Staring with cp5000

Hi List,

just received my Ike housing for the cp5000 (no 19 mm yet) after flooding my f70 2 weeks ago ;-))

Would like to have some camera settings to start with cp5000 combined with ikes substrobe 200. Especially interested in f-stop, shutter speeds af settings, whitebalance (auto/speedlight etc) to start with. All items to start with will be in our cold low-vis waters, so problably (semi)macro shots. Distance within 50 cm.

any ideas and experiences more than welcome

Edwin van Riel.

I just got back from my first trip with my cp5000. Actually it was my first u/w photo experience. I had excellent luck with the type of shots you will be taking with the following:

19mm lens

Ike DS125 - TTL mode and diffuser

Speedlight power set to -1.0 or -1.3

Zoom about half way in

f8 or highest available f-stop

Auto shutter speed

Auto white balance - no filter

Auto focus

These settings produced shots like this:

look under member photo galleries for CP 5000 photos. All these were done with one or two DS 125s with diffuser and the cameras varible strobe out put set to -2. TTL worked fine for all macro and closeup shots except extreme closeup macro with the 19 mm lens (ie focusing virtually on the front of the dome. For those pics I had to make sure the strobes were 1 1/2 to 2 ft from the subject or they were blown out. Can't stress enough how good the 19 mm lens is on this camera UW. I shot all macro. Usually 125th or 250th sec except those extreme macro shots which I used 500th sec. Max aperature on macro and most closeups. Spot metering for the rest. It seems that WB set to cloudy works best. Your biggest prob with the 200s will be turning them down enough. I doubt you will use settings other than 1/8 for your wide angel shots. Use manual strobe for the c lose n wide or the foreground subject would be overexposed, though not as bad as with a film camera.

I didn't know our ratty products could produce such spectacular results even though common sense dictates I should not say that........

guess who?

Thanks Dave, will start as suggested. So far (on land) still a problem with close-up/macro being overexposed, even on 1/8 power. Seems to work better if flash is aimed "away" from the subject. Will do a test with housing, but without camera to check all o-rings etc. Try first photos uw this weekend. Did the change in shutterspeed make any difference? I thought that because of the very short times the flash is burning, shutterspeed would have no effects on the object lighted by the flash? Will also try to make some kind of diffuser this week that can be taken on and off under water to see if this helps....

Definitly use 500th sec for very close macro and with camera menu dial speedlit power to -2. For very close make sure strobe is 1 1/2 to 2 ft from subject. Yes the 500th sec makes a difference. I think I read somewhere the camera synch to 1/487 sec with a strobe. For anything say 6 inch or more from camera 1/125th or 1/250th sec seems to work fine. Easy to practice until you get good results as you get instant feedback. Note that this is with the strobe set to TTL. With instant feedback you can get good exposures with TTL manual just about as fast using the 1/8th setting.

One word to the wise, if you are at 100ft keep an eye on your c omputer as with instant feedback it is very easy to lose track of bottom time and air supply.

Definitly use 500th sec for very close macro and with camera menu dial speedlit power to -2. For very close make sure strobe is 1 1/2 to 2 ft from subject. Yes the 500th sec makes a difference. I think I read somewhere the camera synch to 1/487 sec with a strobe. For anything say 6 inch or more from camera 1/125th or 1/250th sec seems to work fine. Easy to practice until you get good results as you get instant feedback. Note that this is with the strobe set to TTL. With instant feedback you can get good exposures with TTL manual just about as fast using the 1/8th setting.

One word to the wise, if you are at 100ft keep an eye on your c omputer as with instant feedback it is very easy to lose track of bottom time and air supply.

Did some dry testing yesterday evening. Seems to work better with shutter on 1/2000, even a visible difference with 1/1000. Still seems to overexpose a little. Making a diffuser now which should restict strobe light with about 1 f-stop, though underwater it's probably ok the way it is now. Can't estimate the difference over/underwater at this moment.

Yes, I forgot. I use the diffusers with my DS 125s. Clearly makes a difference. A little underexposed is fine as you should run all images thru PS

Thanks a lot Dave. Serious testing will be starting next sunday :-)) Tonight have to make 1 or 2 diffusers. Yesterday did a test dive (20 meters) with housing but no camera, just to make sure housing was not leaking. So far so good....