Action shots and DOF?

Had an idea I wanted to run by you guys. This relates primarily to my upcoming shark dives and wide angle type shots.

With the huge DOF of the G2 and similar cameras wouldn't it be possible to preset your focus at say 2' or so and leave it there in manual focus mode. Than choose aperture priority mode at say f4 and pretty much fire away? It would seem to me that the extra dof (advantage in this case) would allow you to not be as concerned about the distance/focus as long as the main subject wasn't closer than your pre focus point.

And if you did get outside of the dof it really wouldn't matter cause the strobe would not carry light that far anyway.

In theory, if you did this, wouldn't the shutter lag be cut WAYYYYYYY down to a manageable level?

appreciate your thoughts

not wanting to appear in anyway sexist, I was referring to guys and gals of course

[Edited on 6-11-2002 by bobjarman]

Good idea Bob!

Sounds like my Nikonos V

I'll have to try this w/ the Coolpix 5000 and see what the effect is on shutter lag. What if you shoot in all manual - set f-stop, shutter, and focus, then point and shoot.

This is where that extra DOF that we get w/ consumer level digicams might REALLY come in handy.

Cheers

James

I will definately try that a bit James, especially if I am not happy with the TTL results. Thats the one bad thing about the G2, well both good and bad, the G2 on manual does not utilize TTL it simply fires full flash. I hate shooting manual flash, even though I do it a lot

Will post in a month!

[Edited on 6-11-2002 by bobjarman]

Now I'm going to have to go home and do a test. You should too! Go out in the backyard and set the focus manually and see what kind of DOF you get on land -- shouldn't be too hard to set up a nice scene with subjects staged at different distances from the camera . . .

LMAO I would love to Mike, but my wife has my G2 out of the country til 5 days b4 I leave. :mad:

Let me know how yours work out. I will test when she gets back, great idea!

I hope and pray she doesnt lose it b4 my trip

If you have a fence, put a couple of flowerpots on the fence - then shoot it on a diagonal going away from you.

Cheers

James

The F4 you mention would limit your depth of field. You might try putting the camera on shutter priority to get the max aperature you can get with the light avalible. I would use 125th sec for slower subjects and 250th sec for fast ones. Still the idea is interesting and I will have to test is myself as I'm going to Cocos in early August. I have been told to bring high speed film as you may not get a lot of light their. Has anyone tried the 5000 UW at higher ISOs?

Well Dave, I will be returning from the cocos in late July, so expect a page of images shortly thereafter. And I will give you my opinions as soon as I return.

I've dove at the Catalina Islands in NW Costa Rica.

The visibility was about 10 feet. The available light was probably less than f2.8 at ISO100.

Perhaps someone who has been to Cocos can chime in. It is further offshore so maybe better...or maybe worse. FWIW, the water was cloudy because it was SATURATED with plankton and fish fry.

Cheers

James

I visited Cocos in mid-June. The viz was around 15m on most dives. There was some particulate matter in the water and thermoclines play havoc with photography.

We got maybe 2 dives in bright sunlight and the rest of the 7 days diving was overcast leading to dark conditions. You will find that many of the hammerhead dives such as Alycone mean you will sit at 30m and wait for them to come to you. This means that it can be pretty dark.

Probably the easiest place to get shallow pictures of Hammers (well the week I was there) was Manuelita and easiest place to photograph sharks was Silverado (trouble is if you are diving with a group they can kill viz on this sandy bottom - try to persuade a divemaster to let you in there on your own - its only 8m deep or thereabouts).

Mark

Well my wife finally got back with my G2 so I got a chance to test this last night.

I set up a shot with soup cans set at one foot intervals from 2-8 feet away from the camera.

I set the focus on the can 3' away. At ISO 100 I shot in AV mode one image at each aperture with the flash set for forced on. Results were actually clear and sharp, (well fairly, I was handholding)

It appears, at least witht he G2, that DOF is large enough that for actions shots from 3-8-10 feet you should be able to get a decent shot with prefocus set.

Amazing thing to me was that regardless of the aperture I chose, I did not see much degredation of the DOF, even at f2. I did see some in the background, but wow, to get a sharp focus at f2 from 3-9 feet seems pretty nice.

Problem is, I dont think it really was all that spectacular a time saver. The shutter lag seems to result more from the preflash sequnce than the focus.

I imagine that underwater, where the contrast available is less than a bright red/white soup can label it will help a bit, plus with moving subjects it will be nice to have a range of acceptable distance.

Anyway, I leave in 2 weeks with lots of time a laptop and two 1gb microdrives to figure it out while I am there.

cheers

I tried as an experiment with my 5000 to shoot a beach volleyball tournament with the camera set at a fixed focus of 30 ft. I got the ball and the players in just about every shot. A number of them close or in contact with the player. Before the anticipated action point of each play I would press the shutter half way to set the white point balance (not sure if this is necessary and you could preset the WB). This technique worked well enough that I think I could get dolphins and maybe sealions. Note that this is no different than the way I shoot action shots with a Nikonos, not much slower, and just about as easy.