60 mm overexposed

Hey all, I seem to be clueless with my 60 macro in shallow water. No matter what settings I try, I seem to get washed out, overexposed images. Shallow equals 30 feet or less...I first turned the two Sea and Sea 120's completely off, then, at f32 and a 640 shutter, results are just a fuzz better....ISO 200, matix or spot, white balance auto or cloudy-2, or direct sunlight....any suggestions? Thanks in advance, for the great advice always given here! I Love this place!

Aurabest,

john

Hi John,

The first thing i would say is to test the rig shooting it on land. Start at F22, and ramp the power right down on your 120s using the ROC. Certainly on 1/4 power on the 120s and at f22 + 1/180th you should not be too overexposed.

I have to say if your camera is over exposing at f32 + 1/640th shutter speed then it sounds like there is a serious problem.

Stick another lens on and try it out of the housing on land. If it works try it with the 60mm out of the housing on land. If that works - sounds like the problem is coming from the housing. So put it in the housing and fire it on land with one strobe attached. If it still works try another strobe etc etc.

And then report back! And we can get to the bottom of it.

Alex

Thanks Alex, I will head out again this morning...The Queen's Birthday has given me the day off and I will head back up to Turtle Farm...Yesterday I tried the strobes on full, backed all the way off with ROC, then, TTL, and 1/2 power and all got the same results, I finally turned the strobes completely off...I have no problems with the 105 in similar conditions.....I will keep you posted...will post an image with shooting data...thanks again,

john

Could the aperature be broken?

Try this. Strobes off. Take one picture at F/2.8 second picture at F/32. Both same shutter speed and ISO. Are the resulting pictures exposed differently?

Thanks for that consideration William...just did a quick test on my monitor...seems to be no difference in exposure from 3.3 to f32...tried it again on my bride....same result...AHA! We have found the answer!!! Thanks for that!! Good thing my wife is heading to New York next week...maybe it can be fixed!!!

You people ROCK at wetpixel.com!!!!

Glad I could help.

Good skills William.

So John is in the Caribbean and has a problem. Gets suggestions and help to solve it from Europe and Australia.

You are right John. Wetpixel definitely rocks!

Alex

Good skills William.

 

So John is in the Caribbean and has a problem. Gets suggestions and help to solve it from Europe and Australia.

 

You are right John. Wetpixel definitely rocks!

 

Alex

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The real question is how did we manage to have someone from the caribbean, europe, and australia on at the same time.......You'd think that it'd have to be night somewhere. Does no one here sleep?

I was sleeping

Okay guys, what a difference a working lens makes...just got back from the Turtle Farm and the 105 macro seems to work much better. The 60 will travel to NYC for repairs next week...I wanted to post pix from the 60 yesterday and one from today, but I couldn't bare to post such junk...here is a "right out of the camera" from about an hour ago...just the image size was changed to fit on here and for a quick load...Thanks again for the help!

Aurabest,

john

one more.....

off today Giles?

john

Don't know whether this was the problem here, but it might be useful info anyway. The 60mm micro Nikkor can be damaged by using some non-Nikon rear caps. If they are too short, they press down on some sections which bear on a plastic section inside the lens - which breaks. It needs an expensive full strip down of the lens to replace (as a friend discovered to his high cost). The symptoms were many overexposed frames as the broken section meant that the lens would not fully stop down, and after he had originally blamed the flash, I finally spotted the real culprit when checking the lens diaphragm using the stop down button. I think that he was using an old Sigma rear cap but can't be sure now.

Nice piccies for straight out the camera ..

no i'm not off today .. well i am now .. early day .. going to go home in a few minutes but dont have the energy today to come up diving .. I might well be up for something this weekend .. i don't know yet though .. weekend after is my birthday .. so anything involving soberness or lack of women will be somethign i am not doing.

Here is a test to check the diaphragm on a Nikon lens, photo 1 is tha diaphragm actuating lever of the lens, move it with your finger and you should see the diaphragm open and close as you move the lever, another problem area is the body diaphragm mechanism which can be bent on occasion by a sloppy lens (read 4 foot seas on a narrow boat) installation, the lever's face should always be parallel to the lens mount. it's a good idea to check if a diaphragm work once in a while since they are but one of the few mechanical parts left on a camera and thus are prone to problem from corosion, impact, oil deposit on the blades when the lens is subjected to severe heat (not a problem in Canada ) or just plain spring failure. hope for a low Cuenta .

Another thing don't drop it like I just did to mine last week, it really screw's up the focus

Regards

Well...maybe the lack of wimmen.

Thanks Paul, Jean....Just now conducted the test as advised..... , it's toast....don't know where or when....maybe a sigma rear cap....at any end this lens needs repair...I am just thankful for everyone's help as over the past month I have pulled what's left of my gray hair out and beaten myself up over being just horrible with a camera....could not have sorted it out without y'all!! Thanks!!! Hopefully Nikon can fix it and it wont cost the amount of a new one....maybe they will take it on trade for the first round of bevies at Giles birthday party!!

Aurabest,

john

Mmmmmmmmmmm. I think you would need more colateral to trade, maybe your complete photo kit, as from what I hear, Giles party are anything but a sober affair, Happy birthay Giles, I'll have a cold one to your health