Infrared for focusing on Oly C8080

I have an Oly C8080 with Ikelite housing and have done some 40 dives with it over the festive holidays. I find the autofocus very slow for underwater photography and the manual focus nearly useless. I have tried attaching my torch to the strobe arm with cable ties but most fish don't like having a torch shined on them and flit away. I have read somewhere that infrared can be used to improve focus time on this camera but can not find the reference again. My questions therefore:

1) Will it work?

2) Will fish be less spooked?

3) Availability of infrared lights, torches, globes or filters?

Alas, the IR is built into the oly camera, in the form of the external focus sensor, which is a ranging IR distance measurement device. It cannot work through housings, and in/out of the water boundary.

Alas, the 8080's low light autofocus is very poor, and it gets worse with the sensor blocked by the housing. The 8080 is just not that good a choice, for UW, as you are discovering.

More focus assist light, will be the only help.

Or, you may try a hyperfocal shooting method - lock the focus at a desired distance, and shoot with small aperture, for max DOF.

Don

Thanks Don

I heard that the camera sees infrared light and can do infrared photography. My thought is that if I turn off the infrared focusing so as not to confuse the camera and then use an infrared light source (hopefully not visible to the fish!) I might have more light for focusing. I do appologise if I have repeated the question that you have answered.

David

The camera does see infrared. You can test this by aiming your tv remote at the lens and pressing a button. You can see the light flashing. Not sure how it would work as a focusing option but if you try it and it works let us know.