Dry land practice?

[merxlin]

I have a question for you photo veterans......is there a good way to practice on dry land to improve your underwater shots? I am on a 4 day dive trip to the upper Channel Islands in early July (so mostly macro stuff), and would like to improve the technical nature of my shots (not necessarily the composition- which also needs help- but one thing at a time). I use an SP-350, Olympus housing w/YS-90 strobe, and TTL cable. I have a set of conflicting issues in that my vision is not good enough for manual focus, and the camera seems to always shoot soft. I'd like to get crisper photos if possible. Any suggestions?

 

[gert7to3]

What are your camera settings? Are you using a scene or underwater mode; manual mode; slave flash, etc.?

Crawling around at twilight or dawn shooting bugs or small flowers, with your camera in its housing and your strobes on would be the closest topside model. This won't work with a wet mount wide angle lens.

Use manual settings. Adjust shutter speed to obtain the desired background color and hue; aperture usually set to ƒ6.0-ƒ8.0; ISO 100-200; adjust strobe power to expose your subject properly.