Awsome shots! What settings did you have the G9 and flash on? Fully automatic or aperture priority? What ASA did you use?
George, Apalachin, NY.
I shoot almost entirely in Aperture priority mode. By the end of the week I had figured out to set the custom settings- C1 for Macro and C2 for larger field of view.
For C1/Macro, I used auto white balance, ISO 100, aperture pri, spot metering and focus, force flash and a few other settings for picture review etc (I like to have the picture review stay up until I pull the trigger again). I used the safety-mf focus setting, turned off safety-shift (adjusts iso for camera shake), turned off the focus light, set it on continuous IS.
For C2/Wide I used "underwater" WB, upped the flash output by about 1/2 stop, and essentially the same other configs.
I have the left top button- the one that is assignable set to custom wb. BTW, the arm that actuates this button is the most frustrating part of the housing, if it is not set up correctly when you assemble it, you can shift the camera out of position a bit, or create a pinch on the o-ring when closing it.
For Video I use continuous IS and towards the end of the week figured out that I really needed to set wb before any shots.
For the strobe, I used S-TTL and would occasionally take it up or down a click or two (1/3 stop each?) If I was under or over-exposing, I would normally make the adjustments with the flash control on the camera or the EV adjustment. Occasionally I would adjust the iso to 80 or 200. The strobe recovered/recharged quickly. I never ran out of batteries on it, I changed them daily. 3-5 dives a day. The focus/spotting light is pretty bright, I used it without the red filter. It's brighter than most lights people were using on night dives (not close to my lights for the Nortwhest, but plenty bright).
The camera ran out of power once. I think I had left the display on and it was on between dives and ran down.
I still don't know for sure what EV adjustment actually does- whether it changes ISO, aperture or shutter speed, or if it does some of each intelligently- I just know it works. If I'm going for a near-subject properly exposed, back dark (e.g.
Faucet.net Gallery :: TC2007-12 :: IMG_1142) then I would up the flash output as needed and leave EV alone. If I wanted the full frame more exposed I would adjust EV up and up the flash. A few times I tried max-flash, but never got what I was looking for. Practice!
By the end of the week, dives typically went like this, drop down to the top of the wall/sand at around 55-70, set wb for video and sometimes for wide angle (c2), either drop on the wall if part of a larger group or hang for a few minutes looking at macro stuff on the wall (and when lucky sharks cruising the top) until the group moves on, then depending on what my buddy and I were doing that dive, either poking along the top of the wall or dropping down it looking for things on the wall for 10-15 minutes (resetting wb when at 90-100), then back on top of the wall making our way back to the boat (wb again!), then 15-20 minutes working through the coral heads/grass while using up our gas/bottom time.
My only complaints about the camera are that I've never been impressed with it's internal flash and I'm not 100% happy with it's exposure control. I might try it with a friends ds-125 and see if the ikelite TTL does any better. I'm thinking its a camera issue, because I ran into the same issues doing land based macro work with the built in flash.
I got better as the week went by- I'm looking forward to playing with it here in the Puget Sound and then taking it on the next warm-water trip!
Let me know if you have any other questions!