D200 Flash modes

Good info, Rob.

That is NOT clear from (the english version) of Sealux's own website.

Alex

does the aquatica housing for the d2x alow acssess to the flash modes?

As far as I am aware this is only a D200 problem - because of the awkward positioning of the Flash Mode button on the D200 body. The button is much more conveniently placed on all the other Nikon bodies I have shot with - so it is unlikely to be an issue.

Alex

Alex, the shark shot at the top of this thread is awesome. You said in your post it was shot front curtain, but the motion blur is trailing the shark. Can you explain?

i think Alex said he shot it rear curtain.

certainly looks like it

That shark is actually front curtain. Although I didn't realise myself when I first posted it!

Over the weekend I have actually written a UWP article (for the issue out at the beginning of May) all about this. Here is an except of the unedited text (I wrote 4 articles this weekend - so they are all a bit rough) that explains the technique:

The main reason I use front curtain (or first curtain) synch for long exposures is that it allows me to compose images very accurately as the strobe-lit sharp portion of the exposure is produced immediately after the shutter is pressed....

The problem with front curtain is that it has the effect of making the subject look like it is swimming backwards – because the blur extends forward from the sharp portion of the image. To overcome this problem we need to use panning...

...the second approach is to pan faster than the subject. This produces a similar looking effect to rear curtain synch – where the subject blur extends backwards from the subject.

Of course good ol' rear curtain is less specialist and certainly produces the goods. These two (which aren't actually in my Bahamas shark gallery) are rear curtain shots - but don't really show trails because I was panning with the sharks:

Lemon (@ 1/15th):

Tiger (@ 1/4):

In summary

On rear curtain if you don't pan you get a non blurred background and trail from the shark. If you do pan with the shark you get blured background and no trails (on front or rear). On front curtain to get trails going backwards you have to pan faster than the subject, and you also get a blurred background.

Alexo

cool.

thanks for the explanation.

FWIW ... I asked Harald Hordosh if the rear curtain control would be integrated into Seacam D200. He says, "yes, it is standard".

So that is Ikelite, Aquatica and Seacam that offer this function.

Alex