Advice for new UW DSLR user?

Hello, let me preface this by saying that for the past 15 years I have shot with Nikonos V systems and an Ikelite SLR system for my film camera.

I am going to the Philippines for a once in a lifetime trip and thus purchased an Ikelite housing for my Nikon D70 DSLR camera. I have an old Ikelite Substrobe 200 with it that will only fire manually, no TTL with the D70 housing. I will be shooting macro with my 60mm lens 99% of the time there. In the past, with macro, I always shot 1/60, f8-f22, and TTL. Pretty brainless and I always got good results. In all honesty, I have never done macro with manual flash, which I will need to do with the D70 housing.

Any tips on lighting, aperture, shutter speed techniques for my new setup?

Go with what you know. 1/60 is fine although you could up that a bit as the D70 is minimum ISO 200 and your slide film will probably have been lower. Does your strobe have manual power settings or just on and off. If you can adjust the power I'd try 1/2 or 1/4 power with F11 but it all depends on how far the flash is from the subject. With full power only you can vary the amount of light by moving the strobe further away from the subject.

Review the results on screen and adjust if necessary, the shots will look brighter underwater than they will viewed in daylight.

Shoot RAW and you can adjust the exposure by 1.5 to 2 stops in post processing with no real problems more than that and it starts to show. Slight underexposure is better than overexposure so the fact that shots look brighter underwater is OK.

bmola,

well you've been shooting film for a long time, so I think the transition over to the D70 will be very easy for you.

congrats on your new setup.

ken gave pretty good advice. I'll try to add what I can.

you will enjoy the immediate feedback on the display so you can check your exposure. if your display can show a 3-color histogram (I know my D80 can), I would leave it in that view so you can check your exposure after each shot.

Lighting, aperture, and shutter speed should all be similar to your old setup.

since you now have to worry about strobe power also, you might want to try this in the beginning:

keep your strobes on a fixed setting (e.g. - 1/2 power), and vary your F-stop according to the distance to the subject, to get the correct exposure.

hope this helps,

Scott

ps - if this is really a "once in a lifetime trip", I hope you bring an extra strobe, sync cable, and batteries, in case your strobe or sync cable floods, which sometimes happens. perhaps a UW photo shop will rent you these items or allow you to return them if unused.

I am going to the Philippines for a once in a lifetime trip and thus purchased an Ikelite housing for my Nikon D70 DSLR camera. I have an old Ikelite Substrobe 200 with it that will only fire manually, no TTL with the D70 housing. I will be shooting macro with my 60mm lens 99% of the time there. In the past, with macro, I always shot 1/60, f8-f22, and TTL. Any tips on lighting, aperture, shutter speed techniques for my new setup?

Steve

Thanks so much guys, I appreciate it. My strobe does have 1/2 and 1/4 power settings so I will definitely make use of those and definitely shoot in raw, and check the histogram.

I'd forgotten the sync speed on the D70. Nikon say it's 1/500 but it will actually sync at any speed because unlike other Nikon DSLRs it uses an electronic shutter for the faster speeds rather than the electronically controlled mechanical shutter on cameras like the D80, D200, D300. The only thing that might limit the sync speed to 1/500 is if your strobe talks to the camera. When I had a D70 I originally had a Sea & Sea strobe and could use any shutter speed, when I connected an Ikelite DS51 I was limited to 1/500. Not sure how the older Substrobe will operate. Alex Mustard did a post on this a while back http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showt...6169&hl=d70

Beware of that "once in a lifetime" trip: it can become (expensively) addictive!

In my D70 days I shot 1/2-1 stop underexposed, which helps avoid "blowing" the highlights, and makes editing your RAW images easier. Autofocus is much easier if you have a focus light on the housing - a miniQ light is fine - and Autofocus is better with a D70 because the viewfinder image is too small to see if your prize subject is in focus.

If you are using RAW, then leave the white balance on Auto. If you like blue backgrounds don't worry about the max. synch. speed, shoot 1/30 sec at f22 or thereabouts. The high synch. speeds are needed if you have a sunburst in the frame, which is for wide-angle junkies.

Basically, set up your camera to work like your Nikonos, but with AF and Auto white balance, and remember that you have ISO200 loaded, so reduced strobe power is the order of the day.

Use the histogram to see if your exposure is OK as the display can be misleading.

Mind the reef: your system has just doubled in size!

Tim

B)

Thanks a lot, I almost forgot about the 200 ISO.

On a separate note, does anyone know where I can get a 220 to 110 travel converter that can run for 8-10 hours in a row for the Philippines for my strobe battery charger? Every converter I have seen says that they are not for continuous use or 3 hours max. Do I need something like this:

http://www.voltageconverters.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=VC100W

Thanks.

Thanks a lot, I almost forgot about the 200 ISO.

 

On a separate note, does anyone know where I can get a 220 to 110 travel converter that can run for 8-10 hours in a row for the Philippines for my strobe battery charger? Every converter I have seen says that they are not for continuous use or 3 hours max. Do I need something like this:

 

Thanks.

The Ikelite Smart Charger can use 120/240 VAC 60/50 Hz power and is sutible for the Substrobe 200 batteries. Check with Ikelite ( ikelite.com)

Regards,

Bob