Seacam D2x housing arrives!

Sorry guys but I don't know how to post multiple images in a thread! The following 2 illustrate sunbursts. I shot these with a relatively balanced exposure - much like I would with film - as opposed to stopping way down to preserve the sunball. I think that the results are impressive. I don't find these sunballs distracting at all, and I've been looking at slides only for the past year!

this shot was taken at 90 ft on a choppy day with only 50ft viz and greenish water.

Here is one only 15 ft from the surface on the same day. What I find impressive is that the sunball is relatively intact without the deeper water being badly underexposed.

One last macro shot. You can't appreciate the detail here but if anyone wants I can email them a larger file

Hi Kasey,

Thanks for posting these shots. If you upload them to your own website, you can link them into your post, instead of attaching. Let's you beat the file size limit...

The lady w/ the Ikelite looks familiar...:-)

Cheers

James

Nice stuff, Kasey. Alex

Here is a shot of Dennis, hard at work with the D2X housing. Note that neither strobe was slaved, so that was a kind of difficult shot to get. A mathematician among you might calculate the odds of 2 shooters getting each other's strobes going off at the same time.

Good reflexes steve. I've gotten a shot like this before, but it was completely by accident.

Cheers

James

Good reflexes steve.  I've gotten a shot like this before, but it was completely by accident.

 

Cheers

James

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Flash durations are about 1/500 seconds. With all due respect, I don't think Steve's reflexes are that good.

Here is one only 15 ft from the surface on the same day.  What I find impressive is that the sunball is relatively intact without the deeper water being badly underexposed.

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Hi Kasey, the shots are awesome, but I do see black corners on the top and bottom right of the diver shot. Did you use the 10.5 with the fisheye port?

Luiz

EDIT: I just saw that there is some light coming off of the bottom right corner, so maybe the black corners are the flashes? I had this problem shooting film with the 16mm fisheye, the flashes have to be way back there, behind the sensor plane, otherwise they will appear in the photo.

Luiz - those black corners are actually my strobe arms! I was careful to get my strobes behind the dome, but I wasn't careful enough about my 1st arm. Took me a little time to figure it out after the dive!

Note that neither strobe was slaved, so that was a kind of difficult shot to get. 

Oops ... forgot the sarcastic emoticon Herb is right about it being accidental. However, with a 4GB card and a quickly recycling strobe, good accidents can happen. So can crap, unfortunately

This may be old news for those few among us that have been shooting 1Ds for a while, but for me, the resolution and color from my D2x is still amazing. After every macro dive I am awed by detail that I've never seen with my eye, on film, or with my D100! I'm not sure where Nikon can go from here... THis camera was MADE to be shot underwater!

I've never been one to make a big deal of the camera in my hands - in fact this is the 1st time I've raved about the image quality of any digital (in comparison to velvia). This camera and housing make the greatest tool I've ever handled uw - and I am confident I'll be getting better results than ever!!!

Great to hear you so happy with your new kit, Kasey.

The composition on that decorator crab shot is awesome.

Alex

p.s. to back track a bit it is pretty easy to catch other people's strobes in your shots (without having strobes set to slave). It is not the strobe duration that matters but the shutter speed. For those who push long exposures for scenics these accidents happen pretty regularly. When we were testing the Magic Filter in the Red Sea we actually had a few shots with strobe light (from other people in - hardcore colours when you mix filters and strobes)!

Hi Kasey,

Have you had a chance to try your 10.5mm with the Seacam D2x yet?

If so, what port(s) are you using?

Jeremy Brookfield

Seacam D2X&D1X, 12-24mm, 60mm.105m,2x Seacam 150 TTL-

p.s. to back track a bit it is pretty easy to catch other people's strobes in your shots (without having strobes set to slave). It is not the strobe duration that matters but the shutter speed. For those who push long exposures for scenics these accidents happen pretty regularly. When we were testing the Magic Filter in the Red Sea we actually had a few shots with strobe light (from other people in - hardcore colours when you mix filters and strobes)!

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Alex, you are absolutely right, it is the same as photographing lightining. If you know more or less when they will happen and use a slow speed you will eventually get one. Now, the other day I saw two pictures, both with strobe light taken by two different photographers. They were both photographing a shark, much like Steve's photo, and ended up photographing each other's flashes. Steve, did the other photographer get your strobe firing too?

p.s. to back track a bit it is pretty easy to catch other people's strobes in your shots (without having strobes set to slave). It is not the strobe duration that matters but the shutter speed. For those who push long exposures for scenics these accidents happen pretty regularly. When we were testing the Magic Filter in the Red Sea we actually had a few shots with strobe light (from other people in - hardcore colours when you mix filters and strobes)!

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Yes. Chances are good that with lots of long exposure shots you'll catch somebody else's strobes. However, I was just pointing out that it's not possible see strobe light and catch it with "fast reflexes".

I was joking too Herb, boy has this thread taken a fork in the road! lol.

Cheers

James

Hi Kasey,

 

Have you had a chance to try your 10.5mm with the Seacam D2x yet?

If so, what port(s) are you using? 

Jeremy Brookfield

Seacam D2X&D1X, 12-24mm, 60mm.105m,2x Seacam 150 TTL-

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The WA shots I posted above were all shot with the 10.5 behind the superdome!

I came back from a diving trip (Bonaire) a few days ago and made +30 dives with the D2X in a Seacam-housing. Since the housing was only

delivered the day before I went on vacation, I was NOT able to test anything before I went on vacation...

Changing from an F5 to digital, I didn't want to give up TTL-flash, and buyed 2 Seacam-housings for the SB800. Because there was so much to test, I left my "old flashes" (Subtronic Megacolor, Inon Ringflash & YS350) at home. (mistake!)

Working with one SB800-flash was no problem. TTL-worked very good and the power-module of the flash-housing is amazing. (don't espect the power and recycling time of a Subtronic Megacolor)

PROBLEM : When I connected two SB800 together, the flashlights were giving a kind of preflashes (without touching the trigger). Maybe it's not possible to work with 2 flashes SB800 together, maybe I have to use another program on the flashes, maybe I have to change something with the housing... I hope somebody of you guys can give me the solution. Wide-angle with one SB800 is impossible... Macro works fine...

After more than 30 dives with the D2X, I realise that living without TTL-flash with this system is no problem...

My friends topside photographers told me that the SB800 is fantastic and my UW-flashes are like a dinosaur. Topside the SB800 is realy fantastic (balanced light etc...) but underwater the dinosaur UW-flashes are not (yet) history.

I didn't want to ennoy you with other comments, but this combination (D2X / SEACAM) is realy a dream. I used two systems of viewfinders:

the small PRO VIEWFINDER & the big S45. The S45 gives a better view than the actionfinder of my F5 but the normal (small) PRO VIEWFINDER gives also a very good view (which is NOT the case when you use it with a D70 / my opinion).

PROBLEM :  When I connected two SB800 together.....

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And there is your problem right there B)

SB-800's do not like being wired together, particularly if both think they should be the master. If you hold down the "SEL" control for a couple of seconds, you'll get a popup menu that will allow you (amongst a plethora of other choices) to set it to SU-4 mode, which mimics another flash as a remote slave. Assuming that the housings are see through (are they??), then you could control one master flash using a strobe cord and the second strobe would mimic the first, giving you matrix TTL. (not that you need that ).

The big proviso here is that the strobe housings need to admit enough light for the slaved unit to be triggered. You may get enough through the front port from backscatter, I have been amazed at how far apart the SB800's can work when using the creative lighting system, and they often work spectacularly well with very remotely bounced light as their trigger.