I am new to Digital SLR underwater photography, I have an D70 in an Ikelite housing using a sigma 15 mm fisheye lens, I have an ikelite 200 strobe what is the best settings to use for wide angle reef and divers shots, I have been practicing in the pool so far I have been using f8-f11 ISO 200 @ 1/60 strobe set on 1/8 power with so so results, I would like to have more detail in my shots

Larry

Controlling WA lighting is a challenge because you have to handle two light sources.....ambient light from the background and strobe light on the subject foreground

Very simply stated....I meter on the blue water background with spot metering and set my shutter and aperture accordingly to achieve about -.5 or -1 underexposure....then I set my strobes to achieve the lighting I want on the foreground.....you may need to take a couple of shots to get the strobes right

Other situations may alter this....like fast moving subjects or controlling DOF......so you might want to start with a particular shutter speed and let the camera pick the aperture and vise versa for controlling DOF

Works for me!



1/125 @ f8....strobes 1/2 power
Karl

1/60th is a bit slow. You will tend to get motion blur from subjects and from being moved in any swell.

If you can shoot faster, and wider aperture, perhaps better.

You can also try using aperture priority mode, and matrix metering. Works pretty well, for ambient.

Another good way to get ambient exposure right, is to put it on spot meter, and ajdust for proper exposure, in the blue water, at about 30-40 degrees upwards.

For flash exposure, it's only effected by f-stop and flash power. Have you tried TTL? It may work, (with some compensation often), in many cases...

Don

I caint shoot TTL with my system, its not offered, it seems like when I use my strobes I have to set my f stop to at least F11 to F22 to keep it from over exposing my subject even when strobe set to the lowest setting of 1/8, I tried using the P and the A setting, and then it is really overexposed.

thanks Larry

Go for more shutter speed...you'll need it if you are shooting up into the sun

Karl

Go for more shutter speed...you'll need it if you are shooting up into the sun

Notice the shutter speed on this one


1/500 at f 6.3

Karl

Karl, Nice picture, did you use strobes and if you did what kind and what power settings did you use, also did you use manual on your camera.


thanks Larry

Larry,

Both photos were taken with manual settings on the D70....dual DS-125's with manual controllers set on -.5 or -1

Karl

Karl; that is some seriously blue water. What did you use for your white balance? Thanks.

thanks Dave....auto white balance....that's all I use

Karl

Hi,

If your shots are being overexposed at f11 @ 1/8th power on the strobe, then there is something rotten in Denmark (I have that strobe). You should check that your camera is locked at ISO200. If it has auto ISO enabled, then that would explain the problem.

Cheers
James