Nikon D70

[mjh]

Don't know about Ike housings, I use Aquatica. I have been using the 10.5mm last couple of dives. Great for wrecks and big landscape shots. If you have a "central subject" in the shot you almost have to be touching them with your port, it is a specialty lens. As others have said I would consinder the 12-24, 17-35(?) or 18-35 for a little more general use.

 

[f3nikon]

Don't know about Ike housings, I use Aquatica. I have been using the 10.5mm last couple of dives. Great for wrecks and big landscape shots. If you have a "central subject" in the shot you almost have to be touching them with your port, it is a specialty lens. As others have said I would consinder the 12-24, 17-35(?) or 18-35 for a little more general use.

Thanks, your Hawaii pictures are one of the reasons why I am eyeing that lens!

 

[f3nikon]

If you are shooting with an F3, you have rather missed the Nikon flash TTL developments. iTTL is a great tool, and people would be foolish to not take advantage of such a powerful tool.

Happy Shooting!

I understand TTL works fairly well on land shots; I use it myself on my Nikon F3s, N90 and 8008s (not 8080 as you stated). Combine with the SB series of Nikon strobes (see pictures)

As you gain more knowledge of TTL is it applies to Underwater Photography you will see why so many UW photographers shoot in manual mode.

Here are some of the limitations of UW photography:

Shooting at very close subject to camera distances. TTL is fast, but it’s not as fast in shutting off the strobe at very close distances. One must lower the power of the strobe by diffusing or using small aperture openings like f16 or f22 the point and shoots only goes down to f8.0. I can bet that most of your land shots are over 2 feet in shooting distances.

To over come such short shooting distances we have to use very wide-angle lenses. Not to pull back on the distances but to get even closer and at the same time include as much of the picture as possible. Now it gets even worse, wide angles and close distances! Dark Shadow Alley if using a single strobe!

So we’ll need three or more strobes to control the shadows, try TTL on a multi strobe setup! Also with the use of wide-angle lenses, the center metering spot that the TTL sensor is monitoring, just got smaller in reference the size of the picture angle. The TTL sensor does not monitor the areas around the edges! Yes, I have experienced matrix meter TTL, but not UW!

James seems to have first hand knowledge and experience on TTL for UW use maybe he can input on this.

Dive Safe

 

[fdog]

Generally I'm a wide angle shooter. My prime is 20mm with film, and a 14mm f2.8 with digital. My personal taste is rectilinear, because what you see is what you get.

My results for TTL when wide is part of why I shoot manual now. Here's what happened with my typical setup, a SS400 and a SS225 on arms about 30" from center:

>Both on TTL and triggered through a Y-cord: Usually hot on the highlights facing the key light. Exposed reasonabaly on the areas not facing the key strobe (lit by half key, half fill strobe).
>Key strobe on TTL, fill on slave: Subject close to key strobe, highlights blown out. Subject on opposite side, entire frame washed out. Subject in middle, very nice usually.

This is with "standard" TTL, which is to say that the strobes fire once, and the camera triggers a quench.

I can't say I've had a problem with the strobes being too close to quench in time. It's mostly been confused metering.

I have hopes for iTTL, but alas, the interface seems to be the problem. It's just real hard to convince the camera it's connected to a compatable iTTL strobe.

All the best, James