D500 focus options underwater?

Will do Tim. 

Also, I just got informed that my Issota case has arrived and will be delivered tomorrow. Yeaaahhhhhhh cant wait. 

I faced the same dilemma as you did but what sold me towards D500 over D850 is the speed of the focus during black water diving. 

Hope you get a dive trip soon 

I know this is an old thread, but as I've only just got a D500, I'm interested in what the conclusion is 5-6 years later. Do most people still use the single AF point with AF-S or is AF-C the way to go. Do people actually use 3D AF or group focus underwater and get it to work for them? I'm sure it varies from subject to subject, but hoping to shortcut my learning curve.

I'm coming from a D7000 system that I've had for a long time. I used spot metering in manual and single point AF to get the exposure right and the focus on the spot I wanted. AF-C sounds amazing if it works well enough underwater. Do people still use spot metering to understand the background lighting or is centre weighted or even matrix the way to go with the D500. What ISO do people usually use with strobes etc. 

At the moment, for wide angle, I spot meter on points in the background or water etc, set up manually ISO, aperature and shutter speed to give me the exposure and depth of field I think right, then use strobes to fill in the object of the photo. It sort of works for me, but as I'm self taught for both above and below water photography, maybe I've been doing it wrong all these years, or maybe technology has moved on sufficiently to take over some of the workload?

On macro I tend to use ttl on the strobes and set up aperature to give me the depth of field I want, I the use shutter speed and ISO to give me the brightness of background I'm after. This works a treat and seems easy to me - again am I doing it wrong?

Hi MTH

I'm a long-term D500 user - love it!

Any settings that you select that create the images you want, are the right choices.....

That said, here's what I use: I'm always shooting in Manual for the camera as well as the strobes. Normal ISO is 100 unless its especially dark underwater. If I'm not using strobes I might up the ISO to 200 or even 400 depending on the ambient light level and the possible speed of the subject. (ie is it a fast-moving critter?).

I use AF-S for macro and usually for WA. If the WA features fast-moving critters then I switch to AF-C.

I'm not sure I have ever used spot-metering on the D500. I always used the centre-weighted setting. I'm not sure I have ever changed it even. If you shoot Manual with the camera and strobes, as long as you have it in the right ballpark, minor tweaks are easy in post.

What you do with strobes, TTL and macro sounds sensible. I used to use TTL for macro but have given up on that too. Using manual settings for strobes is perhaps much easier than you think. Sure, you might miss the occasional grab-shot but once you have used manual strobes for a while, making the slight adjustments necessary becomes second nature. And, generally, macro images are not fast moving or changing. 

But, like I said in the beginning, if things are working well for you, why change them?  There is no "right" way. There are just ways 

I switched last year from a D500 to an A1, and whilst there can be no doubt the A1 is better, I think that for the average amateur (i.e. me) or even advanced amateurs, there really isn't a great need to upgrade the D500 - its just that I had an A1 for topside (where it is far far superior) so I decided to stick with one overall system. I certainly wouldn't cry too much if I had to return to the D500 underwater. 

For AF, I'm a big fan of continuous AF for most subjects other than when I attached the SMC-1 at which time I felt the D500 struggled (or maybe it was me struggling!) so then I would lock focus with BBF and rock the camera to get the picture sharp, 

I see people using AF-S and if it works for them, then great. Maybe they are better divers than me and can hold rock still in surge and current (like I had to watch my annoyingly talented dive guide do recently in Tulamben) but I always prefer continuous focus as even with relatively still creatures there is always a certain amount of movement, either the critter, the photographer, or due to water movements. 

I was happy enough with single point for smaller creatures and maybe I used expanded AF a couple of times with the sharks at Tiger Beach, but the best thing about Nikon AF compared to Canon and even Sony is its simplicity and that it just works for the vast majority of underwater subjects. I certainly had a great hit rate for both reef fish, gobies, bennies etc, along with close up sharks using this technique without getting into the 3D focussing. Maybe if I dived more often I would experiment more but I don't get that many opportunities so I kept it simple and it worked for me

I've never even considered spot metering for underwater - its not needed on the reef for regular reef fish and macro, and for wider stuff with water backgrounds I just took a reading to get the background how I wanted it then filled in the foreground subject with manual flash. Once you get an idea of power settings you realise that you're often working at similar distances so not too much fiddling about was needed

I also regularly use higher ISOs than most underwater photographers as I'm used to using high ISOs topside in crap British weather and am used to processing the shots accordingly, so don't be scared of pushing the ISO to get the settings you need. With a D500 I wouldn't even break sweat until ISO 1600 and hight is easily done with a little care in post.

Mike

On 5/23/2023 at 3:26 PM, TimG said:

But, like I said in the beginning, if things are working well for you, why change them?  There is no "right" way. There are just ways 

@pooley and @TimG

Thanks guys. I don't come up to the standard you guys achieve. But then I'm a pure amateur, diving is just for fun as is photography. 

I guess I'll just play around and see what works with the new camera. What I do with the D7000 sounds very similar to mostly what you are saying. I use the strobes in manual for WA and up until now I've used ttl for macro. The latter seems to work very well for me so I'm likely to stick with that. Does shooting the strobes in manual give that much benefit in macro? I'm not really seeing the advantage. I find I get plenty of light to wind the aperture down and still shoot in ISO 100.

I'm most interested in trying the AF-C versus AF-S. My buoyancy is reasonable, I'd say, but it isn't absolutely zero movement - can anyone achieve that?? In the UK, I'm not sure I've ever been in conditions where there is zero water movement  and I've been diving 40 years. 

@pooley

Mike, who do you mostly dive with in the UK and where? I'm surprised I've not bumped into you.

5 hours ago, MTH said:

Does shooting the strobes in manual give that much benefit in macro?

Nope! I do use a snoot though almost always for macro shots and with a snoot you have to have the strobes on Manual.

5 hours ago, MTH said:

I'm most interested in trying the AF-C versus AF-S. My buoyancy is reasonable, I'd say, but it isn't absolutely zero movement - can anyone achieve that??

Just give it a try and see how you get on. There's pretty much nothing to lose.

Unless the current is ripping or a horrible surge, I don't find that water movement makes that much difference assuming the shutter speed is, say, above 1/100 - or the strobes can freeze the action. 

6 hours ago, MTH said:

@pooley

Mike, who do you mostly dive with in the UK and where? I'm surprised I've not bumped into you.

Probably not too surprising as I'm a traveller diver who has never dived in British waters 

I do keep threatening to learn diving in a drysuit but never get round to  it

Mike

The point with AF-C is to compensate for diver of subject motion back and forth taking the subject out of the depth of field.  Can work with some cameras, but tends to become less effective as you move into the super macro zone  which ironically is where it would be really handy becuase of the thin depth of field.  Give it a go, you could even try it on land in low light indoors to see how well it tracks.

15 hours ago, pooley said:

Probably not too surprising as I'm a traveller diver who has never dived in British waters 

That might explain it . We mostly dive in the UK and only manage an abroad trip every other year. That may change but this year I've 4 weeks diving in the UK planned. Arranmore, The Scillies, Kinlochbervie and Mull. All are great uk photography sites.

@ChrisRoss

Thanks for that Chris - I'll definitely be trying AF-C underwater. I've already tried it above but I never find above water techniques give me a feeling for how things will work underwater.