Wide angle @ night

I have never shot any wide angle at night and will be hoping to do quite a bit in a few weeks time when at Tiger Beach. I will be using either a Nocturnal 800 xsi as my focus light. I was intending to use a N800 directly above the housing. Will this be detrimentle with regards to backscatter. Or would I be better off just using the YS250's aiming lights and forget the N800's. Any advice from anyone that has shot at night at TB would be appreciated.

Stew

Manual focus can really help. You won't get torch backscatter at night - as you are likely to be shooting at a very fast shutter speed - so you won't see the torch light.

Alex

Cheers Alex

Stew

Main issue I find with using focus lights at Night is they attract whatever tiny invertebrates there are nearby to right where you don't want them to be.

Many a night dive I've spent cursing the existence of Mysid Shrimps! I have found using the Sola600 red LED's has reduced but not eliminated this.

Often the red light is not strong enough to get accurate/sharp focus. I have the original version though before they upgraded to the Sola600 Photo units.

Cheers,

Jim.

BTW- does anyone know if Light and Motion can/will upgrade the Sola600 to the Sola600 Photo? I really like the light but was less than impressed when they

announced the red LED power upgrade after I had bought one of the original units thinking it was a finished product.

Main issue I find with using focus lights at Night is they attract whatever tiny invertebrates there are nearby to right where you don't want them to be.

Many a night dive I've spent cursing the existence of Mysid Shrimps! I have found using the Sola600 red LED's has reduced but not eliminated this.

Often the red light is not strong enough to get accurate/sharp focus. I have the original version though before they upgraded to the Sola600 Photo units.

 

Cheers,

Jim.

 

BTW- does anyone know if Light and Motion can/will upgrade the Sola600 to the Sola600 Photo? I really like the light but was less than impressed when they

announced the red LED power upgrade after I had bought one of the original units thinking it was a finished product.

I will see the Sola rep today at the Texas Dive Show, thier booth is just a few down from ours. I will try to ask him and report back.

interesting thing about night light this morning...squid fisherman use their lights to attract squid, but to get them right at the surface before they throw the net out they shine the red light and they come up...has anyone used red lights to attract squid on night dives? good luck with your trip Stew, send my regards to them all

I will see the Sola rep today at the Texas Dive Show, their booth is just a few down from ours. I will try to ask him and report back.

Jim,

I spoke to the Sola rep at the dive show today. He says they can and would be happy to upgrade the older model 600 but there will be a charge for it. He did not give a specific price but he led me to believe that it would be reasonable considering it would involve replacing pretty much the main components of the light.

Give them a shout and see what happens.

-Shawn

Thanks Shawn I really appreciate your inquiry! I'll get onto them and find out if it is an affordable option for me, I also have to consider freight in the equation.

Cheers,

Jim.

I have never shot any wide angle at night and will be hoping to do quite a bit in a few weeks time when at Tiger Beach. I will be using either a Nocturnal 800 xsi as my focus light. I was intending to use a N800 directly above the housing. Will this be detrimentle with regards to backscatter. Or would I be better off just using the YS250's aiming lights and forget the N800's. Any advice from anyone that has shot at night at TB would be appreciated.

 

Stew

Shooting wide angle at night is somewhat easier than during the daytime... but, because there's no ambient light, it's often better to judge your distance and then divide that in FEET into the Strobe Power or Guide Number. So, for instance you are shooting a coral outcrop at 5 feet in the distance and your strobe power is rated at 30 underwater, you'd divide 5 into 30 = 6, so you would use F-stop of 6 at that distance... That's using an ISO of 100.

This is the way we used to do it in the old days shooting film... in fact I did it this way even in the day time. I'm guessing you're using TTL, but if you do in fact shoot on Manual Mode, there's more flexibility with this... you can widen your strobes, get a better light coverage across the width of the shot and lessen the amount of dark edges where the strobes don't hit - of course it would be better to widen the beam using a diffuser and it will also soften the light and produce a less harsh exposure. The focus light you have won't produce an equivalent light source as daylight so your camera would either be wanting for a very low shutter speed, or of course TTL or Auto should correct that... BUT, I'd go with fully Manual - set the camera to 100 ISO, set the shutter to 1/60th and set the F-stop to F6 or F8. Using these rules (as we did in the old days) this should work perfectly because you are only using the strobe as a light source. If you are diffusing the strobes, drop your F-stop by 1 to say F5.6 or F4... and if the Guide Number of your strobes is higher than 30, then use that GN of 36 or 40 and divide the distance in feet to give you the most suitable F-stop.

I would also use a smaller narrow beam torch light just so you know where you're pointing your camera. Hope this helps but I'm sure all this old terminology might be a bit over your head... as such they don't teach GN's much any more... we all just reply on TTL and Automation and RAW to get it right first time.... Personally though I love Manual Exposure, adjusting the angle of strobes, bracketing exposures... that's the only way we got interesting results in the 90's in the days of 36 exposures and Nikonos Cameras!

All the best, Dave Bryant, Melbourne Australia.

Now I shoot an Olympus 5050...

Originally Nikonos 2 and 3, Manual Strobes, 15mm Wide Lens and Macro extension tubes.

Shooting wide angle at night is somewhat easier than during the daytime... but, because there's no ambient light, it's often better to judge your distance and then divide that in FEET into the Strobe Power or Guide Number. So, for instance you are shooting a coral outcrop at 5 feet in the distance and your strobe power is rated at 30 underwater, you'd divide 5 into 30 = 6, so you would use F-stop of 6 at that distance... That's using an ISO of 100.

This is the way we used to do it in the old days shooting film... in fact I did it this way even in the day time. I'm guessing you're using TTL, but if you do in fact shoot on Manual Mode, there's more flexibility with this... you can widen your strobes, get a better light coverage across the width of the shot and lessen the amount of dark edges where the strobes don't hit - of course it would be better to widen the beam using a diffuser and it will also soften the light and produce a less harsh exposure. The focus light you have won't produce an equivalent light source as daylight so your camera would either be wanting for a very low shutter speed, or of course TTL or Auto should correct that... BUT, I'd go with fully Manual - set the camera to 100 ISO, set the shutter to 1/60th and set the F-stop to F6 or F8. Using these rules (as we did in the old days) this should work perfectly because you are only using the strobe as a light source. If you are diffusing the strobes, drop your F-stop by 1 to say F5.6 or F4... and if the Guide Number of your strobes is higher than 30, then use that GN of 36 or 40 and divide the distance in feet to give you the most suitable F-stop.

I would also use a smaller narrow beam torch light just so you know where you're pointing your camera. Hope this helps but I'm sure all this old terminology might be a bit over your head... as such they don't teach GN's much any more... we all just reply on TTL and Automation and RAW to get it right first time.... Personally though I love Manual Exposure, adjusting the angle of strobes, bracketing exposures... that's the only way we got interesting results in the 90's in the days of 36 exposures and Nikonos Cameras!

All the best, Dave Bryant, Melbourne Australia.

Now I shoot an Olympus 5050...

Originally Nikonos 2 and 3, Manual Strobes, 15mm Wide Lens and Macro extension tubes.

Cheers Dave. I will be shooting full manual, never shot with TTL. I will be shooting sharks at night in the Bahamas. The info that you have given does make sense and will be very useful. Thanks a lot.

Stew

I will be shooting sharks at night in the Bahamas.

Stew

That sounds both cool and more than a little dangerous! Is the plan for the boat to have a big light, or just a small marker? My guess (I've just picked up a new Sola600, but my camera is SNAFU'd, so I can't verify this from experience) is that even at full power the sharks won't appear in the area lit by the focus light until the last second or so. I would think that pre-setting everything and shooting "from the hip" is most likely to work. It works on rays (after a fashion), which seem to move much faster at night (!):

I've tried to shoot lemon sharks on Tiger Beach as dusk segues into night, and I found it almost impossible. Good luck!

Tim