Wide-angle Macro - again....

The tokina 10-17mm seems to be a quite common lense for uw use, would it be possible to use this lense for wide angle macro like

the above images or would the sigma 17-70mm be better for this purpose?

 

did this with the 10-17 at 10, hard but possible :

 

 

 

and this with the sigma 15 on a full frame, more or less the same :

 

If you want to do wide-angle macro, are smaller dome ports better than the larger ones (6 vs 8 inch)?

Depends on whether you are using a fisheye or a rectilinear lens. Fisheye lenses (eg Tokina 10-17) are very good with small domes, rectilinear lenses on the other hand work much better with bigger domes.

 

And is your field of view dependent upon the dome or the lens?

Field of view of a lens behind a dome port doesn't change.

 

The tokina 10-17mm seems to be a quite common lense for uw use, would it be possible to use this lense for wide angle macro like

the above images

Yes, as long as your subject doesn't object to you getting very close.

Glad you brought that up Alex, I've been watching Eric's images come in and was fascinated by the first one he posted http://www.flickr.com/photos/echeng/4140639486/

He's using a 50D I think.

 

Steve

I went out for my first dive on Ningaloo after getting back from Lembeh and had another go with my 10-17 on the 1.4X teleconverter behind by 8" dome. I think I'm getting the hang of this at last and finally got some results I'm happy with. I'm looking forward to using this technique with a smaller dome. Apart from making hard to position the strobes correctly the bottom of the 8" dome projects well below the bottom of the housing making it very hard to get a good angle on critters crawling along the bottom. This won't be a problem with the new dome. Here's a couple of shots from the dive:

 

 

I had to clean this one up quite a bit, we got sprinkled with parrotfish dust just as I took the shot.

 

Alex,

 

I gave the WA macro thing a go, with my compact ixus, with WA Epoque lens and sinlge Epoque 230 strobe. Was fairly happy with the results. This nudi was basically touching my lens which was rested on the sand. The strobe was almost directly above the nudi pointing down. I think i have the light fairly well balanced for a compact with no manual settings. (1/60th F8.0 ISO 80)

 

 

However in this unadjusted image there seems to be, not backscatter, but it looks like i have focused so close that scratches and dust spots on the lens are visible. Is this strobe positioning?

 

p.s first time i have uploaded a photo so hope it works

 

As I wrote in the original articles I wrote on this technique back in 2006, the inspiration actually came from the type of shots I was seeing coming from compact cameras. The motivation was to try and copy them with an SLR.

 

The specs in your picture are particles in the water. They can occur in the technique because you are manoeuvring the camera (and yourself) very close to the seabed to take the picture. It is easy to stir a few things up.

 

Sometimes they can be stretched into scratch shapes from a little bit of directional camera shake during the photo. Nothing too bad though in your image - certainly not distracting. You could clean them, or leave them in for a less sterile look.

 

Alex

Alex,

 

Cheers for the feedback, have looked closely now and agree this is probably sediment. it was black sand/silt and it probably wasnt the most cautious of approaches! Had the picture in my head and ideas what i wanted to acheive and prob rushed into it.

 

Anyway, sorry about the massive picture, am trying to sort out my own website to host pictures, but in the meantime how would i resize images for upload, or is this done in photoshop?

 

Olly