In all cases, use your camera's meter to choose a combination of shutter and aperture that the meter says will underexpose the shot by about 1 stop.

As for the Magic Filter, I'd suggest that you only even ATTEMPT to use it on dives where you have bright sunlight and are in fairly shallow water. All digital cameras need lots of LIGHT, and murky water and/or clouds are likely to produce disappointing results with the MF relative to strobes. OTOH, if you're shooting a wreck or something else that just isn't practical for strobe lighting (so you have to use ambient light anyway), you'll likely find the MF produces better results than just having a blue water shot.

Hope that helps! Have fun; Palau is a beautiful place!

Bruce,

Thanks very much for the advice, I"ll give the settings you suggest a try.

It might be obvious to others, but I am not sure what you refer to as MF?

In the past I've used a standard red filter on a Olympus C5050 with gread results. I didn't have a strobe then, so was forced to figure out how to use natural light a bit more than most. I just wondered if anyone has any specific WA settings with thge filter, but you general WA settings should provide a solid base to work from.

Thanks.

It might be obvious to others, but I am not sure what you refer to as MF?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You mentioned you had a Magic Filter. My references to MF were for the Magic Filter. Sorry for the confusion (especially since MF usually means manual focus).

thanks for the clarification.

ds