ReadyDiverOne
Contributor
Outstanding!! Thanks!
How on earth did you get so close to the Eagle Rays?? Zoom??
How on earth did you get so close to the Eagle Rays?? Zoom??
Photos (something for almost everyone--from eagle rays to seahorses)
- Thread starter cozcharlie
- Start date
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jlyle
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You're right, small scorpionfish is not mushroom scorpionfish. There are no little mushroom shaped flaps at the top of the eye. Good find.
@cozcharlie - what camera and lighting are you using? These are fantastic!! I'm using a TG6 with a SeaDragon light (not strobe) and have been very happy - but your pics are several levels above mine and I'm quite green with envy! 
OP
cozcharlie
Contributor
@cozcharlie - what camera and lighting are you using? These are fantastic!! I'm using a TG6 with a SeaDragon light (not strobe) and have been very happy - but your pics are several levels above mine and I'm quite green with envy!
Expensive set up for what is still a compact camera . Sony RX100 VII /Nauticam housing /pair of sea and sea YS D3 strobes / Nauticam CMC 1 and CMC 2 macro wet lenses.
On surface interval now. Rest of group saw 12 foot hammerhead at Dalila but I was too far behind to get even so so pictures. Seriously. Saw closer turtle and eagle ray but didn’t bother with pics since they would have been OK at best.
The super close up eagle rays were at Cedral—no zoom. Current basically pushed me into eagle ray until we both had to swerve. The group of eagle rays was part zoom and a lot of Lightroom adjustments since it was way too dark because I wasn’t set up for first low viz pictures and had to make a bunch of adjustments on the fly.
Steelyeyes
Contributor
Fantastic shots!!
ReadyDiverOne
Contributor
Can you tell me what wide angle lens you are shooting? I'm thinking of moving up from my trusty RX 100 Mark 1 (!!) to a newer model. I took this with the Mark 1:
Thanks!
Thanks!
OP
cozcharlie
Contributor
Awesome photo! If you can take photos like that you obviously don't need an upgrade
I have Nauticam Wet Wide Lens-C (Nauticam wide angle for compacts), but I actually don't use it very often. It seems to be a pretty well thought-of lens, but I just don't use it enough to have an opinion.
I just use the standard port on the nauticam housing for non-macro shots and then use the flip diopter for macro shots. Have the bayonet mount for the wide angle lens so I can theoretically change out underwater, but that lens is too big to put anywhere underwater if I am not using it. I know real photographers love the wide angle, but I like the flexibility of diving without it and being able to fairly quickly jump between large subjects and small subjects. Can't use much of zoom range if using the wide angle because it requires a shorter port on the housing. RX100 has 200MM equivalent zoom with the standard port, but only a fraction of that with short port. I am thinking of using the wide angle more in January (which basically guarantees a herd of seahorses will swim by), ping me via PM to see what the results were if I don't mention them.
One thing I have mentioned before is that the bigger zoom on the Mark VII (and VI) means that camera not very good at all for macro without wet lens. Just be aware of that if switching.
OP
cozcharlie
Contributor
Kimela,
I forgot to mention a couple of things while I was typing on the surface interval. People love the TG6 for macro, so if you don't like your macro shots my first guess would be the fact that you are using a light as opposed to a strobe. Don't know, but that would be a guess. Second point I was going to make is that I haven't been doing this for long at all. I basically started fooling around with non-GoPro cameras this summer (I carried a GoPro in my pocket starting last fall). I had a camera I had fooled around with on a couple of dozen dives 10 years ago, but hadn't touched it until this July. Bought the Sony camera in August.
Bottom line is that I am pretty certain I am not in the top dozen photographers in the Cozumel chatroom (and not in top 100 on scubaboard), so I would place the opinions of jlyle or Cicopo or one of the more experienced photographers way above mine. I get a fair number of decent pictures because I am in the water quite a bit, not because of skill or my deep knowledge of photography. I try to answer photography questions when asked, but I am definitely not an expert.
EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention is that I do use Adobe Lightroom to edit photos, that may be a decent part of the differences you are seeing. Obviously no photo editing software will fix focus, composition etc, but it can help fix a lot of issues you may run into underwater (backscatter, white balance off, under/over exposed, photo looks better cropped etc). I am sure photo purists prefer 100% of the original image with no fixes whatsoever, but shooting underwater in current that is asking a lot. Just to be clear, I am not doing artistic double exposures, cutting and pasting from one photo to another etc--I am just trying to fix what I didn't get right underwater. As I had mentioned, the picture of the 4 eagle rays was really awful as shot since I definitely wasn't set up for low light from a distance--probably had to make 20 different adjustments to fix what I had screwed up underwater. If it had been a picture of 1 eagle ray and not 4 of I would have just deleted it.
ReadyDiverOne
Contributor
Awesome photo! If you can take photos like that you obviously don't need an upgrade
I have Nauticam Wet Wide Lens-C (Nauticam wide angle for compacts), but I actually don't use it very often. It seems to be a pretty well thought-of lens, but I just don't use it enough to have an opinion.
I just use the standard port on the nauticam housing for non-macro shots and then use the flip diopter for macro shots. Have the bayonet mount for the wide angle lens so I can theoretically change out underwater, but that lens is too big to put anywhere underwater if I am not using it. I know real photographers love the wide angle, but I like the flexibility of diving without it and being able to fairly quickly jump between large subjects and small subjects. Can't use much of zoom range if using the wide angle because it requires a shorter port on the housing. RX100 has 200MM equivalent zoom with the standard port, but only a fraction of that with short port. I am thinking of using the wide angle more in January (which basically guarantees a herd of seahorses will swim by), ping me via PM to see what the results were if I don't mention them.
One thing I have mentioned before is that the bigger zoom on the Mark VII (and VI) means that camera not very good at all for macro without wet lens. Just be aware of that if switching.
Wow, coming from you and those shots that's quite a compliment, thanks!
But I entirely get what you mean re the wide angle wet lens--they're really heavy, even with a bayonet system it's not realistic to stow them on an arm, and then there's the vignetting. So I am amazed that you took the "wide angle" shots with no wide angle lens. Am I right, just the RX100 through the lens, no wet lens at all?
Thanks, this is really helpful.
ReadyDiverOne
Contributor
Awesome photo! If you can take photos like that you obviously don't need an upgrade
I have Nauticam Wet Wide Lens-C (Nauticam wide angle for compacts), but I actually don't use it very often. It seems to be a pretty well thought-of lens, but I just don't use it enough to have an opinion.
I just use the standard port on the nauticam housing for non-macro shots and then use the flip diopter for macro shots. Have the bayonet mount for the wide angle lens so I can theoretically change out underwater, but that lens is too big to put anywhere underwater if I am not using it. I know real photographers love the wide angle, but I like the flexibility of diving without it and being able to fairly quickly jump between large subjects and small subjects. Can't use much of zoom range if using the wide angle because it requires a shorter port on the housing. RX100 has 200MM equivalent zoom with the standard port, but only a fraction of that with short port. I am thinking of using the wide angle more in January (which basically guarantees a herd of seahorses will swim by), ping me via PM to see what the results were if I don't mention them.
One thing I have mentioned before is that the bigger zoom on the Mark VII (and VI) means that camera not very good at all for macro without wet lens. Just be aware of that if switching.
Ah, re-read your post, now I get it. Must say I really like your approach. I shot the grouper with an Inon 100 wide angle, which is small enough that I can put it in a pocket and switch to my Inon macro lens. So maybe that's just going to good enough for me. I bought a super wide angle and I don't love it.
And @Kimela he's right, Lightroom can do tons for your photos as can (believe it or not) Apple Photos nowadays but I have to say that the RX100 VII is a really SUPER camera that can do things ordinary mortals just can't. Don't want to sound like a, well, you know) but that camera is just far far superior in a ton of ways to what you're shooting. And, on top of that, @cozcharlie is shooting with super high-powered strobes. So all of that = in part much better results (obviously, operator ability--here quite excellent--always plays a major role).
Thanks all.
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