SeaLife DC1200 or Sea&Sea DX-2G

[deeper thoughts]

very nice

 

[hammerhead man]

Plok, very nice pics. I enjoyed viewing the album. What settings did you use on your camera and strobes? Did you use the DS-TTL mode when using your strobes? For your first underwater pictures, you did outstanding. You can use a photo editing program to enhance your pictures. I would suggest Photoshop Elements. It is a reasonably priced program that has a lot of options to adjust your pics.

Regards,

Bill

 

[plok]

Plok, very nice pics. I enjoyed viewing the album. What settings did you use on your camera and strobes? Did you use the DS-TTL mode when using your strobes? For your first underwater pictures, you did outstanding. You can use a photo editing program to enhance your pictures. I would suggest Photoshop Elements. It is a reasonably priced program that has a lot of options to adjust your pics.

Regards,

Bill

Thank you hammerhead man.
Few land pictures are taken at Auto, F4000, Hard, ISO100, JPEG. Camera did a good job for standard conditions.
I shot RAW underwater. That lets correcting some over/under exposures to some degree while that info is lost forever with JPEG compression. That also lets to be better in control over picture quality rather than to relay on camera software. Camera is so nice to record JPEG copy for quick review.
I set ISO100 and never changed it. That is not that I believe that it is the only ISO setting that should be used underwater; some pictures would look better at higher ISO. That is a trade off. However, I didn’t want to experiment with everything at once and certainly didn’t want to let camera controlling it.
I used manual exposure. You can check EXIF data by each picture. Shutter speed was typically set between 1/125th and 1/400th. That doesn’t make any difference with strobes unless you want bluer waters. I used longer shutter for reef photos. Exposure was controlled with aperture and mostly with strobe power. That is easier than it sounds. I was setting it grossly off initially then learned how to set it closer to optimal. I’ve never tried DS-TTL – manual power control only. I am not sure that is the best way to control strobes. If you have a subject filling less than 50% of frame that needs to be properly lit, but it is surrounded by water, then I am afraid there is a high chance for it to be overexposed. Anyway, I haven’t tried the DS-TTL. The camera flash was always manual, set to 1/32nd. It is only needed to trigger external flashes.
I failed to achieve proper DOF control using apperture. There is still so many things to learn...
I have those pictures enhanced somewhat while converting from RAW to JPEG. I edited white balance, blacks, contrast, sharpening, etc. I also managed to remove some backscatter. More enhancements would need artistic editing that I am not ready to.