May I ask what setup you use? Don't know if it's appropriate to ask that so forgive me If I intrude. I'm just impressed by your pics. Thought I'd get some insight.
Just dove the point Saturday and yes, the nudies to abound. Thanks, and keep it up! Would love to see more
Its not a secret thing. I'd love to talk about it.
**** WARNING **** GEEK TALK BELOW **** WARNING ****
CAMERA
My current camera is the Nikon D200. I moved up from the Nikon D70 in April 2007. The D200 has many features that make it more suitable for Macro work, most notably the increased number of focus points. Its also faster (focusing and processing) and with the larger sensor (better, more MP's) I get more information if I need to crop an image than I did off of a D70.
Lenses
All Nikon Lenses. For the Macro stuff, I use either the Nikon 60mm or the 105mm. Both are excellent, but they are very different lenses. The 60 is so sharp, and I love it. But the focus distance is so close that I spook things like Gobys and Octos. The 105 lets me lay back a bit. The trade off there is if I'm shooting something larger with the 105, I need to lay WAY back, and that impacts the lighting. So I try to use the 105 for the really small or the really skittish, and use the 60 for the really mellow or fairly large (Monterey Nudis, etc.) I also use the 60 at night a lot, as it lets me get closer and my focus light illuminates better, making night focus with the 60 in our Murky water easier. The 60 is also excellent for Fish portraits. When you lay back a ways, its a very nice portrait lens.
For W/A, its my 10.5 Fisheye or my 12-24 Wide zoom (my fav topside lens.)
Strobes
Two Ikelite DS125's. No diffusers. I use two ULCS 5" arms and clamps. Tens-of-thousands of shots, the strobes have never flooded. I work these things. They're solid, and I love them.
Housing
I December 2007 I moved from the Ikelite rig to the Light & Motion housing. The move was prompted by several advantages I see in the L&M housing. First being 1-handed operation (the Ikelite makes you remove the housing from your face and use a second hand to change the Main Command dial.) I also really love the independent strobe controls on the L&M housing. That is a huge upgrade. The housing is faster to load and unload than the Ikelite (camera on a sliding tray, and only one hinge to open and close the L&M) and the bulkheads for the strobes are positioned better (two on top, as opposed to one on the back.) Its aluminum, but its only a few ounces more when fully loaded than the Ike rig, and underwater its nearly the same. I don't use buoyancy arms. I made a custom handle strap to get the cam in and out of the surf, and I use a nylon strap and large bolt snap to clip it off to me when I'm scootering with it (which is 98 out of every 100 dives these days.)
Other Stuff
I shoot in manual for both Macro and W/A. The settings (shutter speed, f/stop and strobe intensity) all depend on the effect I want to achieve. The settings for getting a black background on a Nudi are very different than the settings for a nice cross-frame Nudi focus fade.
I use a focus light. I will sometime this summer make a mod to the housing that will let me turn on the focus light when I capture focus, as opposed to having it on all the time (ie: on during the shutter release.) It adds some backscatter being on all the time. But I love it. Its sure made shooting the 105 much easier.
I shoot in RAW. I process in Photoshop CS3 on a MacPro with a 21" Samsung LCD Monitor. I do very little in Photoshop. About 95% of macro and probably 80% of Wide Angle shots that you see come out of the camera that way. I do very little Photoshop voodoo - mostly because I don't know 1/10th of the features in PS. Also, if you pick a good subject, select the right angle, fill the frame, light it right - there really isn't much for PS to so. I bring it in from RAW, pick out some flying debris, color correct so it looks like the animal looked when I shot it and that's about it.
Don't ever shoot Nudi's from above. Lazy shooters shoot them from above. If there isn't a story there (as there was with Pepe LePew) don't shoot nudis from above. Get dirty. Get your face in the sand, get your elbows on the rocks, put yourself in the surge, brace and get the shot with a Nudi's-eye view.
Anyway - I could go on for days. Ask me anything. There are no secrets, no silver bullet, no magic dust. Don't get hung up on the gear. The gear's job (the cam, lens, housing, strobes) is to get out of your way and let you capture what you see. Take chances, learn your subjects (habitat, what they eat, their best angle, how to light them, how to get them so they come out with the correct colors, etc.) and be artistic. There are enough top-down textbook Nudi shots for 10 lifetimes. Get in there and show us something new, something beautiful, something fun. Tell a story.
Get out and shoot!
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Ken
Plus I already ask you enough questions as it is!
