Just got for Xmas a Nauticam A6700 housing with tons of extras!

[TahoeDive]

It also came with a M14 Vacuum Valve II, a flash trigger, 2 fiber optic cables, 4 kraken carbon fiber floats, 2 Sea and Sea YS3 Duos, some port, and then a huge wide angle nauticam lens!

Anyone else have a setup like ths? would you give me any advise for a relative nube with mirroless cameras what I should definitely know, or can accept?

Thanks

 

[VsubT]

Sounds like a nice setup. Several folks on the board including me shoot Sony 6XXX equipment in Nauticam.

What experience do you have with underwater photography? Would be helpful to know if this is your first time setting up any of this equipment, or if you have some experience and want to know optimal settings, etc.

Lance

 

[TahoeDive]

youtube taught...have some experience with a ikolite rx100 Mark 1 with no accessories when i was in raja ampat. That is about it.

 

[hedonist222]

It also came with a M14 Vacuum Valve II, a flash trigger, 2 fiber optic cables, 4 kraken carbon fiber floats, 2 Sea and Sea YS3 Duos, some port, and then a huge wide angle nauticam lens!

Anyone else have a setup like ths? would you give me any advise for a relative nube with mirroless cameras what I should definitely know, or can accept?

Thanks

Which port?

 

[Barmaglot]

I have a broadly similar setup with an A6700 in a SeaFrogs housing. Not sure what you refer to by a 'huge wide angle nautical lens', as it can be a WWL-C, WWL-1(B), or even a dry-mount WACP-C or WACP-1. Regardless, a good starting point would be:

• Set the camera to manual mode, RAW mode, fill flash
• Set the top dial to adjust aperture, rear wheel to adjust shutter speed, front dial to adjust ISO, set up back-button focus, enable automatic review
• Set aperture to f/8, shutter speed to 1/125, ISO to 400, strobes to manual 1/4 power
• Prior to the dive, seal the housing, take a test shot and verify that everything is working - the lens cap is off, the batteries are charged, the strobes fire and sync correctly, then pull vacuum and let it sit for a while to verify seals.
• After splashing down, reaching your target depth and establishing neutral buoyancy, find something approximating what you're planning to shoot - a rock, a piece of coral, some seaweed, whatever, making sure to have both foreground and background, i.e. don't point it downward into sand or into a wall - and take a test shot. Review the shot - if the background (usually the water column) is too dark for your liking, slow down the shutter, but avoid going below 1/60s; if this is not enough (poor visibility, cloudy day, etc), start raising ISO. If it's too bright, then speed up the shutter, but you're limited there to a maximum of 1/160s by the strobe sync capability, so if you reach 1/160s and it's still too bright, start decreasing ISO and/or closing down the aperture. In parallel, examine the foreground - if it's too dark, dial up the flash power; if it's too bright then dial it down. If you run out of adjustment range on flash, in either direction, then start playing with aperture and ISO, but remember than opening the aperture much above f/8 will give you soft corners and potentially sides. Also, remember that while shutter speed affects only the background and flash power affects only the foreground, aperture and ISO affect both, so, for example, if you reduce ISO from 400 to 200 to darken the foreground, you will need to slow down the shutter speed from 1/125s to 1/60s to maintain the same exposure on the background. After making adjustments, take another test shot, review, and adjust as needed until you have it dialed in. This may sound complicated, but in practice, it's quite easy to pick up, and quite quickly you'll be able to dial in the settings by simply eyeballing the conditions, with the test shot serving only as confirmation.
• The usual stuff - avoid shooting downwards and make an effort to shoot upwards or at least level, spread out the strobe beams to avoid backscatter, get as close as feasible to your subject, etc.
• Remember to rinse the whole setup after the dive, work all the buttons while submerged in the rinse tank.