First Pictures w/C8080

[djanni]

Grand Cayman - week of 2/27/06

http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/1593

My first outing with an underwater camera. I've uploaded best 20 out of about 250.

mostly at about 35 to 50 feet - used internal flash, ISO increased up to 80 - auto focus, auto WB, program mode.

Comments and especially suggestions appreciated.

Don

 

[alcina]

Looks like an awesome trip!

Very nice photos You were able to get quite close to a lot of those skittish fish - great facial expressions!

 

[Divmstr223]

Looks great Don...do you plan on adding a strobe to that setup? I'll bet those pictures will jump right out at ya when you do......Hope you had an excellent time and keep taking those great pics...

 

[SeaYoda]

If you are like me and take a while getting a strobe, do a search here for "white balance". If you had set the white balance on the sand below, your colors would have shown up better with the clarity of that water.

 

[divinman]

Great first effort!!! Gotta love that warm clear water...

Things to consider....manual white balance is your friend in conditions like that. or....get an fl-b red filter. In either case, don't forget to turn of your internal flash or it will look like u are shooting on mars.

I too have the 8080 and although I think it has some weak points, it does take nice pictures. I am using an Ike housing so I had to add a strobe (darn :05: ) I already had a DS 50 so I added a DS125 with the TTL connection. WOW, strobes make a huge difference. BUT!! Take your time getting used to the camera before adding the task loading of strobes. You will take better shots later with some practice w/o now.

Shoot till yer fingers bleed. Digital is free to delete :14:

You can check out some of my images at : http://www.scubapost.net/forums/Scorpionfish/

Most of the newer albums are with 8080.

Terry

 

[djanni]

If you are like me and take a while getting a strobe, do a search here for "white balance". If you had set the white balance on the sand below, your colors would have shown up better with the clarity of that water.

Thanks... I've heard that before. Still getting used to the camera. Are you saying that with a strobe you don't need to worry about WB?

I probably want get a strobe till early 07.

 

[djanni]

Great first effort!!! Gotta love that warm clear water...

Things to consider....manual white balance is your friend in conditions like that. or....get an fl-b red filter. In either case, don't forget to turn of your internal flash or it will look like u are shooting on mars.

Terry

Although I've read through the White Balance section in the Reference Manual a couple of times I'm not sure how to set it up under a "Custom" setting. I'll figure it out but if you have a "Dummy's Do it this way" suggestion it would be great.

I don't understand the flash part. I set the flash to "Fill" so it would fire everytime and I thought I was getting more natural looking colors. But your suggestion is to set WB and turn off the flash???

Don

 

[SeaYoda]

... Are you saying that with a strobe you don't need to worry about WB?...

When using the strobe you set WB to "auto". If you set the WB to "manual" your colors will be off because you add color back with the strobe light and your camera still thinks the other wavelengths are missing and tries to adjust.

Your internal flash and strobes only have a limited distance that they influence colors. If you are taking shots more than 3'-4' away, the light from the flash is probably not doing much good and the "blues" will take over. For far away shots, WB will be your best chance to get good color because the camera will adjust for missing wavelengths.

Here are some good posts:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=1269428&postcount=10

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=887209&postcount=1

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=56159&highlight=white+balance

 

[divinman]

When using the strobe you set WB to "auto". If you set the WB to "manual" your colors will be off because you add color back with the strobe light and your camera still thinks the other wavelengths are missing and tries to adjust.

Your internal flash and strobes only have a limited distance that they influence colors. If you are taking shots more than 3'-4' away, the light from the flash is probably not doing much good and the "blues" will take over. For far away shots, WB will be your best chance to get good color because the camera will adjust for missing wavelengths.

Here are some good posts:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=1269428&postcount=10

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=887209&postcount=1

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=56159&highlight=white+balance

Yeah, what he said!

 

[kapula]

Nice pics! Go through the posts seayoda linked to his reply. U'll get hang of the wb thingie. I use internal flash very seldom on my 8080 since it doesn't do the trick for very long distance. White balance on the other hand gives you much wider set of opportunities to get a nice picture.

I'm also thinking about adding a strobe but haven't quite figured out yet which one. Gonna get this german bloke's ttl connector since I have pt-027 but dunno yet which strobe would do it for me... Would love to get some more light to those super macros