Under/over shots - tips

All the posts above are definitely very helpful as I'm looking at trying some o/u shots during an upcoming trip (so far had very limited opportunity locally due to a red tide situation we have over the past 5-6 months). I have a some additional questions which could be of help though. Mainly, what is the best place for setting the focus point, over or under, or do you use multiple focus points? On the two occasions when I very unsuccessfully tried o/u I ended up with a lot of shots with the waterline and nothing else in focus so looking for all the advice I can get before I travel.

Thanks,

Adam.

Hello I dont do under water photography (but in serious danger of starting if I keep reading these posts !) But if you shoot in raw you can tweak the exposure to the above or below water section afterwards !

With respect to over/under shots here are a couple I shot back about 1995 at Bunaken Island in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The camera in question was a Nikon F4 with a Sigma 14mm f3.5 lens. To get both the topside and underwater portions both sharp I had to use an aperture of about f14 or f16. The film was pushed to ISO 200 to allow this aperture. AND the underwater portion of both shots was filled with strobe light to roughly the same level as what the camera's meter told me would be the correct exposure for the topside portion. The underwater flash exposures were shot at various powers to give a good balance.

I have always liked the 14mm focal length for over/unders as you can stop the lens down far enough to make both halves sharp without a split diopter and you can therefore divide the over and under portions of the picture in the proportions you want, not the 50/50 necessary with the split diopter

I have made an attempt to attach two pictures but I'm not sure if it has worked. Needed technique seems very different than the last time I tried to do this and doesn't really seem to make sense any more.

Fred

With respect to over/under shots here are a couple I shot back about 1995 at Bunaken Island in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The camera in question was a Nikon F4 with a Sigma 14mm f3.5 lens. To get both the topside and underwater portions both sharp I had to use an aperture of about f14 or f16. The film was pushed to ISO 200 to allow this aperture. AND the underwater portion of both shots was filled with strobe light to roughly the same level as what the camera's meter told me would be the correct exposure for the topside portion. The underwater flash exposures were shot at various powers to give a good balance.

 

I have always liked the 14mm focal length for over/unders as you can stop the lens down far enough to make both halves sharp without a split diopter and you can therefore divide the over and under portions of the picture in the proportions you want, not the 50/50 necessary with the split diopter

 

I have made an attempt to attach two pictures but I'm not sure if it has worked. Needed technique seems very different than the last time I tried to do this and doesn't really seem to make sense any more.

 

Fred these are lovely

 

 

Cant help you with film processing but the pictures are amazing from what I can see

Dear Claudia et al,

Thanks for the nice compliments on my over/under pix.

The over/under shots and general technique would be much easier with digital than it was with film. So much easier to up the ISO. And instant review and correction would make the flash part easier with less bracketing.

Meant to include that the port used for the over/under shots was an 8" Aquatica acrylic dome which was the housing I had for my F4 way back then.

Waiting for a D700 housing from Seacam. But Harald's (and Steve's) interest is much more biased towards Canon and so his 5D MKII housing is out already, but not one for the D700 even though the D700 was introduced several months prior to the Canon 5D MkII. Too bad since the D700 is outselling the D3 by a wide margin and is actually a more interesting camera to house if you have any interest in trying to use i-TTL. The D700 has a flash compensation control which the D3/D3x do not. I had a D3 and sold it to buy the D700 because the flash comp control on the body means you can vary the output a flash much easier, and with the camera at your eye vs the D3/D3x. And you can use the pop-up flash as the master unit (firing it or not for the picture) in Nikon's multiple wireless flash system. This versatility makes the D700 the "more professional" camera in my opinion. Hoping for a D700x announcement soon. Maybe at PMA in March or summer.

Guess I'll get another year out of my F5's and film as I head to Australia for a couple months in early April. And then onward to Indonesia until just before DEMA in November.

Fred

A couple more examples - Fred

Not your classic style, but here's a couple shot in the Lady Elliot Island lagoon while waiting for corals to spawn late last year...

Nikon D200 | Sigma 17-70 | behind Superdome | 2x inon z240s |

... what is the best place for setting the focus point, over or under, or do you use multiple focus points?

I focus underwater, on the "key" subject, if there is one, then stop down as far as I can to improve the depth of field. Using manual focussing to set the hyperfocal distance can help if manual focussing is available to you.

Tim

For my over/under landscapes where I consider the topside part of the picture important, I focus at a point midway between the underwater subject focus point and the topside subject. The underwater focus point is not the actual distance because of the virtual image formed by the dome. Its closer than the actual distance. You go in a swimming pool and focus on something about a meter or a bit less away with the lens and dome you want to use for over/under shots. Then get out of the water being careful not to change the focused distance on the lens. Take off the dome port and look at the distance the lens focus is actually focused on. With an 8" dome this might be about 12~14 inches. This is the "near" focus point in the final lens setting calculation. IF you have a distant topside subject you want sharp, infinity on the lens focus scale is the "far" focus point. Set the lens focus about midway between these. If your lens has depth-of-filed markings on it, you can immediately see the aperture needed. If not, go back into the pool and shoot pictures at different apertures to see which aperture is needed to get enough depth-of-field to make both halves of the image acceptably sharp. Then, when you later want to shoot real over/under shot with these same "near/far" distance parameters, simply preset the focus point on the lens to this same mid-point distance on the lens focusing scale and leave the camera set to manual focus so this focus point isn't changed when you meter and shoot. Then just point and shoot at the required aperture.

For the four shots I posted, the focus point was about half a meter. And the depth-of-field scales on the lens told me that it would require an aperture of about f14 or f16 to make both halves sharp. I recently bought Nikon's 14-24mm lens as a possible replacement for my older 14mm fixed focal length lens feeling that the zoom versatility might make it a good back-up for my 17-35mm IF something went wrong with the 17-35 on a trip. The 14-24mm zoom has no depth-of-field indications on it, but at 14mm, the depth of field was about the same as with the fixed focal length lens and the starting focus distance was the same. This was easily confirmed with a dip in a pool in Bali. My modified F5 (film) housing now has a control that allows me to depress the depth-of-field preview button on the F5 and I was able to visually confirm what I wanted to know without having to shoot any film. A digital camera makes checking out this kind of thing even easier.

But I'm still waiting for a Seacam housing for the D700 which is my digital camera of choice to house.

Fred

Some really interesting reads here. Makes me wish I had a DSLR housing more eheh.

The bigger dome the better, the wider the lens the better too. Spitting or sucking the dome works pretty well against watermark. Another typical problem is the lack of enough depth of field for close-underwater-subject/far-top-backgrund so using a higher ISO will allow you to use a smaller aperture.

Man that's just brilliant!

Here's the only one I've taken so far. Kind of simple but I think that's what I like about it. Canon A630 in standard housing. Maldives, V Atoll Bodumohuraa.

For my over/under landscapes where I consider the topside part of the picture important, I focus at a point midway between the underwater subject focus point and the topside subject. The underwater focus point is not the actual distance because of the virtual image formed by the dome. Its closer than the actual distance. You go in a swimming pool and focus on something about a meter or a bit less away with the lens and dome you want to use for over/under shots. Then get out of the water being careful not to change the focused distance on the lens. Take off the dome port and look at the distance the lens focus is actually focused on. With an 8" dome this might be about 12~14 inches. This is the "near" focus point in the final lens setting calculation. IF you have a distant topside subject you want sharp, infinity on the lens focus scale is the "far" focus point. Set the lens focus about midway between these. If your lens has depth-of-filed markings on it, you can immediately see the aperture needed. If not, go back into the pool and shoot pictures at different apertures to see which aperture is needed to get enough depth-of-field to make both halves of the image acceptably sharp. Then, when you later want to shoot real over/under shot with these same "near/far" distance parameters, simply preset the focus point on the lens to this same mid-point distance on the lens focusing scale and leave the camera set to manual focus so this focus point isn't changed when you meter and shoot. Then just point and shoot at the required aperture.

 

For the four shots I posted, the focus point was about half a meter. And the depth-of-field scales on the lens told me that it would require an aperture of about f14 or f16 to make both halves sharp. I recently bought Nikon's 14-24mm lens as a possible replacement for my older 14mm fixed focal length lens feeling that the zoom versatility might make it a good back-up for my 17-35mm IF something went wrong with the 17-35 on a trip. The 14-24mm zoom has no depth-of-field indications on it, but at 14mm, the depth of field was about the same as with the fixed focal length lens and the starting focus distance was the same. This was easily confirmed with a dip in a pool in Bali. My modified F5 (film) housing now has a control that allows me to depress the depth-of-field preview button on the F5 and I was able to visually confirm what I wanted to know without having to shoot any film. A digital camera makes checking out this kind of thing even easier.

 

But I'm still waiting for a Seacam housing for the D700 which is my digital camera of choice to house.

 

Fred

What settings were you using on the sunset shots. It seems these would need a tripod to be so sharp at night

On the sunset shots I had to have my ISO 100 film (Kodak E100SW was what I used way back in 1995) push processed two stops to ISO 400. Final exposures were about 1/30th at f14 or so. It would be so much easier to have the higher ISO's with today's digital cameras, which is why I'm in the process of adding a D700 and housing to my F5's. The much higher ISO capabilities of the camera make all kinds of shots possible.

Fred

this was taken a couple of years ago. this was taken at sipadan during a surface interval. canon 350D 10-22mm fisheye dome port.