Lighting Wide Angle (12mm) in dirty water

I just started shooting the 12-24 under an 8" dome, and ran into major problems with lighting.

There was a lot of particulate in the water, and even with the strobes "aimed out" so the edge of the light barely met at the subject the area outside of the subject consisted of incredibly well lit JUNK in the water.

In a wide angle situation like this, are you just screwed, or is there a way to light the subject in the central area of the shot and not light up the particulate?

There are days in Monterey where a shot of any subject over 8 inches away and not have a solid background will be filled with backscatter. It does not matter which lens you use.

If you are just trying to light a central subject with water as the background, you may want to try using just one strobe.

Have the one strobe high pointing down. This way you are only putting out light to the subject, and not the dirty water.

I suspect that with 2 strobes, so much light is being thrown in all directions, and that is why you are having so much problems.

All good advice so far. When conditions are poor, you should concentrate on CFWA and give up on anything over about 2 feet away.

One strobe like Jim mentions may work. Another technique is to bring both of your strobes in tight to the housing and point them out...WAY out - like almost a 45 degree angle. This will only work for CFWA with a dark water background though.

I've been able to get some decent WA shots in San Diego this way, diving the Yukon and kelp.

Cheers

James

Rich: Here are some photos I shot on the Yukon in November using the same setup you have (literally):

http://www.reefpix.org/gallery/album37

I was using 2x Ikelite SS200's

FWIW, the zoom for the 12-24 can be used with the lens you have. If it is too loose, just put some electrical tape on the zoom ring...

Cheers

James

Thanks to everyone for the advice. It never occured to me to shut one of the strobes off!

Also, James, I put a thin strip of solder under the "O" ring on the 12-24 zoom gear, but on these dives had decided to concentrate on full wide, as I have no real experience with it yet. I did end up with a few decent shots Sunday, just not as many as the Cayman trip had me expecting! :roll:

A few examples:

Well, when you think abou it Rich, wide angle technique is also a LOT harder than macro as you have to deal with taking TWO photos at once. The background exposure and the foreground exposure.

Cheers

James

You seemed to do well with the Garibaldi photos.

Great answers from everyone so far, my 2 cents are as follows:

If you are faced with crappy viz and WA, try to take photos in the direction of a solid object like a reef wall or wreck etc. Therefore you don't have all of this open water behind the subject in which your strobe will reflect off of particulate.

Eg: If you have a nice sized fish on the edge of a reef shoot it toward the wall where there is definite termination of travelling light instead of aiming along the wall trying to capture blue (or green) backgrounds and ending up with tons of scatter.

Like this: http://bigblueimages.com/wbmvtaf047.jpg or this:

http://bigblueimages.com/wbmvtaf042.jpg

as opposed to something like this:

http://bigblueimages.com/wbmvpaf005.jpg

Or try concentrating on getting close larger objects that will fill the entire frame and therefore terminating all backscatter.

Like this: http://bigblueimages.com/wbmvtaf048.jpg

Don't be upset when you find you may have chosen a non suitable lens for a particular dive, just think outside of the box and look around for things that suit the conditions.

I have been visiting the forum for some time but this is my first reply to a topic. I shoot a lot of wide angle in the low visibility off New Jersey. The light levels are very low and a technique that has worked well for me is using longer shutter speeds to balance the available light. I have shot at speeds as slow as 1/4 second and use 1/8th to 1/30th second on a regular basis. Backscatter is more noticeable as the background gets darker. As you make the background lighter, the backscatter becomes less noticeable.

This technique has worked for me in situations where I have had low visibility and lots of particulate. The only initial downside with a long shutter speed is blurring in front of the subject as it moves across the photo area while the shutter is open. You can compensate for it by using rear shutter synch where the shutter fires at the end of the shutter opening.

What wreck, and with which dive boat Herb?

Thanks Herb, good suggestions. I will remember that for situations where the background is static.

BTW, Welcome! I am a newbie here myself!

The photo was taken on an artificial reef site on the Seagirt Artificial Reef. It is called the Dykes and also known as the Five Masted Schooner. It is about 70' deep. I have my own boat and I try to dive off New Jersey as often as possible.

Herb: it looks like you found a new dive buddy...;-)

Cheers

James

Try to dive off New Jersey as often as possible!?!?!

What are ya nuts? brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...............certain body parts shrinkin just thinkin about it.

Nah, it's getting warmer by the day, only 54F @ 80ft on Wednesday 13 miles off Barnegat.

The more I dive in NJ, the more I want to dive elsewhere...

Not all days in New Jersey are bad. Last Sunday while diving the same artificial reef pictured above, the visibility was about 60'+. I could see the top of the ship as soon as I stuck my head underwater.

True to form, on Wednesday, about one mile away, the visibility was 5'-10' but the water was a balmy 55 degrees.

Nope not all days are bad. A dive buddy of mine tells all new NJ divers that if they have a bad first couple of days they really need to just keep diving, because they'll eventually have a good day.

Wednesday was actually pretty good where I was, 25-30ft vis, 54F, but virtually flat calm seas, 84F air temp. Beautiful day...

Tom:

I have been diving in New Jersey since 1980 so I have seem a number of the good days and plenty of the bad days. Last Sunday was one of the best. You can see photos from our 60' of visibility on my web site at http://www.gotosnapshot.com/steel-schooner...004_cat001.html. This was one of the days that I was really happy to be shooting digital with 103 raw images available and I used every one.

I only wish that these days came more often.

I put a period after the link so it didn't work. Sorry. Here it is:

http://www.gotosnapshot.com/steel-schooner...004_cat001.html