RonFrank
Contributor
I spent a week in Cozumel, and carried the camera on every dive (D200/Ike housing and strobe). I finally started going through my shots last night, and overall I'm pleased, but when I got to the last days (2 dives) shots I became troubled. Here is what I did wrong.
Rule ~ Check the camera/lens settings BEFORE you load the camera, and UW as well.
On one dive I changed from my WA lens to my macro for a twilight/night shore dive. It was the first dive with Macro, and much to my despair I very quickly discovered that I left the lens in Manual focus mode (older 60mm macro), and I have no manual focus on the port... Did not bother doing one shot, but my housing made for a nice steering wheel!
On the last day I left my camera in AF-C mode. I did not realize this was the case, and spent the dive shooting what appeared to be in focus shots, but for the most part they are soft, or OOF. We were doing drift dives, so I was not spending a lot of time studying the viewfinder on every shot. I kinda remember thinking that the camera was not focusing at some point, and even checked the AF to make sure the lens could focus. But what was happening was that I was aiming, and firing, and in many cases the image was NOT in focus. I always shooting in AF-S mode UW so the camera will not fire unless the image has focus lock. I could have corrected this UW, but it did not occur to me that this was happening as many of the images were in focus.
In any event lesson learned AGAIN. I say again because when I shoot topside, and especially for hire, I constantly check my settings to make sure I have what I want. Now I will do so in the future while UW as some potentially GREAT shots were lost all because they were OOF.
Rule ~ Check the camera/lens settings BEFORE you load the camera, and UW as well.
On one dive I changed from my WA lens to my macro for a twilight/night shore dive. It was the first dive with Macro, and much to my despair I very quickly discovered that I left the lens in Manual focus mode (older 60mm macro), and I have no manual focus on the port... Did not bother doing one shot, but my housing made for a nice steering wheel!
On the last day I left my camera in AF-C mode. I did not realize this was the case, and spent the dive shooting what appeared to be in focus shots, but for the most part they are soft, or OOF. We were doing drift dives, so I was not spending a lot of time studying the viewfinder on every shot. I kinda remember thinking that the camera was not focusing at some point, and even checked the AF to make sure the lens could focus. But what was happening was that I was aiming, and firing, and in many cases the image was NOT in focus. I always shooting in AF-S mode UW so the camera will not fire unless the image has focus lock. I could have corrected this UW, but it did not occur to me that this was happening as many of the images were in focus.
In any event lesson learned AGAIN. I say again because when I shoot topside, and especially for hire, I constantly check my settings to make sure I have what I want. Now I will do so in the future while UW as some potentially GREAT shots were lost all because they were OOF.