Any tips how to get most out of a UWphoto assignme

This summer I will be a UW Photographer at a freediver competition in Sweden.

The visability is approx 5 meters and the waters are green.

Most of the photos I will take at a depth of 1-5 meters.

I have got an Olympus 5050 with a pt15 Housing and a Inon UWL 100 Lens

My Questions are:

1. What do you recommend for settings (The freedivers are very fast in Decent and Accent)?

2. Do you think I need a Strobe and if yes, which do you recommend?

Any tips and suggestions are welcome.

You will be able to freeze divers movement more effectively with a strobe.

An INON D2000 would probably be my first suggestion. It offers S-TTL with your camera, is relatively inexpensive and has manual options which would certainly be useful in your case. The strobe will also assist in removing some of the green caste from the divers - although not from the background water.

Thanks Anthony

I was thinking today to pursale a INON D2000

Most off my shots are wide angle shots and I have testing some methods inclusive Mustard´s filter method with great resultat but I shoot always the blue clean waters in Greece and egypt.. I am thining to that a strobe is a great solution.. and maybe time to have one... you never know when you need it,..

Thanks again

No worries Lambis

It is always useful to have a strobe I think. You may find that there are some filters you can use to remove the green colour in the pictures too. There should be information in the same article. Remember though, that if you are filtering the lens, you need to use a complementary filter on the strobe.

If the divers are moving fast, will the shutter lag prevent you from locking on the subject? And with a strobe, you'll get a preflash on a moving subject. I have no experience with the 5050 and fast subjects, but you may have troubles with that system for shooting the subjects at hand.

Joe

Yes I am to worried that maybe it will not working but on the other hand the 5050 is very light sensitiv (1,8) and I think If the weather is O.K. (sunshine) I will not need a strobe att all.

Last day I have take the camera in the Poll to make some tests but there I have see that I NEED A STROBE....

Anyway I whant to ask if you take Wide angle Pictures what is the distance that a strobe like INON D2000 can illuminate under water?

It is always useful to have a strobe I think. You may find that there are some filters you can use to remove the green colour in the pictures too.

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Also about the strobe .. It for me would depend on the depth you are planning on taking the photos at .. I would have thought below 30 ft definately. And I have never done it professionaly but I have heard that many free divers don't like their 'competition' runs being photographed with a flash as it is off putting, and so publicity practice runs are done for photography. I only know this when the championships came to Cayman a few years ago now.

Photographing free divers is fun .. it's been ages since i took a photo of a person let alone this type of stuff you will have fun.

digitallywet

You are right. Freedivers dont like strobes!! Especially when it is a competition. I myself ar a freediver and I know this whell. About Green Water.. I will leave it green but with filters I whant to have better colors off fins.. suits... etc.

Now I will take fotos form 0 - to 10 meters. Visability is 5m and I was thinking of a flash that works more like a fill flash. Very soft with difuser for some problem fotos.

Flash will help me to have shoot i 1/100 nad higher without to blur the pictures.

Lambis

Another note--shoot in RAW. I did a lot of shots in the Bahamas the last two years and shooting in RAW is a must. I was freediving in about 12 meters of water without flash and still did rather well...

http://www.onebreathphoto.com/Libraries/Im...php?imageid=181

JohnJohnson:

GREAT PICTS!!!! If Is exaclty the same shoting still that I have. Only I shoot freedivers :-)

RAW is something that I was thinking to .. the olympus 5050 can have max a 2gb CF media :-(

Are you shooting all the Photos with a 5050 and i RAW? Its lock like you use a Inon UWL100 + Dome unit.

Are you shooting in Manual mode?

White Balance is great do u use manual white balance

Any filters?

General if you have some tips or settings it will be great becauce it will help me extrem!!!

take a loock att what I have shoot last sommer. It was my first UW fotos.

http://www.motionsync.com/uwpics2/

As for your capacity issues, I don't have too much in the way of problems. I shoot with a 1GB card and a 256MB xD card. That gives me something like 170 RAW shots or so. With a 2GB card and a 512MB xD card, you could have a LOT of picture-taking ability.

With respect to your question about 5050 and RAW, everything I shoot underwater since January or so of 2004 is RAW. The picture I posted was in RAW, and I believe everything on the website except for the Bahamas 2003 pictures were RAW and shot with the Oly 5050(above-water is shot with my Canon 20D). You are exactly right about my setup. It is an Oly 5050 with the Inon WAL and dome unit. I love it. Especially for shots like your first one on your web page. I like these shots where you get a person at the surface and can see the curvature of the lens. It's a nice effect.

I believe everything in my Bahamas 2004 collection was in full auto mode, no manual settings. I did no whitebalance beforehand. The beauty of RAW is that you can adjust whitebalance and other details afterwards. Another note, because I was shooting with the Inon lens, I turned off my flash. Make sure you do this. Reason being is that your lens will obstruct the flash and you will get a big shadow in the center of your picture. I had an INCREDIBLE dolphin shot ruined by forgetting this setting once.

I looked at your pictures and they are nice, especially for someone out on their first shoot! I am a bit confused, though. It looks like a spearfishing competition, not a freedive competition--or is it a freedive competition in which everyone must carry an object like a speargun?

A couple suggestions that may be of help. Being a freediver, I understand the need to not be distracted unduly, so you might do a couple things--switch to RAW, turn off flash, shoot closeup, do whitebalance afterwards. This might be difficult given light situations(Bahamas is a lot easier to get away with no flash than Sweden!).

If the water doesn't allow this type of shooting, I would definitely get an external strobe or two. And I would go with an Inon setup(if not two). I shoot with two Inon Z220 strobes to fully cover my Inon dome lens. I highly recommend Inon. I love Ikelite and will soon own Ikelite(DS-125 for my Canon setup), but as a freediver, I love the size of my Inons. 99% of my water experience is freediving and I can still handle the Oly 5050 with the dome lens and two Inon Z220s. When shooting with strobes in the Oly PT housing, you will need to shoot in manual mode. This takes a little getting used to. My bible for this is Peter Schultz's guide at Splashdown divers. It is EXCELLENT(Thanks Peter!).

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...up_settings.htm

If you look at my turtle pictures, a LOT of them are shot with dual strobes and I use a variety of settings. The ambient light fluctuates and so you need to adjust your settings depending on your light. In Hawaii near the surface, this is a pain in the butt because your ambient light can change dramatically in a split second. In green water, perhaps you can get away without making a lot of changes, hopefully. Either way, when you get there try to get out in the water a day or so before the competition with a buddy and shoot for a while to get the feel of it. Find some settings that work and lock them in with the MyMode feature. That will allow easy access. Also, if you are to use strobes, you might want to be careful about shooting directly in front of them on their descent. It would be very distracting. A side angle or even an up-down shot from behind might be better. On the rise, I would feel a bit freer to get close and do face-shots as they near the surface. Distraction isn't an issue so much and I think people really wouldn't mind getting their pictures taken "in action".

Just a couple thoughts, anyway. Hope it was of assistance.

--John