Any advice to learn quickly?

[Griswoldstahl]

Just purchased the Olympus PEN PL-2 setup from Fred at Backscatter, with the Zen Dome and 9-18 wide angle. Just ordered SDHC Class 6 cards for it, so that I can practice with the camera on land first. I have taken manual 35mm underwater before, but this is a huge step up for me and any advice is greatly appreciated. Fred was great to give me some one on one pointers at the shop and 'cheat sheets'. Highly recommend Backscatter for Q&A and great prices. Leaving for Fiji in late July for two weeks of SCUBA and fun. New camera was for taking pictures of my daughter as she gets SCUBA qualified at the old age of 12 y/o, lol.

 

[under water]

Greg,
I posted a while back my experiences with the E-PL1, 9-18 lens and the Zen dome in this thread >
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ol...some-pictures-review-my-e-pl1-underwater.html
Major take-aways..
1. Make sure you shoot at f7 or higher to avoid softness on edges.
2. Practice using manual settings on the camera before you take your trip.
3. Use a strap wrench to help change between Zen and std ports.
4. If you can, jump in the water before you leave to get some practice in.

Enjoy Fiji!

 

[chadbeck]

Couple of things that helped me.

Jump in a dive shops, friends, or your pool taking pictures of toys or friends/family

Take pictures on land with the camera in the housing to get used to the buttons and how to go about changing settings.

If you haven't been to Fiji before you are going to love it!

 

[Meyr]

Read read read.
From my 1st dive i still keep the same camera settings.
I only change them if i need to for example aperture.
I only change the aperture if i was using a focus light.
other than that, i just go with 1/320 f5.6 iso100.

 

[Griswoldstahl]

Thanks for the posts. Yeap, I plan to take a lot of photos on land first, then I have two weeks at a lake in Maine and the camera will be getting wet there and take pictures while snorkeling, so that I can get the 'hang of it' before the trip to Fiji. I have not been there before, so not sure what to expect. My best dives with a 35mm camera have been in Belize, so having digital for the first time is going to be a blast, I'm sure.

 

[jrf41680]

When you are shooting underwater with the EPL2 on the Dial mode (Auto, P,A,S,M) which setting are you picking? I just got my cameral today and I have a week to figure it out before I head to Bonaire.

 

[PatW]

OK. I don't use the olympus. I use the Canon G11.

You are doing the right thing learning your camera on land. I would first just run around and take photos with it. Then take the photos and do the post processing with them to get a feel for the final product. The next step would be to run around on land with the camera in its housing and take photos. If you can go into a pool and goof around with it. Better yet, if you can get in a couple of training dives with it, that would help. The more dialed in you are with your system the better.

My first suggestion is to shoot RAW. RAW allows you to adjust white balance in post processing. It also gives you far more latitude to adjust highlights and shadows. Taking photos underwater can be really tricky so every extra edge you can get is very important.

My second suggestion is to have a strobe and better yet 2 strobes. You lose the red colors at 15' under 50' everything is green and blue. Only blue remains after 80'. If you want colors, you need the strobe. I have found for longer shots, 2 strobes give much better coverage. Also with one strobe, often there is a pronounced shadow behind the subject. With 2 stobes, any shadow effect is greatly reduced. Another good thing that 2 strobes can do is greatly reduce apparent backscatter. Backscatter is produced by the little debris in the water lighting up in the strobe and looking like a snowstorm. If you put your strobes as far apart as they will go, the little particles act as mirrors but they shoot the light off to the side and not into your lens.

My third suggestion is to get close. Even at very high visibility situations, water has all sorts of stuff floating around in it. It is like shooting in a dust storm, at night, in the rain (yeah dust and rain don't fit). So the closer the better. Also even at 5', the light has a 10' round trip. If you want reds in your photo, even 8' will lose them because that is a 16' round trip. I have pretty much decided that 5' is about the maximum range for shooting. If at all possible, you want to get closer than that. It is better to shoot at 2' at a wide angle setting than at 5' zoomed out.

I have switched over to shooting pretty much on manual. I usually set my F stop at 4 and vary my shutter speed. I shoot at ISO 100.

I shoot at a pretty low F stop because of diffraction limitations. If I shoot at a high F stop, I am losing resolution because of my small sensor. You have an advantage wtih your Olympus in that I think you do not run into diffraction problems until you get up to an F stop of about 10 because of your larger sensor. Also, with my configuration, I am pretty limited at the wide angle side. From what I have seen your system has far better wide angle capabilities.

Also, take a bunch of photos. Shoot and look at your shot, adjust your camera and shoot again.

 

[under water]

OK. I don't use the olympus. I use the Canon G11.

...
I have switched over to shooting pretty much on manual. I usually set my F stop at 4 and vary my shutter speed. I shoot at ISO 100.
I shoot at a pretty low F stop because of diffraction limitations. If I shoot at a high F stop, I am losing resolution because of my small sensor. You have an advantage wtih your Olympus in that I think you do not run into diffraction problems until you get up to an F stop of about 10 because of your larger sensor. Also, with my configuration, I am pretty limited at the wide angle side. From what I have seen your system has far better wide angle capabilities.

Also, take a bunch of photos. Shoot and look at your shot, adjust your camera and shoot again.

Those are good overall suggestions.
However, with the 9-18 WA lens and the ZEN dome, shooting at F4 will not produce good results. My experience with that combination shows blurry edges. (see link in earlier post).
You are right in that with a larger sensor in the E-PLx, you have advantages. One of them is lower noise at higher ISO, so ISO 400 works well as a base.
In the E-PL1, ISO 100 was not recommended. They did some adjustments in the new model and now 100 is acceptable. I think they adjusted where ISO 100 really was and bumped it up so that it really is higher than 100.
I honestly have never seen refraction become a problem in U/W shots, so I wouldn't let that become too much of a concern, even above F10.
Camera and creature motion tend to more of a concern (even with strobe) and that is what usually pushes you to need wider apertures to increase the shutter speed at a given ISO. Of course, as you suggest, getting closer and having good strobes helps that a lot.

 

[PatW]

Those are good overall suggestions.
However, with the 9-18 WA lens and the ZEN dome, shooting at F4 will not produce good results. My experience with that combination shows blurry edges. (see link in earlier post).
You are right in that with a larger sensor in the E-PLx, you have advantages. One of them is lower noise at higher ISO, so ISO 400 works well as a base.
In the E-PL1, ISO 100 was not recommended. They did some adjustments in the new model and now 100 is acceptable. I think they adjusted where ISO 100 really was and bumped it up so that it really is higher than 100.
I honestly have never seen refraction become a problem in U/W shots, so I wouldn't let that become too much of a concern, even above F10.
Camera and creature motion tend to more of a concern (even with strobe) and that is what usually pushes you to need wider apertures to increase the shutter speed at a given ISO. Of course, as you suggest, getting closer and having good strobes helps that a lot.

Underwater,

I think if you had actually read my post, you would have noticed that I did not suggest that she use the same settings I use. I am using a different camera. I mentioned that I use F4 but that with her larger sensor, she could easily use F10.

I use base ISO with the G11 because things degrade quickly from there. Also, with strobes, I usually do not have any problem at all at base ISO. Her situation will probably be different.

regards.

PatW

 

[under water]

Sorry Pat,
I was elaborating on what you said, not criticizing it. Just wanted Greg to be sure he understood the difference between your G11 experience and his setup.