moving from auto to manual

right folks here we go

i have now completed around 60 odd dives with camera,all in auto mode.

the last 25 dives i did in janurary of this year in the philippines were my first dives with strobes and inon fisheye lens,also a magic filter,of which i had most success with for reasons that will become clear.

i made a very big and stupid mistake with my strobes(sea & sea ys-25 auto x2)i got these off ebay as used(although they were clearly new)anyway i downloaded the wrong manual,not realising that the numbers have to match the f stop of the camera,well you can imagine the results and my frustration and subsequent embarrassment (go on have a good laugh at my expense,i dont mind )

so now i have realised my mistake,i know that i have to go manual,i use a fuji f11 that does not have full manual,only aperture priority or shutter priority,but the problem is in aperture priority the camera tends to select very slow shutter speeds

so,would i be better off selecting say 1/125 shutter speed and then matching the strobes to the aperture displayed by the camera?(i should add that i know it aint the best of equipment,but i have to work with what i have for financial reasons)

maybe someone has experience with these strobes that can point me in the right direction.

also the white balance on my f11 does not have a cloudy setting,but it does have a setting for shade,is this the same?

sorry for my poor grammar.

all advice would be great.

kind regards

jason

Best to use Aperture priority and try to limit the shutter speed to faster settings. You should be able to do this by NOT selecting slow sync for your camera flash (This should limit the shutter speed to faster than something like 1/30th) and using -1.0 to -2.0 ev in the exposure compensation (to underexpose the areas lit by ambient light).

Then you set the flash to give the correct exposure for the aperture on the camera. But I don't know what level of control you have on a YS25.

For white balance I'd leave it on flash or auto. Cloudy and shade are quite different with shade being much bluer light.

hi panda

thanks for the info

have just set my rig up at home and tried your advice,and the exposure is about right.

the only thing that doesnt make sense to me is that as soon as i point the camera at the sunlit window(yes we do get sunshine now and again in the uk)the camera is showing the shutter speed going right up to 1/1000 yet the strobes are still syncing(i use fibre optics)and i was under the impression that strobes will not sync with shutter speeds that quick.

unless,like apertures shutter speeds are different on compacts,i dont know.

any thoughts anybody?

regards

jason

Correct. Strobes can sync at 1/1000th with compacts. The shutter works differently to an SLR.

cheers panda

its all starting to fall into place now.

bring on the red sea liveaboard in july

kind regards