My First SLR Underwater Pictures

Okay, as you can see, there is a "circle" around the subject, which I believe is my Tokina 10-17 Fisheye Lens. It is behind an Ikelite 8" dome. The water is very far from clear. I am only a few feet down. I am INSIDE the fishtank. I thought maybe it was my flash bouncing back off of the window into the gift shop, but I seemed to get the same ring in other photos where there was no glass in front of me.

My first "over/under" shot! Actually, this is me, banging my housing into a dive cylinder. WARNING, objects in the viewfinder are MUCH closer than they appear! You can see my dome port shade. In fact, you can see the shade in many of my pictures. Is this normal? Do i just need to zoom out past the 10 mm, closer to 17mm to avoid seeing the shade in the pictures? Frankly, 10mm made things way too far away.

Here you can see my technique. Stay in front of a piece of lettuce and shoot. Poor lighting, lots of crud in the water, probably should have used "edge lighting" better.

At 14mm, the cow nose ray does not show any of the dome port shade:

At 10mm, the pesky shade is quite apparent:

Here, I used the coral to frame my subject. Soon the dive magazines are going to be knocking on my door!

Look at these teeth... This is why its a bad idea to annoy fish...

Finally, here we see why the visibility was so poor!

I hope you enjoyed these. I know they are quite poor, but they were my first shots and I really wanted to know if anybody has a tip for removing the reflection of my camera lens from my pictures... is it that my flash was too close to the dome? And also, the pesky dome shade, am I doomed to see it whenever I am unzoomed with my FE?

Sometimes I got that reflection with Ike dome too, not that harsh but if you look closely there it is... Put your strobes really far away and behind the dome shade, looks like you rright strobe is too close to the dome.

Thanks. It was indeed pretty close. Only have one strobe, and I'll sit it up higher next time around.

I have experienced a similar phenom w/ my S&S dome port shade when I shoot up into clear, bright water. You can see it in the photo I've attached (not a particularly good photo but an example none the less). It looks like a semicircle extending from the bubbles at the bottom left to the legs of the diver on the right. This has happened to me in about 8 different photos. I asked Jim at Backscatter about it when I was at the Long Beach show last week. He says that in my case at least, it's a reflection bouncing off the edge of the port shade back into the lens. He says that S&S is aware of the problem and he suggested attaching something non reflective such as black felt to the edge of the shade to dull the reflective value. Me, personally, I'd probably screw that up so I may just wait til Backscatter completes their clever solution plan and then get one from them.

I could be wrong but I think this is due to stray light entering the lexicon housing and then reflecting off the inside of the port. I know my Olympus has this problem if you leave off the rubber gasket designed to screw on the end of the lens. It only happens at the widest angle of the lens so the gasket was designed to seal out light that enters from the side of the housing.

Dr. Frink ran into something like this before and posted some possible fixes here. Good luck!

Steve

Steve, thank you for that post. I think I'll have to examine my lens when I get back home tonight, but I think the fisheye has a built in petal "shade" that is going to make it difficult to cover up any reflection. If is indeed a problem only with the widest angle, I will survive by zooming in a bit and thereby kill the dome shade problem I am having. as well.

You're not alone. I sometimes can barely see "ZUIKO" around the periphery of some of my shots. I think the advice to move strobes back helped me the most...I haven't seen it since in practice shots. But it shows up down in the blue on pictures like this one, if you look very closely at the bottom right:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtrski/246611...57604812754534/

(Only shows up in the larger pic, so I'm just posting a link instead of embedding the image directly and stretching the whole forum frame.)

Regarding seeing the dome shade, you just may have to zoom in a tiny bit. Or if you want to use the extreme wide angle end, remove the dome shade entirely. If that's what your seeing and not the fisheye lenses shade itself.

You're not alone. I sometimes can barely see "ZUIKO" around the periphery of some of my shots. I think the advice to move strobes back helped me the most...I haven't seen it since in practice shots. But it shows up down in the blue on pictures like this one, if you look very closely at the bottom right:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtrski/246611...57604812754534/

(Only shows up in the larger pic, so I'm just posting a link instead of embedding the image directly and stretching the whole forum frame.)

 

Regarding seeing the dome shade, you just may have to zoom in a tiny bit. Or if you want to use the extreme wide angle end, remove the dome shade entirely. If that's what your seeing and not the fisheye lenses shade itself.

How could they design a fisheye shade built on to the lens that makes itself visible in the frame? That would be nuts, but now I have to test it on land to see what it is I am seeing in my pictures! I am pretty sure its the dome as I don't recall seeing the wavy form in my test shots on land.

I could be wrong but I think this is due to stray light entering the lexicon housing.

Sorry, I couldn't resist the tongue in cheek, but the thought of a housing made from a dictionary is hilarious. New recycling program perhaps?

How could they design a fisheye shade built on to the lens that makes itself visible in the frame? That would be nuts, but now I have to test it on land to see what it is I am seeing in my pictures! I am pretty sure its the dome as I don't recall seeing the wavy form in my test shots on land.

Yeah, I didn't think that one thru before posting, did I? It's gotta be the dome shade.

Sorry, I couldn't resist the tongue in cheek, but the thought of a housing made from a dictionary is hilarious. New recycling program perhaps?

I had someone call the polycarbonate used in clear housings by that name. But that is funny...thanks for the correction.

Lexan, perhaps?

http://www.geplastics.com/gep/Plastics/en/...line/lexan.html

your shade is off-axis. it is turned slightly to the *left* when holding the camera normally, like you're ready to shoot. that's why its showing up in your photos at 10mm.

lets look at the wide cownose ray shot, left side. there's a big bulge in the top left corner that's part of the top of the shade, a dip in the middle that should be lined up with the top left corner, and a small bulge in the lower left that should be in the middle.

fisheye lenses see furthest in the corners and that's why the shade has those dips in the corners.

other than that, work on the backscatter by:

1. get the strobes behind the plane of the dome.

2. point the strobes slightly outwards for that 'edge' lighting

3. tell the other guys to stop cleaning the tank, its killin the viz

cheers,

chris

Chris, thanks for that information. So, how do I fix the shade problem? I thought it looked like it was at 10, 2, 4 and 8, but I suppose its hard to eyeball. It came assembled from backscatter, but again, maybe its hard to get just right.

It seems possible it IS right and that maybe I just turned the dome too much or too little in which case I should try assembling and shooting again to see if I repeat the problem at the expense of ruining a shot or two when shooting wide.

And, if I still have the problem, then I need to loosen the set screws and turn the shade slightly to the right, tighten up and try again? This is going to be a game of trial and error?

And brilliant me, I leave tomorrow, but just realized that I can set the camera up and shoot on land to see if I can fix the shade problem!

I can't get the guys to stop cleaning and ruining the viz. I was lucky to be allowed to shoot instead of being one of the scrubbers!

I'm not sure how ikelite domes mount to the housing. my aquatica is threaded, and the shade is removable so it can be adjusted to even out at the stop point on the port.

Thanks. My port is not threaded, but theoretically it should always stop at the same spot. Which means if I "tilt" the shade to the right a bit I bet it will always sit the same way once installed. I'll work on it on the boat!