which mode for first DSLR shots underwater

[rameus]

hello everyone!

since i'll be trying my camera next week the first time underwater i wanted to know what the recommendations for dslr are. when do you do the whitebalance? do you shoot all in manual mode or sometimes in auto? would it make sense to fix the apperture and the shutter speed would adjust automatically?

grateful for any help since with my digital camera it didn't make much sense to set it on manual...

thanks

Thomas

 

[scubamarketing]

I'm by no means anywhere near being one of the top photographers on this board, so hopefully one of them will chime in too. But I am an avid photographer, am great with gadgets and have taken (and instructed) quite a few U/W photo classes over the years.

With modern DSLR's, I'd start in auto mode personally. At least your first few dives while you get used to the housing/camera/controls/strobes/etc.

I know some people that have a hard time understanding aperture, so they'll put it on shutter speed adjust and let the camera do aperture. Some people are the other way around, some love full manual. The great thing about digital is you can shoot, review, adjust, repeat.

Go play around (if you haven't already) with the new camera topside to see what you can figure out just through practice.

 

[rameus]

Go play around (if you haven't already) with the new camera topside to see what you can figure out just through practice.

I've already played around with my camera quite a lot above sealevel (see photos (everything besides underwater)) but don't know how it works below... might a few things on the checkout-dive and then see what happens when the big fish come ;-)

Thanks anyway and maybe we'll get some hints from "top shots" ;-)

Thomas

 

[EastEndDiver]

Thats a loaded question you are asking.As Newscubamarkting said play around.

I would suggest ,now this is going to take up time underwater,try shooting a stationary subject in full manual,Auto (Both Aperature Priority and Shutter Priority ) and Full auto modes and then compare .If you pull up the pics on your computer you can read the properties which will tell you what settings the pic was taken at.You can then choose which pic is/was best and see what the setting were for that ,this way it starts to give you and idea of what to expect .Also try to get as close as possible of the subject,for manual I would start with 5.6-8 Fstop and 125-250 shutter speed as a starting point.For the auto modes I would try many different settings and then adjust as you view the pics underwater.Are you using a strobe?

Hope this helps.

 

[rameus]

I would suggest ,now this is going to take up time underwater,try shooting a stationary subject in full manual,Auto (Both Aperature Priority and Shutter Priority ) and Full auto modes and then compare .If you pull up the pics on your computer you can read the properties which will tell you what settings the pic was taken at.You can then choose which pic is/was best and see what the setting were for that ,this way it starts to give you and idea of what to expect .Also try to get as close as possible of the subject,for manual I would start with 5.6-8 Fstop and 125-250 shutter speed as a starting point.For the auto modes I would try many different settings and then adjust as you view the pics underwater.Are you using a strobe?

Sounds great! I do normally use an Ikelite DS-160 strobe which I already had for my Canon G10 I used. Now I'm on a Nikon D90 and will use the same strobe again. I figured one strobe was quite enough to get the amount of light you need for close up photos. The F-numbers already help me quite a bit since above sealevel I'm shooting everything in manual.

What would you recommend for animals a bit further out? Since the strobe might possibly not get that far and as we know with some animals you shouldn't use the strobes too much ;-)

 

[EastEndDiver]

Underwater anything you shoot from about 4 feet out will make the strobe useless.I use two setups one with dual ds-160's and one with dual ds-125's.If you look at the guide decal that came with the ds-160 it gives you some starting points to use.It gives you ISO ,Fstop and distance settings .