UW Bonaire images

[DesertEagle]

Huey, excellent gallery!

Bob, the last photo is terrific. On the first one, it looks like:
1) the white balance was off
2) You are too far away

The third photo looks like the strobe was placed too high, aiming down.

There are a few things you can do:

- Get closer (almost most of my photos are taken only 1-2 feet away) Beyond 3 feet don't bother. Or at least look into purchasing a Magic Filter.
- For wide angle, don't shoot downward (compare the last photo to the first)
- Shoot RAW
- You have a great camera and strobe. Now is the time for a wide angle lens or port. If you shoot an Ikelite housing, at least get a dome port. Same goes for the Olympus housing. Athena makes a dome for it (Ryan Canon's Reef Photo sells them).

 

[BobArnold8265]

Thanks for the advice. One question for everyone. How do you all set your color balance. According to the instructions that I got from Ikelite, the color balance should be kept on Auto. I did this on the first dive or two. Later, I manually set the color balance by pointing the camera at a white patch of sand from a distance of 10 to 15 feet (OK, I admit this wasn't very precise but I thought it might help to try !!!).

Thanks again for the help.

 

[BobArnold8265]

Everyone,

I had a chance to play with my C-8080 and DS125 and did discover a sync problem but a rather odd one. The camera and strobe work fine when the strobe is set at 1/2 power or less. At full power however, the strobe is no longer in sync with the camera. The shutter trips (opens and closes) before the strobe fires.

I was using the camera in manual mode and it was set for external strobe only and defaulted to "slow1" (although neither the "slow1" nor "slow2" settings would sync properly). I believe what is happening is that the strobe is receiving two pulses from the camera like it is working in "red eye reduction" mode (you vcna see the two flashes in 1/2 power or less). To my knowledge, when using an external strobe there is no way to activate (or de-activate) the red eye reduction. Has anyone else had this problem and is there anyway I resolve it ??? I bought this camera specifically for underwater photography and will be very disappointed if I can't use my strobe at full power. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. Thank you.

Bob

 

[jghflash]

Very nice! An extremely impressive set of pics. What is your camera set up......other than the C5000? Strobe? Close up lens? Thanks for the pics.......I think I have convinced the wife to go to Bonaire next trip!!!!

 

[hueyatl1]

.

 

[hueyatl1]

An extremely lame question... but do you have a great uw set up or is the water just so clear and the place that nice and sunny....

the pictures make me want to make a trip down myself!

Bonaire is a great place for UW photography. However as long as you are tring to take daytime images UW it is likely to be dissappointing.

Down to about 15 feet great pictures can usally be taken using the White Balance feature available on most digital cameras during the daytime. Day time shots otherwise are extremely difficult. If using White Balance do not use flash. It will likely make the color problem worse.

For the best pictures take them at night. That way you only have one light source and you can control it. Most of my pictures were taken at night using the built-in flash.

Pictures taken in these ways will clean up very nicely with Photoshop Elements......

To understand why daylight UW photography is so difficult it must be understood that UW daylight images have a multitude of light sources as opposed to topside pictures that usally only have one light source. Another problem is that at some point the light from sun the becomes useless because the color from the red end of the spetrum no longer exsists. Flash becomes neccessary however ambient light may still ruin the picture.

Also, it is my person belief that most camera's exposure metering are unreliable because of the lack of red spectum light.

With today sophistication(sp?) in camera design anyone can take a great picture topside. To make it work underwater requires understanding your light source; whether it is natural light or a strobe......


http://www.flickr.com/photos/hueyatl/sets/
__________________
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/20596

 

[fairybasslet]

Nice. I'll be there in August. Hope I can get some decent ones.

 

[hueyatl1]

Very nice! An extremely impressive set of pics. What is your camera set up......other than the C5000? Strobe? Close up lens? Thanks for the pics.......I think I have convinced the wife to go to Bonaire next trip!!!!

My setup is an Olympus C5000z with PT-019 housing. The only stobe used was the camera's built-in flash.

No addtional lens were used.

My photo set at Flickr also have images from Belize.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/hueyatl/sets/

 

[Larry C]

Everyone,

The camera and strobe work fine when the strobe is set at 1/2 power or less. At full power however, the strobe is no longer in sync with the camera. The shutter trips (opens and closes) before the strobe fires.

I think what might be happening is your strobe is firing on the preflash, and at higher settings is too slow recovering to flash again on shutter. If you don't have it on the preflash setting, try setting it on preflash and see what happens.

 

[roswin]

I liked them very much.