How to improve Wide Angle Shots

I have just got hold of the olympus wide angle lens

and using it with a olympus C40z and pt-012

The task loading was just too much for me. Metering,

shooting manual, playing around with shutter and f/stops

The following gallery is taken with the above config

http://alantis.bravepages.com/2002_09_bali...ben3/index.html

would appreciate any pointers as you can see that most of the pics are

over-exposed.

For pointers and some of my experiences with essentially the same setup, click on the following URL.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...aphy/index.html

For pointers and some of my experiences with essentially the same setup, click on the following URL.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...aphy/index.html

You used the phrase "Task loading was too much for me" which may be something of more concern than the over exposed photos. Regardless of what is going on in with your camera dont forget you have placed yourself in an enviroment that can be very unforgiving. Dont lose sight of your diving requirments while trying to make a good image.

One topic that isnt covered much in these forums are diving skills that should predate photo skills.

Raymond,

first of all, some of your photos are really nice, especially the ones with the batfish.

In some others that seem to be overexposed you pointed the camera to the bottom (like the school of jacks) and/or the pictures were taken with too much distance for the strobe. Try to get closer and point the camera slightly upwards (not into the direction of the sun) to catch some ambient light.

I think that your wreck pictures are correctly exposed but the visibility in Tulamben is not very good (i dived there 3 weeks later) i.e. not good enough for wide angle wreck scenes. With F2.8 you don't have enough depth of field for those kind of pictures.

If you want to shoot wide angle under those conditions, try to find something nice and colorful in the foreground to light up with your strobe or let your buddy shine his dive light and make him your main motive.

"Task loading was too much for me"

Your camera allows you to check the picture afterwards. You should be able to recognise an under- or overexposed picture on your display.

Start with a reasonable setting, make a test shoot, check and adjust. A wreck won't swim away, so you have lot's of time to find the correct setting.

Next try to compose your pictures (as you did in the ones with the batfish or the soft coral). Shooting your buddy from the back will never turn out right even if the picture is correctly exposed.

Good luck and better visibility for your next dives,

Sabine

Hi snoack

I was trying to experiment with the wide angle lens for the first time, as such was not too selective about my subjects. On that dive, figured that the wreck was well "out of range" for my strobe and decided to turn it off. Though that it will do nothing but cause back scatter and still not light up the subject. Ended up trying to play with the appreture and shutter speed to get a reasonable exposure. Which was why it ended with F2.8.

Another question, it is right to say that for wide angle shots, the F-stops does not affect the DOF that much? rather it affects the amount of ambient light.

Hi nemo

Totally agree that diving skill should predate photo skills.

Another thing that all should note is that underwater photography can be very engrossing, in fact, too engrossing.

Just to share, personally I was in a situation where i was so engrossed in taking photos that I was nearly out of air. Although I was not very deep (about 12- 15m), I spended so much time taking shots that my computer went into decom. Although I was constantly checking my air and my depth, did not occur to me at that point in time that I could actually go into decom.

(lame excuse for not looking at the computer). Prior to discovering that i was in decom, I though that i had the situation under control as i knew how much air i needed to end the dive but the decom stop threw my calculations off.

When i did discover it, went up to 5m for the decom stop, the computer required me to do a 5min decom stop there. Shared air with another diver for about 2-3 mins and ended the episode (lucky without incident)

It was really a lesson for me. And for all others, trust me, this is not the best way to learn and is totally not acceptable as it puts your buddy in potential danger too. As with every dive, expect the unexpected and take all possible precautions for the unexpected.

By the way, my eariler mail on task loading was actually refering to trying to shoot in manual mode for my cam for the first time and since my flash does not have TTL, it also has to be control manually, was thus very difficult to make all the calculations in "realtime" esp on moving subjects.