Sea and Sea D70 housing

Yes, that would work fine. An other alternative would be a round "doughnut" of sponge around the whole lense.

The issue of adding a support to hold up the lens is a good one I will look at that more. Cheers.

Re using custom flat port. its logical but would have to use 2 x 40 extensions also and my worry would be the amount of air in the system which causes the front of the port to torque upwards when underwater. I know caveman tried this for the 105 plus kenko 2x and had problems with the front of the housing wanting to torque up and it causing his limp wrists to tire (LOL).

Re the AF/MF - this was a major concern to me but Hamburger showed me the trick with the AF lock trigger next to the shutter trigger and I am in love with the system now.

The other thing I am experimenting with is that I am using iTTL through a SB800 in a Subal housing. On land and in the pool it works very well. My probem is coming from trying a find a second strobe to slave. I have failed with 1) DS125 and optical sensor 2) YSDX90 using pre flash sensor and 3) YS90 in slave TTL (that one was expected). I have now reverted to white slate and a bendy arm to reflect light back.

The sensors seem not to be able to distinguish the iTTL preflashes - I had read somewhere that the iTTL preflashes are much faster than eTTL or DTTL so this may be the problem. I am very interested to hear other comments on this if they have any?

NOTE: I have posted an iTTL/SB800 thread in the strobes section of the forum so better to deal with that here:

http://www.wetpixel.com/modules.php?op=mod...ewtopic&p=34922

Here's a few 100% crops from this weekend.

Straight crops , no PS fiddling.

The images seem much softer than I was expecting.

Will this be because of the loss of resolution recently mentioned by James (I think it was you) with DSLR and smaller apertures?

And full frame.

PS just one strobe Z220.

Any hints on how to get the Optical Converter working so I dot send the D180 backand get another Z220 would be most welcome.

Can't see your f/ and ss settings on the first crop, but the second two indicate that you're using a very low shutter speed relative to the focal length, so you're seeing some camera shake. In general, I'd think you'd want to get closer to 1 / (2 x focal length) just as you would on land. I'd be looking to get at least 1/125 on both of those shots, preferably 1/200 (or whatever the max x-xync of the camera is).

Just my $0.02 not having shot that lens.

Tom

I agree with Tom - these shots show motion blur. It's not the camera or the lens's fault that these are soft.

The D70 can easily sync at 1/200th and for macro where all of the light is coming from the strobes that won't darken the shot at all.

I think this is a good first attempt at shooting this lens - keep practicing and try different things - you'll get good results.

Some other things to work on would be to not shoot down on the subject, move the strobe away to avoid backscatter, and get CLOSER to your subjects - 1/2 meter or less.

Cheers

James

Thanks for all the comments , I think they are all spot on.

On an other note the issue with support of the lens may have reared its head.

on a feww occasions I got a F-- error.

Normally associated with incompatible lens or aperture not being set to minimum.

I think that the torque from the lens may be stopping the function of the aperture contacts.

The biggest problem with this weekends efforts (I hope) was low vis and a lack of subjects, hence my shooting almost anything in an effort to play around with the camera.

Will certainly try with much higher shutter speeds.

btw 1st crop

Nikon D70

Focal Length: 70mm

Optimize Image: Normal

Color Mode: Mode Ia (sRGB)

Noise Reduction: OFF

2004/06/05 14:05:34.8

Exposure Mode: Manual

White Balance: Auto

Tone Comp: Auto

RAW (12-bit) Lossless

Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern

AF Mode: AF-S

Hue Adjustment: 0°

Image Size: Large (3008 x 2000)

1/100 sec - F/8

Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached

Saturation: Normal

Exposure Comp.: 0 EV

Sharpening: Auto

Lens: 70-180mm F/4.5-5.6 D

Sensitivity: ISO 200

Thanks

&

Cheers

Yes, that error means that not all of the electrical contacts on the lens are touching the camera. You could be DAMAGING your camera and lens when you do this. I had the same problem when I used a cheap teleconverter once.

HTH

James

Bought some DS sticky tape yesterday and will carry out the mod in the best tradition's of Blue Peter.

I saw the Nexus solution with the trolley system on the filter thread , might try to make something like that up in the long term.

cheers

I thought the hosuing performed well in the water and was not as "bulky" to use as I had feared (I should state that my previous housing is an NX80 which is VERY compact).

Minor issues were that:

1) I did have problem with the small viewfinder of the D70 and consequently was cropping off a lot of animal parts in my shots.

2) I missed the leak alarm, although you can see inside the housing, ala Ike, I miss the comfort of the alarm.

3) The top LCD panel is quite difficult to see without my turning the light on.

4) The sub command dial takes abit of twiddling at times (but this was not evident on the others NX70 housings)

I should state that although my comments are a little negative, they should be taken in the "its easier to be negative than positive" vain. I am pleased with the hosuing - but even more pleased to have crossed back to digital from film and to have bought the 70/180.

Did you guys shooting the 70-180 all shoot it in Autofocus?

Cheers

James

Did you guys shooting the 70-180 all shoot it in Autofocus?

 

Cheers

James

Yes, we all shoot in autofocus but also use the focus lock function quite a bit and just move the camera back and forward.