my d70 results

I got back a few days ago from the marshall islands and finally have all my pictures online.

This was my first time diving with the d70. My previous camera was an oly 5050 in a pt-015 housing and a single ds-125 strobe with a ttl sensor. I upgraded that to a d70 in an ikelite housing with two ds-125 strobes.

I liked the ikelite housing, I just wish the viewfinder could magnify the tiny view finder on the d70 better. I had to use the lcd panel on top of the camera to set my aperature. My mask and regulator hit the back of the housing just rite so that I had it at an angle where I couldnt see that tiny bottom line very often. Because of the limited viewfinder visibility I never noticed that the camera was set to focus on an area other than the center on two dives.

I also had too short of a port for the 18-70 and the diopter gouged it. Luckily the scratches arent visible in my pictures.

I have little photography experience, I have never owned a SLR camera before this. I thought it was going to be impossible to set everything underwater and live without TTL. It wasnt impossible, but it certainly wasnt enjoyable. I can't wait until they have TTL figured out for the ikelite housing. Its so time consuming to set so many different dials and knobs for each picture. Only to reset them all for a shot 10 feet up the wall. Especially on really deep dives. I would rather take the shot with TTL, review it and adjust manually if necessary.

So, here are the pictures. Most of them arent that great, I was pretty clueless with this thing underwater.

http://www.dustindorton.com/diving/july_ma...halls/index.htm

You have some great shots on there!

How often were you diving at the 175-180fsw depth?

The people I dive with there are really into deep diving. They spent a lot of time at Bikini where your shallowest dives are over 150feet. We hit 120 to 140 on just about every dive on the oceanside of the atolls. We hit 180 on a couple of dives and just over 200 on another.

Is it safe to assume these are deco dives, or are they just really short?

Pretty much drop in and get to your max depth right away then work your way back up the wall and finish out your dive at 20 feet or so on top of the reef. Most of your deco time is burnt off coming up the wall. On the deepest dives we still had saftey stops.

Nice job Justin You've got some very nice shots to be proud of....especially considering your limited experience with a new DSLR camera rig

How did the washer fix do on the aperture dial?

It looks like you were having some lighting issues on several of the shots. I would have to guess that you needed to get closer to the subjects.....the long end of the 18-70 will fool you into thinking that you are closer to the subjects than you really are....anytime you are beyond 3' or so, you will end up with blue shots....your macro/close shots were, on average, much better lighted

Looks like a great place to go diving.....I glad the dome scratches didn't mess up you pictures

Karl

The washer fix worked great. I was worried that the screw might back out since it doesnt go in quite as far now, but there were no problems.

I spent so much time worrying about aperature and strobe power and not enough time worrying about where my strobes were pointed. I think after a few more years of practice I might get the hang of the new setup. I only did one dive with the macro lens, I should have used it more.

Good stuff Dustin!

Cheers

James

 I thought it was going to be impossible to set everything underwater and live without TTL.  It wasnt impossible, but it certainly wasnt enjoyable.  I can't wait until they  have TTL figured out for the ikelite housing.  Its so time consuming to set so many different dials and knobs for each picture.  Only to reset them all for a shot 10 feet up the wall.   Especially on really deep dives.  I would rather take the shot with TTL, review it and adjust manually if necessary.  

Interesting to hear you're feedback re: non-TTL shooting. I'm in a similar situation in that I've just aquired a non-TTL Ike housing, and have no experience shooting with a manual strobe. I'd much prefer to be TTL shooting/reviewing/adjusting as you suggest. I think I'm going to miss a lot of shots due to user error, but I'll be interested to see how it actually goes next weekend. Thanks for sharing your pictures!

That's a really good showing for someone who's "clueless with the thing underwater".

You sure have a lot of Phalaenopsis

Rob, Re "non-TTL shooting"

I ordered a D70 with a Nikkor 12 - 24 lens Thursday. I plan to house the D70 in an Ikelite housing and use my existing DS 125 strobes.

I plan to direct connect to my DS 125s just like I do with my 5050 with TTL. But instead of setting the strobes to TTL I plan to set them to 1/2 power and do any fine-tuning with changes in aperture or speed.

My reason for planning to shoot this way is that I want to keep my rig and my decisions simple.

Will it work? I think so. For the last four dive days I have using my 5050 this way on days ranging from rain to sunshine. And the results have been good.

What makes it work is shooting RAW. With RAW I can compensate for a fair amount of under or over expose in PS.

Anyway, that's how I plan to start out. No telling where I'll end up, although I'm hoping it will be with iTTL if/when Ikelite implements it for the D70.

I understand your frustration with the complexity of SLRs. I'm fairly new as well and find it all a bit overwhelming while under water.

Its good that you are focusing on diving and not the camera. The risks are elevated at the depths you discribe. Did it ever occur to you that you might have been narc'ed when you were trying to figure out guide numbers and aperture speed equivelencies at depth?

The best advice I can give you is to simplify.

1. Use a fixed focal length--that eliminates one nob right there and improves the glass/light quality.

2. Set your aperture and shutter speed and forget it. Experiment to get this right but I've had success with F/8-F/10 and 1/125 - 1/250. Then use the strobe intensity to control light quantity. The shutter speed controls the background lighting and the aperture controls the DOF.

3. Develop a checklist and make sure you have everything set before you get in. Even things like focus area go on this. I wouldn't even bother with anything but center focus until you get better. In testing I even had the lens AF/M switch set to manual once, switched on when I slipped on the zoom ring.

4. If you have two strobes get the Ikelite TTL sensor rather than the manual controller for the second strobe. You will loose the flexability of two strobe independant control but you will also loose one more knob.

5. Try more macro. Macro subjects tend to move around less so it should be easier.

6. Shoot in RAW and adjust the lighting on the computer later. This works to a suprising extent.