Call for experiences using filters / ambient light...

Hey guys. I'd love to get a few quotes for use in a magazine about your experience shooting with filters and white balance.

What do you like best about it? What has it allowed you to do that you wouldn't normally be able to do? General thoughts? Technique? Tips?

We're looking for 2-3 sentences. Please reply here, or send in your quotes to http://wetpixel.com/contacteric/

Deadline is... ASAP (tomorrow).

I sometimes use the scheme developed by Craig Jones: magenta filter on the lens and the complement green filter on the strobes. This has the net effect of subtracting green ambient light while leaving the color of the strobe light unchanged. This is especially useful when the water conditions are less than the ideal tropical blue, and I think it also helps a little with sunball rendering.

By the way, this isn't for an ad. It's for an article, so you don't have to be too happy about shooting ambient.

The first time I used a filter underwater was on a dive at the Sugar Wreck in the Bahamas. Alex Mustard was on this trip so I got the "5 minute course" on filter photography and manual white balance, which helped a lot. I used the fisheye lens, and it was really nice to dive only with my housing and dome port and leave the monster strobes and arms on the boat. I'm happy with the photos I made on that dive and I want to try it again with strobes and complementary filters next time I get to a good wide-angle diving spot.

James

Hmm. I go off and on about this, did a lot of dives last year using filters. I don't like to give up fill-flash on the main subject, so my standard configuration is magic filters for 10.5 mm or 17 mm (or a screw-on 85B for the 77 mm 12-24 or 17-35 zooms, which seems to be to be almost identical in color to the magic filter) with blue gels on the strobes. when it call comes together, it can work wonderfully. Unfortunately, there's generally only one fairly narrow depth range where this combination works, and it depends on conditions (water clarity, weather, time of day and angle of sun, etc.) Which is probably why I still shoot more wide-angle without color filters than with.

Is that helpful?

Frogfish

I would love to participate but not having dove for 3 years makes me feel a bit underqualified. Needless to say, once back in the water I'll be right back at it and I have a few new ideas. I'm curious about the magic filter formulations.

One of the developments I took advantage of prior to my drop from the edge of the earth was Thomas Fors' ACR calibrator. Since I got my camera body and CS3 (yesterday) I gave it a practice run again last night. One thing I plan to play with is running custom calibrations using filter sets, lenses and strobes (and possibly shoot the test chart underwater).

I've been looking for filters that can surpress cyans without blasting out blues equally. I've found a gel that does that to some extent but I haven't been able to find strobe filters to match.

You know, videographers shoot filters and ambient light all the time.