Noob! All the gear, no idea.

This weekend was my first time out with a new rig.

Right now I'm just juggling all the settings to get some idea of the relationship with the camera and the image. almost all the photography I will be doing will be deep wrecks in dark and cold water. Virtually no ambient light, so my education will start there.

I'll stick a few pics up from time to time with the hope that some of the good people here will point out my mistakes and give me some pointers!

Brent

Pic 1 - P-Auto, strobes off. (F2.8, ISO200, 1/13)

Pic 2 - Apeture priority, strobes full dump (F22, ISO1600, 1/60)

Pic 3 - P-Auto, strobes off. (F2.8, ISO200, 1/50)

Pic 4 - Apeture priority, strobes full dump (F7.1, ISO200, 1/60)

NEX-5

16mm + Fisheye

4.33" Dome

1x YS-110, 1x YS90

1x5" & 1x8" arms each side. 2/3 extended angled in, 8" back.

Those are nice photos for your first time out. I have what I hope are some constructive comments...

Pic 1 - I like this photo because you can see part of the wreck, and because you start to get a sense of the gear involved with this sort of diving. A strobe (possibly on less than full power) would have been nice to highlight the divers' faces, but then you'd probably have to switch to manual exposure to keep the background illuminated. Although there is a bit of motion blur on the hands, I wouldn't want to increase the shutter speed because you'd darken that background.

Pic 2 looks very nicely exposed. I like that there are no distracting shadows cast by the strobes. If you were to change anything I'd say that maybe the diver could be looking at and pointing his light at something, rather than simply posing, so that way you feel like you're watching him do something.

Pic 3 is another where you really show the gear involved. And it makes you feel sorry for the guy who's about to climb over those rocks as he exits the water! A smaller aperture would have brought everything in to focus.

Pic 4 would have been nicer if the diver had been illuminated. I think it would have been better to get closer to the subject, rather than repositioning the strobes to converge further back.

I look forward to seeing more photos from future dives.

-Gina

I would have liked #1 without the people in the way, looks awesome and eery.

I think you're reaching your limits with the amount of light saturation with your strobes with those distances and that lens. The next step would be to place strobes on your subjects.

Personally I would concentrate on what Gina has pointed out and use the strobe for fill on the near subject and using the small amount of ambient for the big dramatic scenes behind.

As a rule on manual, shutter speed dictates ambient and aperture controls strobe.

Hey Brent,

Good to see you here! You are really facing some challenges with the style of diving you are into.

My humble opinion

I like the beams of light coming from the torches in the first one and this is something you certainly should work more in the second one. I like the eye contact in the second, how deep was this?

The third one, you have done well to get a nice straight line with the minidome on the NEX-5. You'd get nicer exposure if the sky was blue rather than white as this tests the camera's dynamic range. I can also see your strobe on the left!!

The fourth one is cool too, do you have diffusers on your strobes? If not, this may help you to spread the light more in the picture.

Keep up the good work

Alex

Hi guys n' Gals,

I really appreciate the comments. The more critical the better.

The composition of the shots is something I'll work on more long term. I suppose its a good percentage of imagination before skill and technique. I'm going to be realistic and humble in that this will have to come much later. I think I have bigger hills to climb in the mean time.

The strobepower is one of those items that is worrying me. A lack of skill and knowledge to be fair. I have a YS-110 (not alpha) and a YS-90 Auto. Neither seem to reduce my workload very well. The 110 is supposed to have DTTL, but seems to make its own mind up from time to time on when it will fire and the quench point. The camera has no pre-flash, but in order to get the strobes to dump with some sort of reliability I have one set to pre-flash and the other to normal. Go figure. But at least its predictable in that both fire in sync with the shutter this way. I think I'm destined to set power levels manually until I change out the strobes.

So that is whay I set the strobes to full dump and tried to control the picture from apeture control. I figured that as most of the time I will have no ambient light at all, practice with full dump might be useful.

I just couldnt get the exposure right in automatic with strobes running which is why all the supplimentary lighted shots were on apeture priority. They all washed out in P mode.

I should point out that picture 1 and picture 4 were on the same wreck. I didnt use a diffuser, dont know what the rules are or the effect they will have.

I suppose I need to understand better the principle "shutter speed dictates ambient and aperture controls strobe".

What I have right now is that I need the apeture as small as possible to get depth of field and a shutter as fast as possible to make up for subjects that think because their head is still that they ar'nt moving...... I'm just glad that I'm at the point where I should be able to task load that at 100m.

As you can see, I've made a lot of assumptions. Thanks for any and all comments, I'm hanging on your every word.

Brent

The composition of the shots is something I'll work on more long term. I suppose its a good percentage of imagination before skill and technique. I'm going to be realistic and humble in that this will have to come much later. I think I have bigger hills to climb in the mean time.

I just couldnt get the exposure right in automatic with strobes running which is why all the supplimentary lighted shots were on apeture priority. They all washed out in P mode.

I should point out that picture 1 and picture 4 were on the same wreck. I didnt use a diffuser, dont know what the rules are or the effect they will have.

I suppose I need to understand better the principle "shutter speed dictates ambient and aperture controls strobe".

I recently had a pro give me some helpful tips. I was told that shooting in full manual is usually preferable (although shutter priority might be the best in the case of a fast-moving creature), and from what you said about shots being washed out in P mode it sounds like this could be helpful. Without TTL, shooting in P mode with strobes will most likely result in overexposure since the camera is not aware of the extra light put out by the strobes. I was also told a good setting to start with is f8 @ 1/125 sec, as this should give a reasonable depth of field, then check your exposure on your LCD screen. If it needs to be adjusted then change the shutter speed instead of the aperture. In the depths you may want to drop your shutter speed down to about 1/60 to capture more ambient light, but with speeds slower than that you may start to see motion blurs.

What I have right now is that I need the apeture as small as possible to get depth of field and a shutter as fast as possible to make up for subjects that think because their head is still that they ar'nt moving...... I'm just glad that I'm at the point where I should be able to task load that at 100m.

-Gina

Thanks, Ill keep you posted on the next lot of pics.

Firstly, thankyou all for your comments so far. This is not an easy subject to get right. Just because you can jump in the ring, doesnt mean you can box!

OK, next set of images. I'm interested in what I'm doing wrong.

One thing I do know is not right is my right hand strobe that doesnt seem to want to reduce its output from full dump. It also hasnt got a diffuser, one is on its way to fix that. To mitigate the problem, I either dont switch it on, or point it off camera. The LH strobe has the diffuser on all the time, glad I got that tip, makes a big difference.

All shots on apeture priority, auto ISO, spot metering.

1/60sec, ISO1600, F22

Big silt problem here.

1/60sec, ISO1600, F22

1/60sec, ISO1600, F14

1/13sec, ISO1600, F14

1/60sec, ISO1600, F22

1/60sec, ISO1600, F10

1/20sec, ISO1600, F9

1/60sec, ISO1600, F22

The first set seem to have relied on a similar f-stop/shutter speed, so that the background has varied dramatically with depth and illumination whilst the strobe exposure of the foreground has been good (out to about 1.5m, I would guess). The backgrounds are better in the second set, suggesting that you're now varying the shutter speed as well as setting the f-stop for correct strobe exposure.

Try shooting the Wessex, which is good practice for darker wrecks, but out at sea the deeper wrecks in the UK are really dark and a high ISO will be important.

Tim

The first set seem to have relied on a similar f-stop/shutter speed, so that the background has varied dramatically with depth and illumination whilst the strobe exposure of the foreground has been good (out to about 1.5m, I would guess). The backgrounds are better in the second set, suggesting that you're now varying the shutter speed as well as setting the f-stop for correct strobe exposure.

 

Try shooting the Wessex, which is good practice for darker wrecks, but out at sea the deeper wrecks in the UK are really dark and a high ISO will be important.

 

Tim

 

Bang on the money Tim, very astute.

It seems like you know exactly what I'm upto! Any deep/dark tips will be greatly appreciated. The next practise run will probably be a series of night dives to simulate where I need the experience.

Brent

Hi Brent,

I'm in the same boat, during tech dives into the dark waters we have here off Vancouver, it's often exactly like shooting at night. Now, for the practice, I just have to talk myself into taking my wide angle lens on a night dive instead of the macro!

You've gotten some great advice, but I wonder if you could sacrifice some aperature (open it up) to be able to bring down your ISO for a less noisy, "sharper" result? Captain Caveman's advice of shutter speed and aperature is exactly what I've been working on as well - and it seems to work! Given that you're shooting with a wide lens, you could likely get everything in focus with something like f8 or even a little more open (depending on how you can control the strobe output). That might allow you to reduce the ISO for a cleaner-looking photo and then, again, because you're shooting wide, slow the shutter speed even more - maybe down to 1/40th or even 1/30th.

I shot this at about 50m with one strobe (all I had at the time) at 1/50th, f8 and ISO 100.

I think its too dark, mind you it was pitch black down there, but I can see some potential in maybe increasing the ISO a tad, to maybe 200 or even 400, then dropping the shutter speed to 1/30th (I'm shooting with a 15mm fisheye) and openning up to f6.3 or so. I also plan to take my newly acquired second strobe down to the fray next time as well!

Anyway, I'll refrain from composition comments as it seems you're more concerned with the tech side of the image for starters - and at 100m that's probably enough to contend with!

Best of luck with the process!

Lee

I'd agree with the latest comments. The last thing I want to do is to crank up the ISO if I have room for manoeuver in the aperture or shutter speed. Switch to full manual and decide your ISO should be as low as you can. Play with aperture and shutter speed to get a pleasing exposure and ensure the shutter speed is not too slow so as your get blur. That's what I'd do.

Important point is whether or not you have ambient light where you are shooting. If you do, then try to ensure good exposure on this, if not then you are wholly dependent on strobe light so again turn down the ISO as low as possible and turn the strobes up.

My humble 2 cents.

Thanks guys. Next outing, thats exactly what I will do. Manual definitely seems to be the way to go. One step at a time of course.

Never thought I'd enjoy this as much as I am doing.

Brent

I like the most recent set. The lighting looks a lot more even. Keep up the good work!

-Gina