Shots with S&S WA lens for PT010

Just got back from Malaysia, where I tested my new S&S WA lens for the PT-010. Some noticeable aberration at the corners, minimal "flare" when shooting into the sun. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it.

My only gripe is that there's no place to secure a lanyard to the hefty chunk of lens. I ended up using a heavy duty tie wrap attached to a cord with a D-ring. Worked fine.

Some shots (mixed macro and wide-angle) are at http://www.pbase.com/benkao/

Comments and especially tips are more than welcome (gulp!).

All shots were taken with Oly 4040Z in PT-010. No external strobe. Some macro shots were lit with a UK HID light cannon, mounted on ultralite arms and a homemade aluminum base plate. No, it wasn't a pretty setup. DS125 is on order!

Happy diving,

Ben

Wow, i've seen at least 5 candidates for POTD !!!!

Did you "enhance" them or are these the originals ? They are beautiful anyway.

Please publish your gallery in the Member Gallery, just to make sure it is noticed.

Sabine

Very nice job. The DS-125 will make your work even better!

How did you set up your camera for the majority of your shots? manual? WB? Spot focus? Continual focus? etc.

Thanks,

Karl

C4040, Ikelite housing and DS-125

Hi Ben.

What iso setting were you using?

I'd looks like maybe auto?

I'd recommend trying to force your camera to the lowest iso, to avoid the noisy blue water, such as in the first turtle shot.

There are filters that help with digital iso noise, but it always sacrifices something.

Once you have a good strobe, you should have no trouble shooting at low iso.

Thanks for all the kind words.

Thanks for the tip, derway. I thought I was shooting at 100ISO, but for some reason I still got a lot of noise in low light conditions (e.g. the hammerhead shots). The strange thing about the blue water turtle shot was that there was plenty of ambient light; it was only at 20 meters or so, and lots of sun. But maybe I might have accidentally switched the ISO to Auto.

Another question I have regards the White Balance function. In all my shots, I was forced to use Auto WB, because whenever I tried to manually white balance on a dive slate, the result would be a STRONG magenta/pink color on the entire screen. Really strange. This is what I'd do:

1) Hit One-Touch WB

2) Aim camera at white dive slate so that the dive slate took up the entire screen, without shadows or direct sunlight reflecting off of it.

3) Confirm

No matter how many times I'd try to white balance, the result was magenta/pink. Was I doing something wrong?

Karl, I used spot focusing, flash EV -0.3 or -0.7. manual aperture and shutter, auto WB, no continuous focusing (sucks up batteries). How do you like the DS125? How far can it throw light for wide angle work? Do you have any tips on how to set it up? I've yet to use an external strobe with my camera, so any help is appreciated.

I've played with contrast and brightness on Photoshop on almost all of the shots, as well as other filters on some of them (unsharp mask). First time using Photoshop.

Sorry that was me. I don't know why it decides I am logged out, every once in awhile, and not all the time...