Nikon D70 Hints & Tips Please......

Hi All

to Follow Alex M's theme on coming off TTL ........

My name is craig and i'm just coming of Hard Transparencies after Appox 6 years.

Got myself rigged up with a Sea & Sea housing for my D70 using my SB-105's and a 15mm FE along with 60mm micro

any tips regarding Usage and camera Menu settings i.e WB etc would be most welcome

obviously i'm shooting manual flash & Raw

thanks

craig

p.s I'm having a little trouble getting my Backgrounds that wonderful blue i'd normally get with a slide .....????

How about posting some examples.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...ettings_d70.htm

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...s_d70_notes.htm

etc.

First thing I found was that underwater using the menus is a lot easier than changing ISO or WB by pressing a button and turning a wheel.

I mostly shoot manual but for natural light and balanced light shots I sometimes use program mode. I find it works well and you can easily change the shutter/aperture combination used.

I've played with the WB and tried using a preset. It works well sometimes but for nice blues in wide angle shots I prefer the cloudy or shade settings. When flash is the main illumination I use the flash setting.

I like the single area AF and AF-S. Some people prefer AF-C but this allows shots to be taken without the autofocussing locking on. I guess I'm just heavy handed but I find it just to easy to press the shutter button that bit too far when trying to focus.

Thanks ken,

I took it for a splash in capernwray quarry up north at the weekend, viz was as you'd expect Crap used the camera in manual mainly.

thanks for your info on iso wb settings using the menu, good tip that i did find it a handfull using the normal method of button/dial

regards

craig

are you setting any in camera enhancements or i.e Sat +

I personally think that one should shoot raw and get a huge 2 gig card. Then post processing you can change the white balance, exposure, etc..

A general rule of thumb is shoot at around 1/125th of a sec and F11 shallower than 60 feet and F8 when deeper if there is a bright carribean sun. Obviously, you bracket from there. I always shoot in manual mode. I also programed the Auto Exposure lock button on the back to be my auto focus so I can focus first then shoot without accidentally pressing the shutter before recomposing.

Tony

As critter says if you shoot RAW you can adjust the white balance during post processing. Trying different settings at this stage allows to fine tune the WB. I like to use a setting that is going to get me close on the first viewing and change or fine tune as needed.

I have my camera set to vivid but find that this only makes a difference if I use Nikon View and doesn't appear to make any difference if I use the Photoshop RAW convertor. I tend to look at the picture in Nikon View and use Photoshop when I want the extra power of the Adobe file convertor.

I got rid of Picture Project and downloaded the free Nikon View instead, I find it a much better program.

Since you mentioned Capenwray I've attached a couple of shots taken up there to show the effects of the WB settings. Both were shot using a preset made using a white slate. On the trout I think this probably gives the best result as the trout colours show up well. On the diver shot I think the direct sunlight setting gives a better result as it gives the water a nice blue colour.

Diver shots referred to in previous post. Board wouldn't let me put them all in one post.

Nice trout! Looks like an old fella. It looks like there are a lot of them.

Cheers

James

There are a lot of them. They a so used to divers they hang around the entry slip hoping for food. They're only in about 2 metres most of the time. The biggest problem is that the vis deteriorates fairly quickly with divers getting in and out of the water. They other problem is that we usually go in winter when the water temperature is about 5 degrees C.

Ken

I reckon we should invite anyone interested to the NUPG winter splash-in via wetpixel so that they can try their hand at white-balance and trout!

You know why you aint getting that deep blue? Because the water at Capernwray is GREEN!!!

Here is a shot of Chris I took while you were with us. See what I mean?

Hey Hello John

Thanks for all the info guys,

John, I know cappy is a greenish colour somtimes, but usually i get lovely blues on my Fuji Provia 100 :-)

All info has been entered into the memory banks,

I dont think the weekend shot went that well, I was forced to use a 24mm F2.8 which obviously with the 1.5x factor it was pretty much...... well, no darn good.

i think its just going to take a little time to get used to the transition, My Old Olympus 5060 did a dam good job 99% of the time, i now have my 15mmFE and will try again now i can get MUCH MUCH closer to compose a picture and post the results here.

As for the WINTER splash in, ... would be good fun, but i think i'd rather jet off to somewhere that is WARM ... But...... those BURGERS & Bacon/egg Buns will take some beating.

thanks again all.

will try and get a couple of the shots on the next posting , at work at present......

craig