Truk - Beginner Shots

Hi. Buddy John and I took our starter kits (Epoque ES-150 and Canon S40/Fujifilm Finepix using fibrecable) to Truk two weeks back. The Canon housing and I both survived a 56m dive (it was rated to 30) and I learned a little more about lighting.

Well the results are pretty darned shoddy but I think we began to improve (in my case the closer I got to the surface light that is ;-) ).

http://psg.mmdc.net/gallery/trukdive

For me, overexposure was the main culprit (when the flash fired) but I started to get the hang of the GN setting towards the end. Under those conditions and without a wide-angle I guess it never needed to go over GN5 anyway.

The biggest pain (and many report this with the S40) was the lens fogging up after 40 minutes in 30-degree water. I found that keeping the whole thing wet and shaded prior to the dive seemed to help but it sure was annoying. Antifog seemed to make things worse - maybe I didn't use it correctly.

The movie mode was actually quite useful and I wish the resolution could be slightly better. Ok we know I should use a digicam for that but just a slight improvement and maybe an auto-f/white balance would've been good.

I have a small suggestion. I was interested in viewing your pics (looks like a terrific trip), but 42 pages of images is a bit to wade through. Maybe you could make a separate set of keepers and it would be easier for people to critque, without getting fatigued. Most, look like they were done without a strobe? I like the sea anemone shots, too bad the fish didn't cooperate and hold still.

Sean

You're right! 42 pages is ridiculous of course. Hm, I guess I'm trying to keep everything there so that the non-diving family and friends will get an idea. Believe it or not, that is about 30% of the total haul, and about half of the shots were (gulp) taken with a strobe but one wouldn't know it.

Well the latter 20 shots are really the best I think and probably the only ones worth looking through and laughing at. Next trip we'll get the hang of the darned strobe and we'll bribe those anemone fish to come out and smile.

-PSG-