consumer digital just doesn't cut it???????

Ok, I have had time to really sit and digest my first digital underwater trip to the coco's. I got some decent shots, but from a pure photography standpoint, coming from an ELan II in a Ikelite housing, the results were at best iffy. I'll give you experts a rundown and see what you think.

1: I will grant the fact that the Coco's is not the easiest place to take still photg. Water is not clear, currents, etc.etc....

2: On day 3 of the trip, my strobe (DS125) leaked acid and trashed the battery for no apparant reason......so a lot of shots were taken on p mode ambient light.

That given, what I found that was disturbing to me was the inability of me or the camera, I am not sure which, to get a pleasing exposure of the subject (i.e. a shark) without blowing out the highlights or the sand/reef. When the flash was working it was really bad. Even with flash exposure set to -1 or more.

Even after the strobe failed, I seemed to have a terrible time getting proper exposure underwater. the dynamic range of the G2 seems to be adversly effected underwater. Does this make sense? For an example, look at the Moray with the wide open mouth pic I shot underwater at about 40' in my trip page. Notice how the inside of the mouth is completly blown out. This shot was taken with no flash, Evaluative metering. (Yes I know its a bit blurry, but I posted it to show you what the blow out looked like)

http://www.rkjarman.com/coco/madmanta.htm

I have about 50 shots that I saved that really show how badly the camera preformed with flash which I will be happy to share with anyone who would like to look at them.

I suspect that the flash sensor was not working again. (And yes it has been in for the upgrade.) I say this because almost all of my night shots on the first night dive only have illumination where the aiming light was pointed. I think the strobe was firing on the preflash and not on the main flash again.

I will try to post a couple of the bad example shots today, but I really am interested in hearing if this dynamic range problem is inherent in digtal consumer level cameras underwater, or if it was me or my strobe????? the camera preforms flawlessly on land. But seems to lose a lot underwater. I use a Canon 1d on land, and have never seen anything that approaches what I saw on this trip

Could it be possible that the strobe was never working, and that the overall image was being adjusted to make the dark subject midtone which than overexposed the sand? That's the only explanation I can come up with that makes any sense

Appreciate any thoughts/ideas. In total, if I can't get this issue resolved, I may end up back with slide film.

Thanks

bob

ps on a more positive note, the INON w/a lens preformed flawlessly. This is one great add on!

http://www.rkjarman.com/coco/madmanta.htm

Sorry, screwed up the post with the link!

Sorry guys, for some reason my computer want to treat everything after a link as part of the link.....

....all in all a bad day today

Bob, it's not you, the forum software has been misbehaving for several weeks now. Maybe now that Eric is back from his shark hunting expedition, it'll get fixed . . .

That is, indeed, bad news about the DS-125. When I'm done painting my living room, I'm going to get to the pool at the earliest possible date to run my modified strobes through their paces. Not sure how to answer your other questions as I haven't experienced those issues with my C-4040z (yet).

Bob,

Getting a good flash exposure with a consumer level digicam is one of the hardest things out there. Don't be discouraged.

I'll talk more about the differences between consumer level cameras and digital SLR's at my talk on Wednesday.

Suffice it to say that I sold my consumer camera in favor of the Fuji S2pro.

Cheers

James

I hate to seem callous, and I sympathize with the poor results from your trip, but I don't think you can condemn "consumer digital" when there are several people on this forum who have produced what I consider outstanding results with this level of camera, albeit, not with the camera and strobe you are using.

I got back from the South Pacific a couple of weeks ago. On the Fiji Aggressor there were three photographers shooting film with F-100's in Subal or Sea & Sea Housings with Ikelite SS-200 strobes. In my opinion, I outshot all three of them with my C-4040, PT-010 and two YS-90DX's. They would wait half a day to get back a 36 exposure roll and find one or two properly exposed frames. I was downloading my 64 images from my camera to my laptop while my hair was still wet and deleting or filing the less then optimal exposures leaving me with 10-15 quality shots per dive.

I feel your pain, but don't give up yet. Re-evaluate your choices, consider some alternatives, test some equipment before you buy and keep on plugging.

Sorry about the buggy forum software. We're planning a huge revamp of the entire system, soon, but since it's current a one-man technical effort, it takes some time.

If we switch to something like PHPNuke, we'll get more people on board to help with the content (like managing the Photo of the "Week" page. heh... ).

Thanks guys, for the encouragement and support, I am not going to give up, unless I go get a Canon d60 or better yet I can find a housing for my 1d that I trust

James, where is your talk going to be? on line? I would like to come if possible.

Thanks,

Bob

Hi Bob,

It would be good if you could come by - see the announcement below. The talk will be tomorrow night in the chatroom at:

www.reefpix.org

Higher sensitivity to light is not a bad thing, but it is different to what you may be used to. What would an ideal film be - the light sensitivity of ISO 400 without the added grain. Even at an ISO of 80, my E-20 gives great light sensitivity, but it can be unforgiving and blow out images. My solution has been to err on underexposure, and let photoshop do the rest. Photoshop is great at bringing back slight underexposure, but not so good at toning down overexposure. You might also need to consider a more adjustable flash like the DX90. I'm guessing you are shooting in TTL mode - try manual and err on underexposure. Or you may be able to dial down the exposure and still use TTL. I'm not familiar with your particular system, but with my Titan I have no TTL, but I do have great control of my strobe power. After 50-60 dives with it I have pretty much dialed in where the sweet spot is for exposure, and I get far more good images than I've ever gotten with film.

Good Luck - It only gets better!

Figure I'll chip in a few 2c worth of very similar experiences for what its worth. Bob-J if you lived in Utah I'd say let's go for a beer

Just got back from a week in LaPaz - typically it should have been clear, calm, and swamped with big creatures by this time of year but an early warm spell followed by cold left us with chilly water, sometimes crappy vis, couple of swim-like-hell current days, and fewer big animals. You get what you get, right?

I also had a brand new (pool tested) DS125 which flooded first dive (battery compartment), and again next day after a careful clean and dry. Limped by for the rest of the trip with corroded cells and paper-clip connection fixes and at least a dry powerpack thanks to lots of electrical tape. On its way back to Ike and I'll post some comments when I hear from them (thus far their email has reflected the great after-sales service of their reputation).

I also had very similar initial feelings about exposures. Trying the camera fully automatic and relying on TTL on the strobe gave me badly overexposed shots, even comepnsated at -2 (despite keeping clear of the sensor etc -- what is the upgrade you refer to Bob-J?). Switching to aper priority mode and center and finally spot metering helped a lot with the strobe still in TTL mode and I got some decent enough stuff for a first foray into this craziness. Even so, if the frame wasn't a subject against a relatively flat (planar) background there would be a definate burn-out in the background closer to the strobe or on that side (using single strobe with the probably less-than-optimal arm that came with it).

I also had some interesting experiences with the flash refusing to fire - too much ligh on shallower dives and the camera decided that available light was adequte--so I ended up with rather more available light shots than I planned. Setting the camera to fill-in mode fixed this, is that what everyone else finds?

On a more positive note, I am probably more interested in macro and there were some way-cool nudis and I got decent shots of these generally bracketing heavily with the strobe set right down at 1/8 power and the lens stopped down at 6 or smaller.

Bob-J again - I'd like to see the shots you mention in your post. Let me know where/when you put them up. I'll post some of mine when I get caught up at work as well--can anyone make recommendations for the best place to do a gallery/website/etc and what is the consensus about the best way to do it?

Alien-Bob.

Ignore the Q about the sensor upgrade - just realized that while we have same strobe we don't have same camera (mine is CP5k in case anyone is interested).

Bob.

Hi Alien-Bob,

Why were you using the sensor with your CP5K and not a sync cord? I'm not trying to flame or anything like that, I'm just asking out of curiosity.

Cheers

James Wiseman

James,

Just as well you're not flaming me because I'm a sensor-tive kinda guy :-) If I was worried about showing my ignorance and getting flamed I wouldn't be here, but I wouldn't have interpreted your Q as a flame in any event as the focus here seems to be sharing information. Thanks for the note anyway.

I guess I am/was a little confused in Bob-J's post about the sensor. Initially I figured he meant the TTL sensor on the camera. That thought probably came to me as (I'm sure you know) there have been lots of problems with where it is located on the CP5000, with it being blocked by the user's finger, or with it reflecting too much light from finger.

Now, I suspect Bob-J and you are referring to the Ikelite slave sensor? In any event, yes, I am using the Ike slave sensor. I spoke at length with 2 reps at Ike and the consensus was that for a single strobe I could use a sync cord or the sensor. As I will probably get a second strobe I figure I'll need the slave eventually so I decided to start with the slave as it was a decent price bundled with the strobe.

Did I miss stuff here or elsewhere that suggests there are compelling reasons to go with the cord rather than slave for a single strobe?

Bob.

Bob-J,

Your strobe IS firing in those pictures - you can tell by looking at the shadow pattern. Don't know if you already knew that or not...just trying to help.

Alien-Bob,

I feel that a direct connection with a sync cord is a MUCH better solution than using the TTL slave sensor. You can even use a DUAL sync cord if and when you get two strobes. That way, when you press that shutter button, you KNOW that both strobes are going to fire.

Cheers

James Wiseman

Base on your comments, it seems to me you are having two issues with your camera.

First, I think your problems with flash exposure may be specific to the TTL system you are using and not a general problem with consumer digital cameras. I shoot on manual everything and bracket my exposure; with the feedback from the LCD I can almost aways get the exposure that I want. The exception are case where the strobes are simply not powerful enough or the subject swims away in this process. With a little practice it's not hard to get within a stop on the first shot.

The other problem is the limited dynamic range of consumer digital cameras. Here I agree that the advantage goes to film and DSLR's like the Canon D60. The difference really shows in shots that include bright sun light. In most other cases, I don't think it's that noticeable. A somewhat related topic is the limited range of F-stops available due to the small CCD/pixel size. From my tests while shooting in the Solomons, on a bright sunny day, in 80 feet of clear tropical waters, I had to use my smallest aperture F10 and highest shutter speed 1/800 to get a reasonable sunspot. In shallow waters, I just could not avoid getting a larger washed out area around the sun than I wanted. I have an Olympus 4040 with a minimum ISO setting of 100. I think the G2 is better here with a minimum of 50.

Alien-Bob: For a place to post your pics, I recommend fototime.com if you don't want to mess with webpage creation software. It costs about $20 a year for 250MB of space. I batch resize my photos to 640x480 with irfanview and use the fototime album software to upload. Very easy.

Herb

You guys are just too fast for me to keep up. Three new posts went by between the time that I started my reply and the time it got posted.

Bob-j. I just had a look at your problem shots. Since you already labeled them as bad, I'll come right out and say what I think is wrong. The biggest problem is your shutter speed is way too low. Also, the aperture is too large but this is not as big a problem as your shutter speed. Unlike a Nikonos, a consumer digital camera's electronic shutter will sync with the flash all the way up to the maximum shutter speed. It's an important advantage that compensates for some of it's shortcomings.

The way I like to think about it is that a photo taken with a flash is really two separate exposures: one with light from the flash and one with the ambient light. Since the flash duration is less than 1/1000 seconds, it is independent of the shutter speed. So set the flash exposure with the strobe power and aperture, you usually want the smallest aperture your strobe power will allow to get the best depth of field, and then choose a shutter speed to get the background light you want.

I think James is correct that your flash did fire on your first shot, the reason you don't see much of an effect from it is your 1/60 shutter speed. On the night shots, it looks like your spotting light has overpowered your strobe! On night dives, I'll set my shutter speed to 1/800 and not think about it again. For a subject, the size of an eel, like your last shot, I'd probably try F8 with my two YS90DX's cranked all the way up. With the power of your strobe, you should be able to light that subject using a similar aperture setting.

Herb

Wow guys, thanks, I guess I learn something new every day. Herb is it just consumer digis that sync this way? I know my 1d does not, nor did my d30. I have rarely shot anything underwater at much over 1/90th shutter speed.

I am not trying to dispute what you are saying, but I have never heard of a flash system of any type that would sync at any speed except for some of the High speed options in my 550ex.

As far as the exposure control, what I did at first was to shoot AV mode at settings between 5 and 8. All the night shots are black. So I switched to P mode at the end of the dive and got results like this. I know the flash was firing, my thought was that is was firing early during the preflash only and not truly syncing with the main flash of the G2?

I usually do try to get a small aperture, but it simply would not work at all on this trip Herb with the flash problems I had.

Going a step farther with what I am hearing you say, If I have to use a fast shutter speed, how do you balance your ambient and flash lighting? Most of my ambient light shots that came out ok on this trip were at somewhere around 1/50th to 1/90th of a second at f stops of 2-4. How do you get a decent blue background at the shutter speeds you are talking about?

I was taught that for open water shots meter the blue and fill with flash. For macro and close up, shoot at the smallest aperture you can and use flash for all lighting. (ergo a black background if you shoot up and a fuzzy colored background if you shoot into the reef.)

Unless I am mistaken what you are saying Herb, all this is out the window with consumer digital?

Hi Bobj,

Have a look at my strobe test page. Exposures are taken at each speed between 1/30th and 1/1000th of a second!!

http://www.reefpix.org/old_site/strobetest/

Since digital cameras have an "electronic shutter" they can sync much faster than a film camera. In essence, the CCD can "turn on and turn off" really really fast, so it is not grabbing light for the whole time that the curtain is open.

Your logic here is spot on:

I was taught that for open water shots meter the blue and fill with flash. For macro and close up, shoot at the smallest aperture you can and use flash for all lighting. (ergo a black background if you shoot up and a fuzzy colored background if you shoot into the reef.)

Unless I'm shooting macro, I would NEVER go w/ a shutter speed over 1/125th or so. Expose for the background - flash for the foreground. It may be different w/ the G2 and the Olympus - but that's what I have learned using the Coolpix.

Cheers

James Wiseman