using digital wide angle?

Yea, you're right about the W/A. I think it's just the macro stuff is so colorul too. But Alex, Karl and others have posted some pretty awesome W/A stuff here in the past. I've been lax in that area so...

Rand

I think that's always been the case in underwater photography and not anything unique to digital. Just ask anyone who runs an underwater photography contest; there have always been many more macro entries than wide-angle. Macro is just easier to master and new photographers can almost immediately get some stunning results.

As for myself, I probably shoot more w/a than ever since switching from film to digital. There are lots of great w/a shooters on this board - just look around and you'll find them.

Nkon D2H, Aquatica D2X housing, Nikon 10.5 w/2X SB105

Like Lionfish43, if anything, I shoot more wide-angle since I moved to digital then I did on film. For every dive I set for macro, I probably do at least two wide-angle dives, maybe more. But the ratio of w/a "keepers" is never anything like the shooting ratio, of course. That's only partly because shooting wide-angle is more intrinsically difficult. A macro dive at a site like Lembeh, Raja Empat or Komodo with great biodiversity can yield a stunning number of decent images of different subjects. Wide-angle dives just don't work the same way.

Sunbursts were always difficult, and pose special problems with digital sensors, but many examples of successful digital sunburst shots have been posted on this board. Sunbursts were becoming almost a cliche in underwater photography, and I like to think that we're moving beyond those standardized images. That said, it's still fun to shoot one every once in a while.

Eagle Rock, Komodo. D2X in Subal housing, 10.5 mm, Inon strobes

Frogfish

P.S. Rand, love the cormorant (if that's what it is) - where did you take this? Nice sea lions too!

Wow Frogfish,

that is a most amazing wide angle shot, nice picture! Thanks for the encouragement. Do you think your D2H is where you want to be or are you ready to move to....say a D200 or D2X? What lens did you use for that shot and what strobes are you using?

Thanx

Please indulge a crumudgeon. I think you see more macro because its technically easier.More instant gratification, with easy results. You see an object and shoot it. you can change the angle, focus point, depth of field, lighting, etc. Less possibilities. I think wide angle gives you more creativity, and possibilities. When i think of capture the moment photography, i see more then a subject. Look at the wonderful photos by rand. They have captured that moment in time. A subject captured in context, motion, a moment in time. Not just a wow, but a feeling. Now you can do this with macro but it isnt the same. I dont mean this as saying one is better then another. I dont want to create arguments. Its just an opinion. You can take a seahorse photo dozens of different ways, but what it does for me is different.

Thanks caymaniac, but I think you may be confusing me and Lionfish, who shoots with the D2H. The shot I posted above was taken with the D2X with the 10.5 lens, two Inon D2000 strobes and a third (slave mode) Sea&Sea strobe mounted in the middle - I think most of that is in the post.

I'm quite happy with the D2X, by the way, though I'm 99% sure that I would have gone with the D200 had it been released 8 months earlier.

Frogfish

Like many here I shoot a great deal wide angle on digital. The commercial answer is buy a copy of "The Art Of Diving" - which is mostly wide angle shot on digital.

Or you can have a scan through some of the galleries on my website:

http://www.amustard.com/?page=gallery&subpage=photo&size=s

Almost all the images there are digital and they are mostly wide angle.

Alex

I would also reccommend looking at the photo's on Eric's website (echeng.com) - as he shoots almost entirely wide angle, and the results are rather nice.

OK to be a bit less lazy... here are some digital wide angle shots with the sun in them:

Alex

Really nice stuff, Alex. You have a good eye for excellent composition and it shows up in the originality of your W/A shots. Too much of the W/A I see is repititious. I find it challenging to envision a good, original W/A shot and then pull it off. Really, the same applies to macro. We see the same critter shots over and over, but really stunning, original compositions with unusual behavior are much more rare. All that said, I would agree that the technical challenges posted by W/A are much greater than for macro.

I'm not so sure about the technical problems (although I do concede that getting the concept of balanced lighting across can be tricky - especially when photographers are convinced that automation will work), but I'd actually say that finding good subject matter which responds well to wide-angle work can be tricky underwater. Subjects can get overdone and dare I say it, can be faddy! (Great Whites are well exposed at the moment). Shooting a variety of interesting subjects is, as Alex demonstrates well, possible, but not always easy in terms of conception or content. Digital has made wide-angle work far easier to assess technically whilst underwater, but for audiences (especially non-divers) image content and composition remain less straightforward than macro. Also, personally speaking, I find that in murky temperate waters, wide-angle material is often more of an illustrative nature and technical considerations are sufficiently constrained to relegate many images to being adequate records as opposed to imaculate, technically perfect pictures.

Really nice stuff, Alex. You have a good eye for excellent composition and it shows up in the originality of your W/A shots. Too much of the W/A I see is repititious.

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Thanks for the compliments, ReefRoamer. I must mention, before someone else does, that I have to disagree about the last one of my shots - which is classic Euro/CMAS Championships wide angle, and was actually taken as a test shot (back in March 2005) to see how the D2X performed with this classic UW photo scene. I do like the final image, and it was used in my book, but I can't claim it was an original thought! Thought it was better to out myself before someone else did!

On Paul's point of Automation, I actually have to admit that three of my shots were taken on aperture priority! I hardly ever use it, but I did for those - although the were all shot with exposure compensation dialled in!

Gosh, a real confessional, that post. Well it is Sunday.

Alex

For many of us I think the major factor is Visibility. There just are not many days in our area when you can go out and get satisfying WA shots

"I actually have to admit that three of my shots were taken on aperture priority!"

Automation can work but what it cannot do is assess a scene and apply a a balance of available light and flash illumination in the proportions that the photographer may want them to be mixed. Sometimes it will but often (especially in low contrast scenes) it will not. Looking at your pix Alex I'd say that they are pretty high contrast scenes where (available light) automation seems to work best underwater, and I think that I am right in saying that you don't use ttl flash!!!

In (temperate) low contrast scenes, automation usually delivers too much exposure in my experience.

that digital just doesn't perform in wide angle very well? I really like wide angle but am still shooting film and the ONE big reason is that there doesn't seem to be allot of great wide angle shots. It seems as if those sun balls has photographers deleting their pics.

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Not sure what you meant..

Taken with the Canon 10D, EF16-35L, Dual S&S YS120 strobes...

10D, Sigma 15mm FE

5D, EF !5mm FE:

IMHO, it's conditions more so than ease/difficulty that dictate shooting WA or Macro. I was watching a slideshow done by my friend Jett Britnell who was with Eric and Alex on the Bahama Shark Dive. He said that there were seahorses in the sea grass beds where they were shooting the bull sharks, amazingly no one took down a macro lens...same difference when I shoot say in Sabang Bay in Puerto Galera, we regularly see a huge male hawksbill in 6 ft. of water...but when I can get an Alleni mimic nudi, why bring down a fisheye? On my last Sulu Sea trip, one of the groups diving the wall with huge fronds of soft coral saw a blue ring octopus, for many, this was the first time they saw one, but everyone had fisheye or ultrawide (weitwinkel) lenses on their cameras....oh well!

Are WA shots more difficult to get than Macro? No. Are Good WA Shots more difficult than Good Macro? Yes. Are digital SLRs limited in any way by their sensors in capturing a Sunburst/Sunball? I've shot UW digital starting with the 10D, it's never been an issue, with the 5D, it's even better.

My 2 cents

Stu

p.s. I always shoot in Manual Mode.

Hi all,

Since film days I've always shot wide angle on manual and continue to do so shooting digital. I shoot macro or wide angle depending upon the specific site and the type of marine life in the area.

Stu - to clarify, seahorses were at reportedly seen in the eelgrass at Tiger Beach, where we enjoyed Tiger Sharks and Lemon Sharks, and not at the Bull Shark dive at Walker's Cay. Thanks again for organizing a great digital photo night!

Jett....you still shot WA though!

Stu