Going snorkeling tomorrow with a TG-6 and need some pointers

Just getting my feet wet with UW photography. Picked up a TG-6 with the Olympus housing. No external strobes or wide angle lens (yet). I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the internet from this site and Backscatter. My plan for macro is to use the internal flash and see how it goes. Shooting in RAW and will use Av mode. I set the maximum ISO to 800 and the minimum shutter speed to 1/125. What aperture do I need to be shooting at? I’m assuming with a small sensor I probably want the fastest f-stop I can get when I’m in AF Macro mode, correct?

Ive played around with the camera around the house the last few days so I’m pretty comfortable navigating menus and using the camera. It takes some amazing macro pictures. I’d also like to use it for some wide angle videography taking pictures of the family whilst snorkeling. I realize I need a wide angle lens for best results. Any video tips for video or is it pretty much hit “record” and go?

Hey Biggen

I’ve not used a TG-6 but for macro generally you want as much depth of field as possible. This calls for the smallest apertures - not the fastest, ie, the widest. 

1 hour ago, TimG said:

Hey Biggen

I’ve not used a TG-6 but for macro generally you want as much depth of field as possible. This calls for the smallest apertures - not the fastest, ie, the widest. 

Interesting. I was thinking with a small sensor that opening the aperture and letting more light in would be better for lower ISO.  I'll give both a try and see how it turns out.

8 hours ago, TimG said:

Hey Biggen

I’ve not used a TG-6 but for macro generally you want as much depth of field as possible. This calls for the smallest apertures - not the fastest, ie, the widest. 

Not for the TG-6, the manual doesn't make it clear but the the TG-6 has two physical apertures, f2 and f2.8 at the wide end (going down to f4.9/6.3 at the long end)  F8 and f18 are achieved with an ND filter and do not improve depth of field.  I would use f2.8/6.3 in Av.   The onboard flash will work in a pinch.  If you are going for 100% flash illumination you need to be very close - within about 150mm or so, beyond that it will struggle. 

if you are snorkelling there should be plenty of light unless you are shadowing your subject and i would try and keep the ISO as low as you can. 

i would try it with and without  a shutter speed limit and see what sort of shutter speed you get.   without the SS limit you can set ISO at 100.

You can use f8-18 to force the camera to 100%flash.  at f18 and no shutter speed limit set  the camera will reduce shutter speed to 1/100.  With ISO 100, 1/100 and f18 it forces the camera to rely on flash for exposure, which may be possible if you are really close.