F'n Stop - big rookie mistake

I'm almost too embarrassed to post what happened yesterday. The missus and I woke up to find pleasant weather. With nothing pressing to do until the afternoon we decided to grab the camera and hit a quick beach dive.

I was excited to get home and see the pics of the Kemp's Ridley and frog fish we saw on the dive - it was the first time seeing a Kemp's Ridley for both of us. I was quickly deflated when I pulled the pics up on the computer. There was hardly any depth of field on the pics. I thought it was strange until I realized I completely forgot to check the F stop setting before/during the dive. Obviously I had looked right at the display and now recall seeing it set at 2.8, but for some reason it just didn't register.

How did this happen??? First of all, I have never stopped it al the way down underwater. Rarely do I topside either. I had received a set of extension tubes a couple days before. I was playing around with some topside macro using the extension tubes. It was windy and I needed a quick shutter to freeze some pics, hence having it stopped all the way down.

So now I have a number of garbage pics that would have been decent had I had a better depth of field. Lesson learned. Check the f'n stop as soon as you pick up the camera.

I can't really relate since I have never made a stupid mistake with my camera... I'm sure I speak for everyone else here too. Nobody has ever left their lens cap on for example, only to realize it at 120'.

In all seriousness though, I always figure that if you're going to get sloppy with "something", it's probably better to do it with your camera than your dive gear. Better to get fuzzy pics than say, run out of air because you got so engrossed in taking those shots of that fringe-headed-bicolour-octo-eel in it's juvenile phase that you totally forgot to keet an eye on your SPG...

And it's a damn shame that Photoshop has never come up with a "Fix Focus" tool... I really wish they'd get on that!

.... or jumping in with no fins......

I should correct you and note that this is not a "rookie" mistake. I've been shooting underwater since 1968 and still make similar mistakes all the time. And Stoo please note that I would never get to 120' without noticing I left the lens cap on. When it happened to me I noticed it at about 60'. Please note my avatar photo, yes that's a lens cap I'm holding. It's very hard to remove the cap unnoticed on a little panga filled with your U/W photographer friends. Thanks to Allison Vitsky Sallmon for capturing my pain for posterity. I'd like to say Tim that I've never jumped off the back of the boat with no fins, but I can't.

Clearly the answer Mr. Tales is to shoot manual, that way you must remember to actually control the camera. Or said differently you can then screw up the shutter speed and ISO too.

Have fun,

Steve

There really should be a thread for "rookie" mistakes!

I haven't been shooting as long as Steve, only since 1988 in my case. I recently managed to notice only when at depth that my strobes did not seem to be sync'ing. After careful inspection I determined the cause to be the complete lack of fiber optic cables connecting them to the housing. They were safely stowed in my camera case.

Hmmm... I do dumb shit all the time haha..

And yes, shoot manual so you don't have that problem in the future. However, doesn't help the lens cap issue.

My fave is the stuck on manual focus one..

Thanks all for a few good laughs!

For now I will keep shooting on AV, being mindful of the f'n stop, but maybe down the road I will switch to manual.

In my experience the only reliable way to remember all the little things that need to be taken care of is to actually take an image when the camera setup is complete, including flash. It doesn't help you remember to put a diopter on a lens that needs one in a dome but takes care of most other mishaps. Of course the problem then becomes to remember to take that test shot. Oh, it also helps to not put your wetsuit on backwards. Been there done that

Bart

Yep me too forgot the memory card, flat battery, no battery not done the lens cap thing but no doubt i will at some point,……. there i feel better now.!! lol

But not so often nowadays i tend not to rush around to get in the water.

Goose

Mmmmmm....I forgot to raise the flash to fire the fibre optic strobes, after 10 minutes of scratching our heads trying to raise the flash (and failing!) the strobe session we and planned was very quickly changed to an "available" light session....

Cheers

Brett

On the back of my 7d housing is a label that says "flash up?"

Bill

On the back of my 7d housing is a label that says "flash up?"

Bill

If I put a label on my housing big enough to remind me of the stuff I need to remember, I wouldn't be able to see the housing.

There is a lesson to be learned from the rebreather crowd. My old friend Jill Heinerth insists on using details checklists before diving a RB. They are complex machines the repercussions of a failure are more severe.

I use a checklist for camera gear and dive gear when travelling, so a simple "Assemble and Test" list wouldn't be a stretch.

Maybe I'll get to work on that.... ;-)

My take on it is that as soon as your head is immersed in water you lose 50 IQ points. Then for every other thing that adds stress or complication you lose another 50. So, you have a camera with you....that's a total of 100 IQ points lost right there!

Stands to reason why we make stooopid mistakes. No memory card is my main repeat offender, that and being too lazy by shooting too safe an F stop range.

... shoot manual, that way you must remember to actually control the camera. Or said differently you can then screw up the shutter speed and ISO too...

I used to jump in without flipping up my camera's flash, when using optical cables...

... but I've done all the rest, including not zipping up my drysuit...

... I had to buy a Nauticam to fix the problem! Have you seen the Nauticam wet underwear alarm? It's great for dry diving!

I need one.

Bill

Fun thread! I would like to say that my first ever manta encounter was 2 minutes after my camera said the battery was empty - because I had been shooting white tip reef sharks. :/

There is a lesson to be learned from the rebreather crowd. My old friend Jill Heinerth insists on using details checklists before diving a RB. They are complex machines the repercussions of a failure are more severe.

 

I have A7 (tiny laminated cards) for both my CCR and camera. Honestly. We humans need prompting and can get lazy....

These are on 'Remove before...' Flight type bright red tags. So I can't avoid not to see it :-)

Too many times I've done something stupid on both. :-(

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok...so I feel like I've come a long way over the past year. I finally understand firmly the importance and value in shooting in Manual mode, among other epiphanies.

However much the progress has been, there's still a few backwards steps...

We took a trip to Roatan in April. Earlier in the year I had purchased new strobe arms, a dome port, and a wide angle lens. I was excited to be shooting wide angle for the first time. In February I had all the dive and photo gear packed up and ready to go, with the lenses set aside so they could be wrapped in clothes and packed in a carry-on. I work overseas and was going to be gone for the 5 weeks before the dive trip. When I returned stateside, we met at the airport and flew directly to Roatan. As we were unpacking I asked my wife "Darlin, in which bag did you pack the lenses?". She didn't even have to reply. I knew by the look on her face that the lenses did not get packed.

We still had a wonderful time and some wonderful diving.

Too bad about leaving the lenses at home, but at least you still got some good diving in. You'll just have to rely on the mental pictures...