Red and blue spot with wide angled lense

I have a Sony DSC-P5 with the MPK and an Epoque strobe. I got the Sea and Sea lense adapter and the 16mm wide angled lense. When i take photo's with the lense and no zoom, i get a red spot in the lower left and a blue spot in the upper right corner. When i zoom in, the spots go...

Any ideas?

Steve

I had similar problem with my setup but with white spots not so colorful like yours.

In my setup the problem was that light from the internal flash arrived to the lens port and in the WA lens it was seen.

Try to work without the external flash, only with the internal and also without flash at all, so you'll can determine the source of the problematic light.

I had a similar problem with my Olympus C3040 in an Ikelite housing.

The problem was caused by light from the internal flash leaking down the camera barrel into the back of the WAL.

I fixed the problem by inserting a cardboard tube into the inside of the housing port to block the light. A friend of mine with a Nikon 5000 in an Ikelite housing used a cut off coffee cup.

Yes, that is called Lens Flare and is caused by stray strobe light (in your case) entering your wide angle lens.

To eliminate: position your external strobes behind the plane of the camera. Ensure that strobe light isn't entering the side of the housing or port.

Cheers

James

As I wrote before in this thread I had problem that light from the internal flash arrived to the lens port and barrel into the back of the WAL.

Before the last dives I solved this problem by putting a black strip around the lens port in the DC300 housing (where there is some strip already, but not wide enough).

I checked it on land and last weekend in the water and it seems to work fine.

Ok, so it is either the external strobe or internal strobe causing this effect.

As JamesW suggested i'll test with the positioning of the strobe - which i think i tried and then if that does not work, try turning the strobe off to see if the effect is caused by the internal flash. Looks like i have my bathtime sorted tonight!

If it is the internal strobe - which my hunch says it is, how do i block it?

Peter - are you suggesting interting a card tube into the area where the lense is?

Is this to stop the light coming directly across the flash through the housing or entering the lense port (?) via the air space between the housing and the camera?

Thanks,

Steve

Ok, so last night i covered up the internal flash, and the spots went - looks like i need to carry around a bit of black tape to cover all but a small amount of the flash.

Thanks,

Steve

It's not a good idea to cover the flash with black tape as it builds up quite a bit of heat when it fires.

Better to deflect the flash someplace else (other than into the port, heh), like up in the air.

Cheers

James

Re "Peter - are you suggesting interting a card tube into the area where the lense is?

Is this to stop the light coming directly across the flash through the housing or entering the lense port (?) via the air space between the housing and the camera?"

Response = Yes.

Inon has a film that's tape over the flash to filter out the visible light and lets out just the infared. The strobes will trigger but no visible light gets out. It comes with the fiber connector kit. I don't think they sell that seperately.

You can do the same by masking the flash with a piece of unexposed but develop slide film. Find a friend who still shoots slides, snip a piece off the end of a developed roll, and taped that to the flash with the emulsion side out. To be save add a lay of scotch tape on the flash side to prevent getting the emulsion on your flash.

Thanks for the great ideas.

I am going to try the tube in the lense barrel and if unsuccessful, i'll try the film trick - i think with some of my old piccies have some end of reel film i could use. Or there must be somewhere i can buy some transparent gell that will only let IR through.

Cheers,

Steve

Steve, re the tube, one precaution.

Make sure that the tube is not too long to the point that it prevents the housing back from closing all the way.

Sounds impossible, but I can imagine a heavy duty cardboard tube cut too long that could do just this.

So, when the door is latched closed look in the front of the housing and make sure there is a little clearance between the tube and the front of the port.

Thanks for the advice. There are not many more oppertunities for me to use the camers until next year now - back to the winter training schedule...

Steve