Accessory equipment question

[guitarmaker]

I have the basic SeaLife 800 camera and would like some advice on accessories. I’ve been admiring the photo’s recently showing up of nudi’s and lumpies and am wondering what kind of flash/’s I need and are there other close-up attachments I needed and available for these kinds of close-ups? Please be kind to my scuba budget, I’m saving for a dry suit!

Thanks in advance, Ron

 

[SeahorseDeb]

Ron, One thing you might consider purchasing is the diffuser for the on-board flash. It runs about $30 from SeaLife. Then, you can keep saving for your strobes and drysuit! The diffuser works nicely, and stops that ugly flare from appearing on your photos. It snaps nicely onto the outside of your lens housing. SeaLife does not make a macro lens or a wide angle lens for this camera. It has built in capabiities for macro and wide angle, but you don't expect to get the same kind of macro you would as if you were using a 55 mm fixed. This camera is just not going to do that for you, but I do like my DC800 alot. For close up shots, be sure set the camera to the "close up" setting. With that, you will have a "flower" appear on your screen monitor. Take a few pictures around the house. Use it on the close-up setting and then the regular setting. You will see a difference. Experiment with how close you can get and then you will know a little better before you go u/w at what point those nudi's will begin to blur and lose detail. Hope that helps!

 

[guitarmaker]

Thanks for the reply Deb and I had not considered a diffuser for the built in flash - I will order one as a stop-gap measure for a strobe (or two). As you suggested I've played around with the camera top-side (see attachment) and I think it will be fine. It appears to have enough inherent quality, allowing fairly good close-ups tho I'm concerned about depth of field and I wish there was some manual control over shutter and aperture. If only the camera fairy would magically convert my old school, match-needle Cannon F1 to digital! :depressed:

By the way, I'm jealous of all of you living up in the Sound area - you've got some great diving up there and Salem is 3 hours away.

Thanks for the reply. Ron

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

I have the basic SeaLife 800 camera and would like some advice on accessories. I’ve been admiring the photo’s recently showing up of nudi’s and lumpies ...

Can you point to the photos you have been admiring, so we can have an idea of the type of images you are looking to get?

 

[guitarmaker]

Can you point to the photos you have been admiring, so we can have an idea of the type of images you are looking to get?

They're some really tight closeups of nudibranchs mostly but also some Pacific Spiny Lumpsuckers . Here's a link to another board but not the photo's I was looking for or referring too.
Northwest Dive Club • View topic - Northwest Nudibranchs

I've also discovered I misspoke earlier and that the Sealife 800 can be set to aperture (or shutter) priority but only has 2 selections to choose from being 2.7 and 5.3. Looks like they mostly use shutter speed for setting exposure.

Thanks all, Ron

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

Yeah, I'd say those images are out of the range for a SeaLife camera... Spend another 3-5K in order to get that close and that detailed

 

[guitarmaker]

Yeah, I'd say those images are out of the range for a SeaLife camera... Spend another 3-5K in order to get that close and that detailed

Those are some great shots aren't they? I'm not sure it's totally beyond the ability for the sealife but I'm sure it will be much more difficult with it's limitations. At least I can always hope it will work until I get the cash saved for an SLR and housing.

I found the link I was looking for. This guy replied to the same question on NWDC: he has some beautiful photo's, all taken with the sealife and dual strobe's. Being an experienced top side photographer myself I also fully realize that these photo's were selected out of thousands of images taken over several years by a very talented individual. It's great to see photo's like this to inspire us!

Ron

 

[flyingfrawg]

You can still do pretty well. This was taken two days ago at Manly, NSW, OZ. Probably about 6 meters down along the rocks. Happened across the pair and could not "anchor". Shot was taken as I hovered in light surge. Natural light, so less than optimal but still decent enough. One of my first tries too!

Still trying to learn this beasty DC1000.
:shocked2:
Jack

Yeah, I'd say those images are out of the range for a SeaLife camera... Spend another 3-5K in order to get that close and that detailed

 

[BHB ScubaTroll]

You can still do pretty well. This was taken two days ago at Manly, NSW, OZ. Probably about 6 meters down along the rocks. Happened across the pair and could not "anchor". Shot was taken as I hovered in light surge. Natural light, so less than optimal but still decent enough. One of my first tries too!

Still trying to learn this beasty DC1000.
:shocked2:
Jack

... and this shot was taken yesterday with my DC600 (several modifications including a +10 diopter and almost 200 pictures taken of this subject at the time), but it still doesn't come close to the quality of image the OP pointed to.