Monterey pics 2-20-10

[Larry C]

Took MDX-D300 down to 100 feet with a 2lb. soft weight wrapped in my T-shirt inside. No leaks!
Second dive, Camera and 60mm AF-D went in and down we went to Shale Island. Lots of surge, viz blew, but lots of cool critters.
Apparently in the hand off of the camera or while I was hooking it to my coiled lanyard, the white balance button got pressed and turned a bit. It was depressed for the whole dive, so I couldn't make any adjustments. I had set the camera to 1/160 f16 before putting it in the housing, so that's what I got. I played with the strobes for lighting (first time I've ever used them in manual mode-no ttl converter so far) and got OK pics. Fortunately, the shutter still works with the white balance depressed. I was all over the map on white balance, since the adjuster wheel only adjusted white balance and I kept spinning it. I shot in JPEG for the first dive, just to keep it simple, so all I could do was auto color in PS7 to get them a little closer to reality. Here they are. It works, no leaks, happy me!

Juvenile rockfish: I've been trying to get decent shots of these flighty little guys with the SP350 for a year. I've had to crop the heck out of them, and they've been a bit grainy and not sharp. This one was under a ledge where lighting was tough and I couldn't get real close, but with the D300, bang-tight shot, decent focus, first try. Wow!

This little Octopus hung out for several minutes. I give him a finger to play with and he got five tentacles on it and tried to pull my glove off.

 

[Peter_C]

Sweet! I am jealous my D300 is staying above the water. Nice photos Larry, especially the octopus. I will be looking forward to you sharing some great local dive photos

 

[Ben_ca]

Larry,
I've always liked your shots with the SP-350... but I can't wait to see what you can do with this new camera. It looks promising. Keep those shots coming.

Ben

 

[AndyT]

Great stuff Larry ! Pity about the WB issue, look forward to pics from your next dive.

How did you find the transition from LCD to viewfinder?

 

[Larry C]

Thanks, Peter & Ben.

Great stuff Larry ! Pity about the WB issue, look forward to pics from your next dive.

How did you find the transition from LCD to viewfinder?

I really like the viewfinder. The little LCD on the Oly is pretty useless for my 57 year old eyes, even with contacts on underwater. My only gripe with the viewfinder is that you have to find your macro subject in it when you're not focused and you're looking at a huge area for a macro lens. I had to focus, sweep, focus again. Wouldn't work well with a flighty subject. Have you tried full time AF? I don't think battery life should be a big issue and it might help with panning, I think. With the LCD, I could look around the camera to find the subject while I aimed.

 

[Sully3]

great shots! that second octopus with the brightly colored snail is my favorite

 

[AndyT]

Finding macro subjects is a little dificult at first, but as you get used to the viewfinder it becomes a lot easier. Takes a few dives, but now even with a 50mm and 2x TC I can locate stuff fairly quickly. Don't know if full time AF will make things easier, I find myself switching to MF once I have the subject framed and then just rock the camera back and forth untill I get sharp focus. No need to hold the 1/2 press either with MF.

 

[Larry C]

Thanks, Sully.

Andy, my focus ring for the 60mm should be here next week, so I'll try manual override for keeping the subject in range. The autofocus is working really well as far as snapping the shot, so far. I only had to throw out about 5 or 6 pics, where the autofocus went off the deep end and snapped to infinity as I pulled the trigger.

 

[Brewski]

Nice shots bud! I normally use s mode
for focus so it doesn't adjust focus while framing, also if you shoot raw you can leave white balance in auto and adjust it in post if needed

 

[Brewski]

Larry, I had that problem last Thursday. WB button was depressed and locked out control on dive two I noticed that it only happened after 60 feet. Today while inspecting the posts inside the housing I noticed that you can actually rotate the post accidentally and cause the problem. probably happened while rinsing in fresh water.

Notice the pin on the post in the photo. I learned today to inspect this before sealing the camera in the housing. wonder what other gotchas are going to crop up?