Shiprock super macro

Ok everyone, i finally took my super macro lens for a dive at a site called shiprock, here in sydney.

This was my first time using my super macro lens. I wasn't very happy with the results.

You can clearly see the edges of the lens in some shots & the middle is fine but it looks quite distorted around the edges. Maybe i have to zoom in a little?

The focal distance is very small & that makes it hard to get good shots as you need to be no more than about 15cm's to the object to have it in focus, so your choice of subject is VERY limited.

I do have a couple of diopters that screw to the front of the video camera so i may switch to the standard lens & use a diopter & see how that works also.

Some feedback would be great.

Oh, i'm still working on that steady hand! Shooting super macro makes it look even worse.

Anyways, here it is.

Cheers Pete.

[vimeohd]28260457[/vimeohd]

Ok everyone, i finally took my super macro lens for a dive at a site called shiprock, here in sydney.

This was my first time using my super macro lens. I wasn't very happy with the results.

You can clearly see the edges of the lens in some shots & the middle is fine but it looks quite distorted around the edges. Maybe i have to zoom in a little?

The focal distance is very small & that makes it hard to get good shots as you need to be no more than about 15cm's to the object to have it in focus, so your choice of subject is VERY limited.

I do have a couple of diopters that screw to the front of the video camera so i may switch to the standard lens & use a diopter & see how that works also.

Some feedback would be great.

Oh, i'm still working on that steady hand! Shooting super macro makes it look even worse.

Anyways, here it is.

Cheers Pete.

Not bad at all. Like the crab face shot.

IMO, for macro video, you really need a wet macro lens or a flip macro inside the housing. Because, for most audiences, you need to give them a bit of context for macro material. So the ability to shoot an MS and then a CU is important. For some of the nudis, you could have zoomed in for a super CU shot.

You could work for a lifetime on a steady-hand and it would not help much with those kind of macro footage. The housing is moving with the water. As the water movements are somewhat random, you can not anticipate them. Water movement exerts a lot greater pressure than air. Imaging standing in a really strong blustery wind and trying to hold a camera rock steady. Ain't going to happen.

Not much you can do about water-current-wobbles during macro, except: (a) only dive in really still water, (b) use some kind of super-heavy underwater tripod, © stabilise by using your spare hand as a prop or (d) use the stabilisation feature in your video editor. Option (a) rules out most dive sites, (b) I have never found a tripod that is portable, heavy and flexible enough to cope with UW situations and © only works if there is something to put your hand on that won't suffer, so many times have to rely on (d). Fortunately with sharp, high-contrast, well-lit macro footage, a good NLE will stabilise the footage quite well (and, to do its stabilisation work, zoom in about 2 to 5%, removing your lens edge from the corner).

Not sure if the distortion is lens distortion or just because the edges are at a further distance. You need to test on a flat surface (swimming pool wall) to see if it is distortion or not. There'll always be some distortion but usually not intrusive because the focus is on the subject.

Regards

Peter

Ah... night dives at Shiprock. I'm going to miss them over the next 4 months. I'm kicking myself I didn't make the effort for one last night dive on Friday.

I love the feeding sea cucumber. That sort of footage really makes the macro video useful. The boxfish and moray are good, too. It doesn't do much for the frogfish as it wasn't moving. The crab is great. The cuttlefish would have been better if you'd captured some colour changes.. While the nudibranchs are nice, I don't see much value in video for these and still shots would be better.

To get non distorted edges when shooting macro with diopters you need an achromatic diopter which will give you excellent edge to edge resolution. They are more expensive but work great.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Pete, that is some very useful info there. I did try to steady myself & actually tried to rest the housing on my arm as one of several methods i tried.

Unfortunately the current was running quite hard for most of the dive so movement was unavoidable.

I think the biggest drawback from the lens was how limited i was in shooting, as i said anything further than say 15cm's just was to far away & how many fish let you get that close?

Also i found trying to get the focus in the sweet spot was quite difficult also, but plenty of practice should help that along.

I am definately keen to test the lens abit more as i was hoping to get some really nice detailed shots of nudis etc.

I wasn't sure wether i could zoom in or not with the lens as it was already distorted around the edges & didnt want to make that any worse. I will definately play around with that some more though.

ATJ, man did you miss a good dive. There was so much out on saturday night but unfortunately for me there was so much that i couldn't shoot. The crab was actually swimming about 30cm's under the surface while i was floating on the surface waiting to go down. I had the video lights on so there was a fair bit of actions because of the lights & the crab was actually doing circles around me but of course i couldn't get close enough to shoot video of it!

I do agree with your comments. I do like the eel & the cucumber feeding footage. I shot heaps of that but with so much camera shake that was the best by far. The cuttlefish was actually asleep so no colour changing unfortunately & the nudis, i am trying to get a super close up footage of some nudis to show the detail of them.

All trial & error of course.

Jonny, i will eventually have a play with my standard lens & diopter setup just for curiosity sake & then i will decide if i want to go down that path. One of these days we will get together to do that course!

Would you believe that i finally got my lights back from light & motion for the warranty repair & being far to busy at work they sat here for weeks until i finally went for a dive on saturday night only to discover they are still doing the same thing!

So looks like they are going back again.

Once i get them fixed (again) then i will organise a course date with you.

Keep up the feedback though people.

Cheers Pete.

By the way, i'm off to melbourne this weekend for a couple of dives so i should have some more videos next week.

Would you believe that i finally got my lights back from light & motion for the warranty repair & being far to busy at work they sat here for weeks until i finally went for a dive on saturday night only to discover they are still doing the same thing!

Is it the Sunray 2000's giving you problems? Flickering up and down power levels?

Hi Pete,

I use the dry mount super macro lens for all my Lembeh work. It is a fantastic lens, but like all new equipment, just needs a bit of getting used too.

First of all, if you use Sunrays, like I do, you can get a tripod adaptor and attach a lightweight and extremely flexible GorillaPod. I have a heavy duty one (it does not weigh very much), and keep it on the entire time. You can fold the legs around the housing when on the boat, so it takes up very little space. Using the tripod is a must with the macro lens. The GorillaPod is great, as you can easily use two or three arm to stabilse the shot and you can very easily adjust the arms so you can keep the camera level no matter what the bottom slope is like. The downside is that you cannot raise the camera that far off the sea floor, though by sticking the arms in front of the housing, you can hold is against vertical surfaces.

You can, and I do, zoom all the way through the lens, but the depth of field obviously reduced dramatically, hence the need for a tripod. I usually leave the camera on auto-focus and if small adjustments are needed, I move the entire camera back and forth, until the focus locks in. You will find that you have a limited range in front of the camera, as you usually have to be about 30cm to 40cm away from the subject, or at least that is how it works with my XR500.

The dry mount super macro lens, IMO, is much better than a wet mount system, or even the internal flip diopter, but you are stuck shooting macro on that dive. For me this isn't a problem.

My advise is just to keep using it. Get used to it before trying something else. Get a GorillaPod, they work very well and I have no problems at all with it's strength on a L&M housing.

Welcome to the macro world..it's small but beautiful...

Kaj

Pete, yes my sunray 2000x lights are giving me a headache! Since day one they have been flickering when on low power, only on low power though! They work fine on medium & high.

The best way to describe it is as if the lights are going from low to high in a second & back to low again. Sometimes they go off constantly over a 30 second period & sometimes they don't do it for a few minutes.

You can see it in this clip...

[vimeohd]28295183[/vimeohd]

It makes macro work almost impossible unless you get a 10 second gap inbetween flashes that you can shoot some footage. It is very hit & miss.

They were returned to L&M for a warranty repair but as you can see they are still doing there disco thing!

Have you experienced this also Pete?

I should have tested them before i took them diving i suppose....

Kaj, thanks for your advice. I do have the tripod adaptor for the lights & the funny thing is that i went to a photography show here in sydney, not that long ago, & i saw the gorilla grips there & thought they would make a very handy tripod. Looks like i will be grabbing myself one of those.

I really had high expectations from the lens & i was very dissatisfied after my first dive with it on saturday night so i decided to do another one sunday morning with it to see if i could get it any better.

I think the tripod will make a HUGE difference to my shooting as some of the clips i thought i was absolutely motionless but when i reviewed the footage on my computer it was wobbly to say the least. I would probably get away with it with a standard lens but shooting stuff so small gives you less room for movement as it becomes sooo much more noticable.

I will definately grab a tripod & have a fiddle with zooming & focus as i don't think i have really seen anywhere near the potential of this lens.

I am happy to dedicate a dive to this lens as i would only be shooting certain things anyway from the start so that isn't really an issue for me.

I just want some fantastic footage!!!!!arghhhh.

Pete, yes my sunray 2000x lights are giving me a headache! Since day one they have been flickering when on low power, only on low power though! They work fine on medium & high.

The best way to describe it is as if the lights are going from low to high in a second & back to low again. Sometimes they go off constantly over a 30 second period & sometimes they don't do it for a few minutes.

You can see it in this clip...

 

It makes macro work almost impossible unless you get a 10 second gap inbetween flashes that you can shoot some footage. It is very hit & miss.

They were returned to L&M for a warranty repair but as you can see they are still doing there disco thing!

Have you experienced this also Pete?

I should have tested them before i took them diving i suppose....

Yep. Recognise the flicker well. I have footage of my pair of Sunray 2000x in a sink doing exactly what yours are doing. I have some ruined footage on night dives in Lembeh and Raja Ampat. Had to edit around the flickers. Although I think mine flickered down from the full setting, rather then up from the low setting. Worked OK on the low setting. Same weird random timing thing too, sometimes up to 15 minutes without a flicker. Sometimes every few seconds.

We tried changing batteries, changing light-heads, adjusting the wet-connection. L&M swapped them for a new set twice. All to no avail.

Wish I had some good advice for you. I gave up and switched to the Sola 1200s.

You might try asking L&M for a good "trade-up" price for a pair of Sola 1200s. The Sola 1200s are great. You'll need 3 of them if you want to do very wide-angle video as they cover 60 degrees each.

Regards

Peter

I do have the tripod adaptor for the lights & the funny thing is that i went to a photography show here in sydney, not that long ago, & i saw the gorilla grips there & thought they would make a very handy tripod. Looks like i will be grabbing myself one of those.

I really had high expectations from the lens & i was very dissatisfied after my first dive with it on saturday night so i decided to do another one sunday morning with it to see if i could get it any better.

I think the tripod will make a HUGE difference to my shooting as some of the clips i thought i was absolutely motionless but when i reviewed the footage on my computer it was wobbly to say the least. I would probably get away with it with a standard lens but shooting stuff so small gives you less room for movement as it becomes sooo much more noticable.

Try the gorilla-pod and see if it works for you.

I carried one on about 20 dives but stopped taking it when I realised that it had only been used a couple of times and both situations could have been solved without it.

The problem I found was: where to put the 3 legs? If you put them on sand, they sink. You can't squash them down onto to fragile marine life. Most seabeds are too uneven and random to provide a useful base for 3 legs. Most macro critters are in a hole or half-way up a wall or in a fan coral - nowhere near where a tripod can be setup. If the current is buffeting the camera, you'll still get camera shake as the camera / housing / tripod is only slightly negative so it is prone to be jiggled by currents.

I did use the gorilla-pod once for a shot of garden eels where I had to swim away 5 meters before they'd come up. But a small pile of rocks would have achieved the same result.

But, don't let me put you off. Obviously some people have figured out a way to make them work.

Regards

Peter

G'day pete, i was actually contemplating the new 4000lumen lights. However the only drawback i see is that you can't change batteries as they are built into the light. That means i would need to buy several of them if i wanted to do several dives in a day. Very cost prohibitive.

Using these lights i can change batteries after a dive & i am ready to go for a second or third etc.

Hopefully they can find a fix for these as i really want to keep them.....

Cheers Pete.

I will try one of the gorilla pods & see how that goes. Have to sort out the lights though....

G'day pete, i was actually contemplating the new 4000lumen lights. However the only drawback i see is that you can't change batteries as they are built into the light. That means i would need to buy several of them if i wanted to do several dives in a day. Very cost prohibitive.

Using these lights i can change batteries after a dive & i am ready to go for a second or third etc.

Hopefully they can find a fix for these as i really want to keep them.....

Cheers Pete.

I've never had a problem with the internal battery of the Sola. I can easily get two dives out of one charge. Three dives if I turn them off when not in actual use.

Does not take long to push them back up to full. Any reasonable surface interval is enough.

Diving around Asia, all the live-aboard dive boats have power outlets for charging lights. The better boats have overhead power outlets over the wet camera table so you can just wipe your hands, wipe the connectors on the light, plug them all in and charge away. Or, if the power is inside, you can just pop off the light arms and take them in to the charging station.

On smaller boats with no power, they usually run back into shore after 2 dives, so you have start charging as soon as you are back on land.

After several months and hundreds of dives, i have not yet had a Sola 1200 run out of power during a dive.

AND NO FLOOD RISK!

Regards

Peter

Iv'e got to say that a couple of those 1200's would be great for my macro lens as the viewing angle is quite small.

Maybe 2 of the 1200s & 2 of the 4000s for wide angle might be the go....

I'll wait & see what L&M are going to do before i make that decision.