I digital good enough?

Hi,

I am new to this forum and new to digital photography. I have been photographing film for many years with a housed SLR. 2 months ago i bought a Fuji S2 camera with no intention of using it UW. As i used it i realised it could have great potential UW. And then i found out Nikon makes a 12-24mm lens! So finally i can get true wide angle on digital. Now i have ordered a Sea Cam housing for the camera. I have a few questions to the forum.

I have published quite a few UW photos in the past and i hope to continue doing so. Is digital pictures UW from an S2 (or similar such as D100 etc) accepted for publication by the leading magazines? Have you guys been successful in selling digital pictures to magazines? Is the resolution high enough for front pages and maybe even spreads? Is DSLR´s so good now that i can calmly sell my film system?

Question nr2. Will my Sea and Sea YS300 and Ikelite 200 strobe work in TTL with the S2?

Question nr 3. I often take pictures very deep (trimix diving) with very limited available light. I also take photos inside caves. When using film i often use ISO 800 film to get some ambient light in the pictures. Will digital offer me advantages for this kind of photography? I have herd some reports that digital has a lot less noise then the grain on film at the same speed. Is this correct?

Question nr 4. The Fuji has 12mpix interpolated. Is the 12mpix mode really giving more detail then 6 mpix? When comparing the same image converted to Tiff from RAW in both 6 and 12mpix i have really hard time seeing any difference at all. If sending an image to a magazine should i send it as a 12mpix interpolated file or a 6mipx none interpolated? The 12mpix introduces some artefacts right?

Thanks in advance,

Ingemar Lundgren

P.S. Gretat website and forum BTW.

Yes it is good enough to get published, magazines are finally beginning to publish didgtal pictures. A number of covers on diving magazines this year have been digital

The ikelite 200 will work in TTL. I don't use a Sea & Sea but i am sure someone else here can advise on that.

Digital underwater offers a very definate advantage in low light conditions underwater and is actually better than standard film, especially when you couple it with the fact that you can change your equivalent film speed setting during the dive.

As far as the 12megapixel images are concerned i would strongly recommend always shooting in the RAW mode anyway, this way you can decide the exact whitebalance after the dive! in terms of picture quality, the 12 megapixel picture is better than 6 megapixel but certainly not twice as good. You will find that the images from the S2 give an image that has similar colour qualities to Fuji Velvia film.

Hi,

 

I am new to this forum and new to digital photography. I have been photographing film for many years with a housed SLR. 2 months ago i bought a Fuji S2 camera with no intention of using it UW. As i used it i realised it could have great potential UW. And then i found out Nikon makes a 12-24mm lens! So finally i can get true wide angle on digital. Now i have ordered a Sea Cam housing for the camera. I have a few questions to the forum.

 

I have published quite a few UW photos in the past and i hope to continue doing so. Is digital pictures UW from an S2 (or similar such as D100 etc) accepted for publication by the leading magazines? Have you guys been successful in selling digital pictures to magazines? Is the resolution high enough for front pages and maybe even spreads? Is DSLR´s so good now that i can calmly sell my film system?

 

Question nr2. Will my Sea and Sea YS300 and Ikelite 200 strobe work in TTL with the S2?

 

Question nr 3. I often take pictures very deep (trimix diving) with very limited available light. I also take photos inside caves. When using film i often use ISO 800 film to get some ambient light in the pictures. Will digital offer me advantages for this kind of photography? I have herd some reports that digital has a lot less noise then the grain on film at the same speed. Is this correct?

 

Question nr 4. The Fuji has 12mpix interpolated. Is the 12mpix mode really giving more detail then 6 mpix? When comparing the same image converted to Tiff from RAW in both 6 and 12mpix i have really hard time seeing any difference at all. If sending an image to a magazine should i send it as a 12mpix interpolated file or a 6mipx none interpolated? The 12mpix introduces some artefacts right?

 

 

 

Thanks in advance,

Ingemar Lundgren

 

P.S. Gretat website and forum BTW.

Short answers:

1. Yes. I sold my housed system once I realised I was no longer using it (and the 12-24mm is an outstanding lens. I have sold spreads and in fact have sold images up to 8' in size.

2. Yes for the Substrobe 200 (I use 2 with mine). Probably with the Sea&Sea although I haven't tried it (don't own one)

3. Yes, in fact it may even be better. Grain vs noise vs pixilization is just a matter of taste.

4. Maybe. Pixels discussions can go on forever and no one ever seems to really agree. I send previews in jpg for review to magazines and then follow up with the 16bit coverted TIFF if they ask for the high-res version. This allows them quick review and means a lot less work as you can do initial reviews via email.

Enjoy - you'll love digitial underwater,

M

Hi and Welcome to Wetpixel!

I shot a whole dive on ISO1600 once by accident. Here is a wall on the East end of Grand Cayman at about 90' (warning large download):

http://www.pbase.com/image/13248449&exif=Y

This is the JPEG as it came straight out of the camera. I did not shoot this one in RAW, although I wish I had.

You can see that there is quite a bit of noise in the dark shadows and some pattern noise in the water (looks like dotted lines).

But click on the link that says "large" and you'll see that when viewed at a normal size, the shot doesn't look so bad...

In any case, let me look around in my gallery, I have some ISO400 WA shots of a wreck as well...

Cheers

James Wiseman

That is pretty impressive. Although the picture is jpg it looks very good to me. Definatley more pleasing then a 1600 film picture would be. I have played around with high ISO on land and have found the noise to be very low but higher in some situations with lots of shadows.

Where do i find that exif info for the pictures? In finepix viewer i only get f stop and shutter speed. No info on ISO.

I use photoshop's file browser to view the full EXIF. If you don't have Photoshop, there other free programs out there, just do a google search on "EXIF viewer"

HTH

James

Where do i find that exif info for the pictures?  In finepix viewer i only get f stop and shutter speed. No info on ISO.

Hi Ingemar,

best choice is Photoshop. As soon you start doing any serious move in digital photography is Adobe Photoshop necessity. I ordinarily use PS more than 10 years and is still impressive. The limit is only your imagination. My primary job is design & prepress (scan photo, prepare&repair photo, etc...) and I canot imagine successfully work without this great bitmap tool. IMHO on version 7.0 or more, just click on and select photo and then you can see all info...

/peter

www.dir-slovenia.com

P.S.: You are one of the famous swedish brothers, right

Thanks for your advice. I am using PS but i am not really good at it. I will have to get better on PS now that i am going digital i guess. Anyone know any good sites on internet to learn more?

BTW i found out how to get the exif info. Thanks...

On learning photoshop - I just signed up for photoshopuser.com, or NAPP. So far I really like it. Apple's website has some cool tutorials as well, and at no charge. I think theyre in the support menus at apple.com.

On another note, in the interest of all of us on this site that are one step from bankruptcy as a result of this profes... I mean obsession - I think we should ban all Seacam users from Wetpixel. I back a coup to overthrow Eric and promote James or Craig to the top seat, and keep my wallet intact.

I just can't bear to see more seacam images after holding one at DEMA. I can't buy one, can't buy one, please stoppppp....

Seriously, though, I can't wait to hear more about your housing. I promised myself I'd wait until a next generation Nikon mount camera to house, and at that point I'll try to make the hop to Seacam, and what a hop it will be!

Kasey

I'd just like to add this

you may be able to get the exif data from photoshop .. but please what a hastle !

get a good image management program like ACDSee. then you can thumbnail browse all your images and just right click to get all exif data and even copy and paste it to a document somwhere .. too easy.

get smart .. you dont have to use photoshop for everything just cause it looks cool to say you use photoshop !

my opinion !

As regards magazines using digital. Check out the latest issue of National Geographic. Cover was shot digital (I'd have to say not one of their best), as was much of the article on Flight. I would say they have some of the highest standards for photography.

As to learning PS. Check out: CreativePro.com Do some searches and you will find a wealth of info. Bruce Fraiser's articles are wonderful.

Jack