Canon G7 + Ikelite Housing + DS51 TTL pictures...

Once again, let me preface this by saying I am the most novice of hobbyists in marine photography. Unlike some, I am not a professional and do this because it keeps me out of trouble doing something else. I began taking pictures in January of this year with a Reefmaster DC500 and decided to move onto something a little more sophisticated. At this point, I am not sure where I landed...

The Canon is a nice land camera and in the hands of someone who is smarter than me would probably work well in the water. It has lots of controls which Canon put there to confuse people like me. I am pretty sure some engineer is having a lot of fun tonight thinking about me pushing buttons on the camera to change something which I just changed back from a few minutes before. Anyway, it makes me feel good to push the camera buttons to let it know who is in charge so in the end its all good as they say...

The Ikelite housing is robust, tough and the buttons, well, there are those same fun buttons that are on the camera! Wow, I couldnt be happier! I knew that somehow if I keep pushing buttons between shots I will stumble on the magic formula for a good picture! Anyway, I decided to follow advice from Ikelite and set the C1 function up with the AV mode with the flash set up for TTL. I grabbed the silicone, lathered up the orings, admired the nice looking case and set off for the ocean thinking back on all the posts I have memorized from how to flood cases to how real men dont use TTL. On the short drive to the seawall I fondly remembered however I was already married and so decided to stick with TTL because at that point I had nothing left to prove.

The Ikelite handled very nicely in the water, is well balanced and the DS51 has a pretty large switch to turn on so I didnt have any problem swimming out to set up for my debut photo shoot and getting the camera and flash turned on. I might have even had thoughts of all those POTW Contests I would win with my new rig. If I win enough of them I wont ever have to buy TShirts again, right! Soon however, I realized the one thing that Canon forgot to ship with the G7 and even Ikelite forgot to mention in thier sales ad for that gorgeous housing they make. It wasnt a realization that came in a flash mind you, it more like sort of crept up on me. You see, as I was working my way through the series of overblown and out of focus pictures for the day it occured to me deep in my mind that ,"Wow, if you knew what your doing this camera would really do a good job! You'd have to be some kind of idiot to not get some good photos with this thing..." About 30 minutes later I realized I WAS that idiot who couldnt get the camera to work. I am going to write Canon I think and complain that nobody told me I had to know the relationship between fStop, Shutter speed, lighting, exposure and all those other settings that keep coming up when I push the fun-buttons. Who knew that roulette-photography wouldnt work?

Out of 120 some odd photos that I took that day only a dozen or so came out without looking like some grossly deformed fish or coral melting into the background (which I might add was more often in focus than what I intended to photograph). I had so many overlit pictures you would think I was trying to vaporize all life on the reef with my new Ikelite LaserCanon with the camera being used as an aiming device. This of course would be preposterous because that would mean that whatever unfortunate fish I was picking on would have to be centered in the picture frame, right?

Ok. Now the aftermath. I ended up spending the day learning the G7/Ikelite TTL rig and am ready to retry the ocean tomorrow! I have chased every Gecko, looked at each flower and found every bug in the yard... and taken its picture, twice. Ready at last, I am heading back out to the broad seas (next to shore actually) to spend some time with the fishes. And my wife.

Pictures to follow...

Had some more fun today with the Canon. The water was a little more clear and smoother which allowed me to stop rolling around and work on the focus and exposure.

I switched off of AV mode and went to TV mode, switched the Safety FE to on and preset the zoom/telephoto to 2.3. I found that barely pulling the trigger to set the camera to focus without actually taking the picture and then following up by finishing the trigger pull when ready was the way to go. Once the pre-focus is taken care of the secondary pull on the trigger has virtually no lag.

Anyway, here are some of todays photos. Tomorrow I am heading out again to see what else I can learn...

These are great! Novice indeed - NOT!

You sure live in a nice spot...sigh.

James

Today was much rougher and visibility started at about 40 feet then over an hour went down to a bit over 10 feet from incoming silt. The wind started blowing from a front coming from the East (Pacific side) which didnt help either.

James, I appreciate the compliment but I am firmly stuck in the Novice mode. I cant even figure out how to manipulate the Manual setting and strobe to get any consistent picture. After putting the G7 into the TV mode, the Telephoto preset at 2.3 etc this camera really performs. The Ikelite housing is a bit large but the weight isnt much of a factor in the water. I only wish that the Ikelite folks had managed to design a left hand trigger finger to take the pictures. Because I freedive and dont use a BCD I often have to use my right hand to stay level.

I am not trying to bore anyone with pics and this is probably the last set for the weekend (unless we go out tomorrow). When I was shopping for cameras there was and still is a shortage of underwater pics from the G7.

Well, I think I found where the G7 likes to be set! I ended up switching to the following settings which are working fairly well:

TV mode

Macro

ISO 100-200 based on water condition/light etc

Telephoto set to 2.3 to start, I set the hot button to do the telephoto preset which works well to cycle on/off

Shutter Speed 1/250

Exposure -1

AWB

Vivid Mode

Flash +- to O

Center Weighted Average

Safety FE to ON

Spot AE Point to AF Point

Safety Shift to ON

IS Mode to Shoot Only

I also started to shoot in Manual mode to set the Fstop at 8 to increase the DOF which is working well. It would seem that at this point that most of the errors in the photos are based mostly on user incompetence rather than equipment failure. The album at http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/558982663uaDCTJ contains a number of other photos that are taken with the Canon G7 from this week.

Some great photos there! Where abouts do you dive?

I've got the exact same setup, and am very happy with it. Have been shooting in AV rather than TV mode though, so I can control the dof and how much light is coming in. Seems to be working ok. loving having a strobe with eTTL.

Here's a couple from a recent trip...

Love the colors! My wife especially likes the last one with the Lionfish.

We live on Okinawa which is basically a 68 mile long Island thats about 2 miles wide surrounded on all sides by limestone shelves topped by reefs. Sadly, there is so much new development over the last 10 years or so that the runoff and silt have begun to affect the reefs and there are large sections of dead or dying reef now.

When you shoot in AV mode have you found a common shutter speed that remains constant? I believe that Ikelite says that 1/60 is the default, have you found this to be fast enough for moving fish etc? I recently began to shoot in Manual mode, f8, 1/125 shutter, -2 on the flash, AWB, Vivid, Center Weight, Telephoto preset to 2.3 ( Telephoto is on the hot button so I can switch it quickly), ISO80 (big change from 100), Spot AE Point-Center, AF Mode-Single, IS Mode-Continuous... This is a photo taken like that:

and another (little stowaway fishy in lower right corner):

I seem to blur a lot of photos when I use the AV mode. My theory is that because I am not using air tanks I have a hard time sitting still and the setup for a shot is often hurried.

nice pics again. the shutter speed changes automatically, depending on lighting, etc. i find i can use the av mode to control how exposed the pic is too - macro, i'll put it on f8, wide angle, i'll close it up a bit more. the rest of the settings are more or less the same as you, although just leave the colours on auto rather than vivid (often fix this up in photoshop later on), and don't play with the telephoto (have the shorter port for use with a WA lens, so makes it painful to zoom). will sometimes change the exposure levels too.

Which part of the world is Okinawa in?

I went out yesterday and played around with the exposures again and had success both with AV function and TTL and the Manual function with the strobe set to -2 or -2.25 (DS51). In all cases I did use the f8 like you do for the increased DOF.

What is really catching my eye now for WA use is the Underwater mode. The colors it is producing are very nice and the focus time is much quicker than any other mode I have used so far. It also works with the TTL strobe if it is left on. I think the strobe may override the filter tinting but the autofocus still seems to be much quicker. I would like to hear your views on the UW mode if you use it.

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan and is about 400 miles south of Japan. Its an island about 68 miles long and 2 miles or so across.

Haven't tried it with the G7. All it should do it is change the white balance, add some more reds in. It's normally made to be used without the strobe though.

Haven't tried using manual white ballance yet either, although I did it a lot with my old A75, with varying degrees of success.

Have to say, I'm jealous, wish I could get in the water that often! For me, it's a weekend only thing.

I have never changed white balance before and just leave it on AWB except for the Underwater mode setting. I have looked at how to do it while topside though. I am headed to the water right now so maybe I will get a chance to do a custom white balance change.

I'm looking at buying the Canon g7 + ikelite housing. What kind of wide angle lens do you use? do you need extra macro lens/port? for your amazing macro pictures?

C.H.

I am not sure what equipement Aussie is using but for me its just the camera in the housing. The G7 has a nice 1.4 and 2.3 telephoto setting which I put on the "hot button" to access quickly which allows quick zooming. The Ikelite has a knob specifically for this button as well. I even went as far as to set up the C1 custom for WA photos and the C2 is setup for closeups.

This pic was taken from a little over a meter away to not spook the fish. I used the telephoto preset and the zoom function to frame him as best I could. I do crop to A4 print size as the native picture size the camera takes is not the right print dimension for my paper size.

Aussie

I went back again and tried the Underwater mode in the SCN section. I set the telephoto to 2.3 and the flash was off. I did fiddle between shots with the +-exposure button if what a picture seemed too dark or bright. It is firmly my belief that the G7 focus time in the Underwater mode is easily half that of the AV or TV or Manual mode. I cannot subtantiate this with a stopwatch but it seems very quick compared to normal. Have you had the opportunity to try the separate modes yet?

These pics are all UW mode, no flash, and telephoto preset with some zoom as well.

Nice. Guessing you were fairly shallow considering the amount of light? WHat are you impressions on the telephoto? it's not something I've played around with. Does this just means it's automatically using the digital zoom?

Chowho, I'm currently using an Epoque wide angle lens, on a shorter port, and have the standard port for macro. No macro lens, just put the camera in macro mode to help with the focussing. Have considered getting an Inon macro lens, but can't really see the point just yet.

Nice. Guessing you were fairly shallow considering the amount of light? WHat are you impressions on the telephoto? it's not something I've played around with. Does this just means it's automatically using the digital zoom?

 

Chowho, I'm currently using an Epoque wide angle lens, on a shorter port, and have the standard port for macro. No macro lens, just put the camera in macro mode to help with the focussing. Have considered getting an Inon macro lens, but can't really see the point just yet.

Thanks guys for all your help. Have you considered the wet mount lens Inon produces? I am thinking of the ikelite housing for my G7 so that I can use a TTL strobe with it.

Pretty amazing if you didn't use a flash. That Nudi is wonderful!

James

Aussie, yes, you are correct in that it was not that deep. We were in a small tidal reef area near a river mouth and the water ranged from 3 to 10 feet deep. We actually were looking for a blue ring that we know lives there but didnt find him today. The banded pipefish was fun to watch though!

James, Its not that I didnt want to use a flash yesterday. I had intended on attaching the DS51 and had connected the Ikelite cord inside the case to the hotshoe of the G7. However, I left the flash at home and forgot all about the cord being connected. I didnt notice I had the cord connected till after I was in the water and so ended up without flash for the dive. There is no way to get the G7 to fire a flash when that cord is connected.

Today I went out to deeper water and took some Internal flash pics. I set the G7 to the same UW mode and set the flash to Auto and started shooting away. The first thing I noticed is that again, the focus time is much quicker than in any other mode other than SCN. The internal flash also did not fire frequently. The Lionfish face here is about 20 feet down in darker silty water and the camera did NOT auto fire the flash.

The camera also did not fire the flash at this Nudi which is about 8 feet underwater. The camera was set to Autoflash.

I decided to force-flash some pics after this. I dont think I can really see a difference in the exposure even with the internal flash. It is very obvious when it goes off though.

and... I used the forced-flash here to countereffect the sun blacking out the starfishs side I was photographing...

This pic is from inside a cave with the camera set to Autoflash which obviously did work.

It seems to me that the G7 in the Ikelite with or without the external strobe works well for just about any photos other than large Wide Angle ones. The water has been pretty silty for several months here and I havent had a chance to actually take some large WAngle photos very much. I suspect that the Strobe will become more important with this type of photography. This is not to say that a strobe helps with the up-close photos, it does yield more color with a strobe.

I took this a week ago as a test photo with a single DS51 on TTL in UW mode to see how the various distances would be exposed. The picture was taken about 10 feet underwater at dusk. The coral is only 4 feet or so from me, the first rock outcrop on the left is about 10 feet and the back of the picture is about 20 feet from the camera.

Aussie, you need to hurry up and start experimenting with your camera! Your experiences would be interesting to know about and which settings you find most useful.

Belive me, I would love to! Problem is, I haven't been in the water for nearly 2 weeks! Attached is a couple from my last dive, at Julian Rocks, Byron Bay. Conditions were average, with about 10m vis. Unfortunately I was leading a group, so I didn't have the chance to play with the camera too much, and didn't bother taking the WA lens. All photos on AV mode - I've taken a liking to it, am easily able to control how much light enters the camera, generally have it smaller (larger number) for macro, and more open for (smaller number) for WA. Will def have to give the underwater setting a go though, especially if it's as fast as you say it is!

Diving this weekend, but doing a course, so won't have the camera with me...