Advice for a newbie photographer

[niall.nf]

pleeeese help!!

I reciently bought my first U/W camera, its a Cannon 1200IS with two Sea&Sea YS-01 strobes. Problem is, every shot I take is completely green as in the pics below! I understand that this is because of the loss of color at depth, but if I angle my strobes any ways closer to the subject I get either a very very dark shot or a completly blacked out shot.
Even when shooting in 3, 4, 5 meters dept (using ambient light) my shots are coming out completly green.
I've spent a lot of dive-time now just simply playing around with strobe positions and all im getting is either green or black!!!
Please has anybody any advice (or suggested reading materials) on what I'm doing wrong

The first shot is taken at about 30M, and when I angled my strobes slightly toward the crab, it blacked out the shot.

The second shot is at 3-4 meters, and no strobe was used!

Please help!!!!!

Kind regards

Niall.nf

 

[kombiguy]

Get closer. When you think you're too close, get even closer. Your strobes lose an awful lot of power if they are trying to cut through too much water.

 

[scuba e]

It looks like a beam from a flash light in the first shot. I dont think the angle of your strobes is the issue.
Is your flash set to "on". If you are in auto or redeye the strobes are probably firing with the pre-flash and not the flash when the shutter is open.
Set up your rig topside and aim at the wall. you should get a nice bright spot on the wall.

 

[muzikbiz22]

Sounds like sync or pre- flash, flash issues. You didn't mention how you are triggering the strobes ? Fiber optic cables or ? What housing do you have ? Where did you purchase ?

 

[EastEndDiver]

Definatly check to see that the strobes are firing in synch with the shutter.You can also shoot into a mirror and if you don't see a bliding light in the pic the strobes are NOT synched with the shutter.

 

[daz88]

for pix without the flash, manually set your White balance once you get to depth. that will bring most of the color out. And when your done diving....photoshop is your friend. Just be sure to set the WB back to "flash" when using them.

 

[niall.nf]

Hi Guys

thanks for all the replys.
Last night i turned off all the lights and shot into a mirror and darkness was the result!! So set the strobe to manual, with a pre-flash and bingo. So I take it from that my camera doesn't have TTL functionality? and do I also take it I might have better results now?

Thanks again for the replys, I was so frustrated with that