I had the chance to try out an off camera strobe set-up last week on a trip to Marsa Alam Egypt.

These are a few images from my first couple of dives with a hidden Z240 on a gorrila-pod and the slave sensor placed in "line of sight" to my rig.

Any thoughts on improving the composition, strobe placement and the general feel of the images ?

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Nige Wade

This is something I want to play with. For me I think the trick will be to get the light without the "hotspot" Then basically you have a wide angle snoot.

Looking good Nigel.

Alex

Nice,
How do you trigger the strobes?

The single Inon Z240 was triggered by a slave sensor with a metre of cable attached to the srobe synch cable.
The sensor needs to be in line of sight of the triggering strobe but the slave strobe can be hidden.
In the first image my model Rilana has the sensor in her hand, it's so sensitive she has it pointed away from the camera and triggering strobe, but it still fired the slave !!
The cable is just visible coming under her left elbow.

See http://www.uwpmag.com/ issue57 for Alex Mustard's comprehensive article. I used exactly the same set-up.

I hope this helps

Nige Wade

Thanks, I knew the article I was just curious what slavesensor or trigger you used.

I really like the way the first shot highlights her hair.

Mike

In the 3rd shot, it might be improved if the strobe was futher to the right so it did not show in the photo. That would have the model lit but not see the distraction of the cone of light from the strobe. Just one man's opinion...maybe others like the cone being present.
Like others here, I really like the hair hightlights in photo 1...much like a studio highlight shot.
With that same theme in mind, a strong enough snoot light in photo 1, placed in upper right to highlight the top of her hair as well. Its done often in studio lighting, not so easy underwater but then if were easy - even I could do it. :-)

I am thinking the model in photo 1 would have a lovely smile if she had time to remove the regulator and smile for the camera. The reg could be hidden in her right hand with the hose behind her and out of sight. Just a thought, which was your request.

I think they are all quite nice.

Thanks Dave that's just the kind of feedback I was after.
In hindsight I think I should have taken the "hair shot" against a distant coral wall and underexposed the ambient light using a faster shutter speed to give a much darker background to show off the halo a bit better.

Also the bubbles which really catch the rear strobe light would really pop.

Nige

Like other posters, I pretty much like the way the remote strobe lights up her hair, I also like image #3.

#2 and #3 are quite similar though I was a bothered with #2 and wondering why. Now that I went over my first impression, and analyzed my dislike I feel the answer is obvious :
#2 light direction is completely unnatural : why would a light source come from below? whereas in #3 one could figure out that there's a hole in the wall "snooting" surface light (okay the explanation sounds probably thin, though light coming from above is more likely than from below...).

At second sight, I would claim viewed from my work screen that backscatter issues are more in control on #3, although it still needs improvement like commented above. Off camera strobe probably needs as much angle as "on camera" lighting.

Anyway, my two cents.