G-10 w/ Fisheye and S&S 110 strobe

[promocop]

What are the 'real world' (underwater) settings you guys are using to get the pics out this set up?

 

[jaybombs25]

It all depends on the conditions. In darker/murkier water you may want to use a shutter speed which is a little slower to allow a bit more light in ex. 1/30 - 1/40 and an f stop of 5.6 and up .... If the water is clear with a lot of ambiant light, I use higher f stops and shutter speeds up to 1/160. It all really depends on what type of effect you are trying to produce in the shot and what the conditions are like. If you are going for the black background you may want to use shutter speeds as high as 1/1250 to allow a lot less light to produce these all black/dark backgrounds which can make a photo that much more interesting. The best advice I can give you is to go out there and dive dive dive and eventually you will gain the experince to know what will work under what circumstances. When you find settings which you find work well for a lot of shots, I'd suggest saving them into C1 and C2, these can be a huge help for switching on the fly.

 

[promocop]

Thanks. i'm a very good land photog so I get the concepts. My U/W stuff sucks. I have been experimenting but cant seem to get the exposure spot on. In TTL I can never figure out if its better to adjust the exp comp on the top left of the housing or adjust the flash comp on the camera. There are so many things to think about whilst U/W that I want to simplfy the process. I get close enough, its just that the exp is not quite there. any suggestions for a starting point set up?

 

[jim2386]

Thanks. i'm a very good land photog so I get the concepts. My U/W stuff sucks. I have been experimenting but cant seem to get the exposure spot on. In TTL I can never figure out if its better to adjust the exp comp on the top left of the housing or adjust the flash comp on the camera. There are so many things to think about whilst U/W that I want to simplfy the process. I get close enough, its just that the exp is not quite there. any suggestions for a starting point set up?

For all my ocean diving I pretty much leave the shutter speed at 1/60th of a second. That is about as low as you can go without having some sort of motion blur (image stabilization helps but I don't count on it). This leaves me with only Aperture and flash brightness to worry about. Typically I start with the highest Fstop I have, F8 and the flash on high and take a few pictures.

As the poster said above, the rest is based on conditions. In the ocean with the sun overhead, I can shoot at F8 and 3/4 bright flash and get good pictures. However, if it's later in the day and you use those settings you'll notice your subject will be lit but the background will be black due to less ambient light. To counteract that, I typically move to F5.x and turn the flash brightness down to 50%. This lights the subject nicely but leaves the aperture open wider to let in more ambient light. If that's still not enough, I bump the iso up to 200 or so but only as a last resort to avoid digital noise.

You say you're pretty familiar with photography so you probably already know this but remember the lower your Fstop the less depth of field you will have to be more careful to make sure your camera locks onto your subject because the DOF is less forgiving than when you're at F8.0 or higher.

Hope this helps a little. Of course nothing replaces practice. But this is usally where I start.

-Jim

 

[promocop]

Yes it does help and I do understand the relationship between The two things. In TLL, the only way too control over/under flash is thru the camera controls right? As in TTL the flash closes down or opens the cameras shutter. got that. i guess I'm looking for simplicy. with diving as you know LOTS going on U/W!!!

 

[Warmwater Wank]

PC--Ok, let's clear up something. Are you aware you can reduce the flash output using the flash's control settings? You had mentioned in another thread you were suddenly getting overexposed shots using TTL. The S-TTL on the YS110A simply allows the 110A to go on and off when the camera flash does, no other control is available via this hookup.

If you are too close, w/too low of an f/stop #, using a high ISO, at full flash output etc. well, you can vary any or all of these things to control the exposure (not that using more variables is a good exposure approach!). So, if say the 110A dumps too much light onto the scene before the Canon flash shuts down, boink. It's overexposing w/ no way to adjust itself. Which is why you need to adjust the flash output your ownself, using that knob on the lower right, in back. When you reduce the strobe output the camera senses underexposure (since the 110A is no longer hammering the scene). It extends the onboard G10 flash duration and the 110A S-TTL feature keeps it in synch w/ that duration via the fiber optic cable. The G10 flash then shuts down when the sensor says "when" and the 110A follows suit. There is a high probability that using this output adjustment will cure things but there could be other factors.

It's why I like shooting Manual. You will find a fairly consistent exposure for things you shoot a lot (like macro at a certain distance) and will find f/stop & shutter speed remaining pretty constant (unless you decide otherwise...). So now all you do is play with what amounts to be a dimmer switch on the 110A. Even that isn't messed w/ a whole lot. Take a shot, take a look on the screen and if it's too dark or light just crank in a strobe correction, using that "light level control dial" It has 13 increments but there are basic marks for 1/4 or 1/2 output and it's not like you need all the fine tuning once you have a general range to stay in. Hope this helps but if you've already been doing all this let us know. // ww

 

[promocop]

Thanks, got it...except...I thought that little black output dial on the YS would ONLY OPERATE while you were in Manual 1 or Manual 2.. No?

 

[Warmwater Wank]

From the Sea & Sea YS110A manual (p.E22) "In DS-TTL mode you can micro-adjust (dimming only) the light amunt. Adjust the light control dial to decrease the light amount when you get an overexposed image for macro photography etc.". Because i block the on-board strobe (I use a Canon housing) TTL seems a bit erratic for me. In full Manual the variables are pretty easy to control as I stated before but whatever exposure approach you take it's nice if most of the time it does what you want. So, maybe check the "dial it down" approach and see if it gets you back to some consistency, eh? If not... // ww

 

[promocop]

Good advise..thankls I;ll try it

 

[Puffer Fish]

Another method if you use TTL is to just increase the shutter speed. Flash sync goes up to around 1/1000 with an G10, so if you want to get close and reduce the amount of light, just increase your shutter speed. I typically use 1/500 for macro images, just to reduce the total amount of light that gets to the sensor (but does not effect the stobe). Works really well with a G10, does not work with an S90...

My YS110's have that same statement about dimming, but cannot tell the difference, so if it works, it is not that big of an adjustment.