Patima 7070, my first photos

hello group and happy new year to all! i was able to try my camera olympus c-7070 with housing of patima 7070, strobe of nikon sb-105, urpro cy filter. attached are my shots taken the other day , a diver and corals. i have resize the pics for this purpose, i want your comment please although am happy of the result compared to my previous underwater toy camera i had.

the shot was at 30ft with about 25ft visibility. my camera settings: wb: auto mode, flash set to slave: the strobe was set to m 1/4 or m 1/16 at distance of the subject was about 5ft - 6ft, Fno.: F4.0 shutter: 1/200.i did not use the epoque wide angle lens yet. it seems that the shot was dark.

i have read the comment of the previous topic "magic filters" and according to one of the members, filters are best above 50ft and not suitable for macro. does it mean i cant use it for the filter for macro with wide angle lense?

i also tried using the wide angle lense without the filter but the result is not that good....color really faded.

i appreciate all your comments and suggestions as you can see am really a newbie...thanks to all in advanced. good day.

-diver_neil

Neil,

Filters are designed to bring out the natural colors and remove some of the blue cast to pictures, but you need good ambient light for them to work well.

The filter will help with your wide angle shots. Use the custom white balance and reset it when you change depths by a few feet. You will get better results with the filter by not using any flash. Filter photography is best done on bright sunny days with good visibility. You need this sunlight or the colors won't come thru. With only 25 feet visibility and 1/200 shutter speed, you just didn't have enough light hitting the camera sensor.

For macro, remove the filter and get as close as possible to your subject. You can experiment with strobe positioning and intensity until you get the hang of it.

Wide angle UW photography is very challenging and takes practice. Concentrate on macro at first to get accustomed to how everything works.

Hope this helps.

In addition, filters are generally designed to be used when you are shooting in ambient light -- not when you are using a strobe as well. Filters are designed to compensate for the attenuation of red light as you go underwater. Strobes also do this. When you combine the two, the effect is usually that the photos come out far too red. To my eye, your pictures look unnaturally red, probably due to combining the filter and the strobe.

Mike

thanks for the comments and suggestions guys. appreciate it much. have to dive again and practice ....

cheers,

neil