5050 w/ L&M housing question

[scubanimal]

I believe my camera is in a bad state and I am not sure how to undo what has been done. The indicator is that I am keying on is to the right of the shutter and aperture indicators. I have the camera in manual mode, and to the right is a red -3. I initially assumed that meant that the settings detected I was 3 f-stops to small, but after trying numerous F-stop and shutter speed settings and that -3 remaining I am puzzled.

I tried shooting a few indoor shots with a big stobe and they are very dark.

Any thoughts anyone?

 

[herman]

Most likely it's no problem, the camera is trying to tell you that the setting are way to dark for the conditions you have. It has no way of knowing that you intend to fire a strobe with it. The -3 is actually -3 electronvolts which translates to a considerable amount of enderexposure- I forget the exact ratio. How much is a guess as -3 is as low as it will display- it could actually be -5 or even -10 eV. Does the indiacation change outside or if you aim the camera at a light or bright window, if it does, sounds like it's working. I have to aim mine almost directly at a lamp for it to change. The exposure indoors in manual will be most affected by F-stop, esp in a very dark room, shutter speed will not have too much effect if it's set at less than 1/100 or so. You should be able to light up objects 8 or 10 ft away in the room depending on F-stop an the setting of your strobe. Also, you strobe should NOT be set to preflash in manual as it will not sync correctly. Many strobe intended for digital cameras can be set to both.

 

[Mike Veitch]

For underwater your best bet for a nice blue background in WA work is to watch that red number and try and get to about -2. Thats gives that nice even blue so desirable when shooting up...

 

[scubanimal]

Thanks for the input. Right now though when I shoot a picture that normally would be lite just fine, its way too dark. Regardless of lite the -3 stays constant.

I tried it diving last week and all shots were very dark, not normally the case. Any other thoughts?


update: I took the camera out of the house and then outside in the sun, working as expected, so pilot error on this one, thanks all for your input.