New A620 Camera & underwater housing

[rhayde]

I too have just gotten the A620 and associated underwater housing. I am on my way to Bonaire for two weeks of great diving and have never taken an underwater picture. I also purchased a reefmaster strobe light.

Sounds like good advise to take the housing under fora dive before inserting my camera - thanks for the tip. How ofter should the o-ring be lubed?

Never having taken a picture, I don't know if I should leave the camera in Auto or use the manual settings? I found where the camera has a underwater setting but is this good enough to leave the camera in Auto??

Also - the reefmaster has a 'eye' on the strobe housing that see's when my camera flash goes off and then ignites the strobe. But it also has a wired unit that attaches to the camera housing and to the 'eye' in the strobe. Should I use this attachment? I followed the instructions and the strobe does flash when the camera's flash goes off so does thios mean I don't need the attachment?

Questions in Washington.

 

[herman]

Welcome to the board. Two weeks in Bonaire....I hate you already (kidding of course) I am a big Bonaire fan

The purpose of the grease on the O-ring is to lubricate it so it slides easily over the mating surfaces, so the answer is as often as necessary to keep it sliding smoothly, I find once a trip enough unless I get sand or other stuff in the seal area, then I clean the O-ring and regrease it. For a 2 wk trip I would remove, clean, check and regrease the O-ring before the first dive and at the beginnning of the second week. Go easy on the grease, you need just enough to make it slide easily. Carefully check your O-ring and seal area before closing the camera. I never open the housing on a boat or dive site, there is too much chance of missing a piece of sand or a hair on the O-ring.

99% of the UW photographers I know shoot in manual and based on the responces to this question on this board most here do as well. Sooner or later if you get into UW photography you will want to learn to shoot manual, so you might as well start now. F-stop along with strobe settings determine the exposure of the near area, out to 4 to 8 ft depending on your strobe. Shutter speed controls backround exposure. For example if an F-stop of 5.6 gives you the correct exposure of a close by fish the back round can range anywhere from light blue if the shutter speed is around 1/80sec to black if the shutter is set to 1/500sec. If you are in very shallow, clear water, a slow shutter will also have some effect on near field exposure as well.

I am assuming you are talking about a fiber optic cable to fire the strobe. You do need to use this if possible. Back scatter is light reflected from your flash/strobe and looks like snow in your picture. It is caused by light reflecting off particals in the water. To help reduce it, you need to block the camera's flash so that it does not light up your subject and you need to get your strobe as far away from the camera as possible. When lighting a subject you want to avoid using any lighting that comes from straight on, instead you should light your subject at an angle. As to why it does not work, I would guess you don't have installed correctly. Light from your internal strobe is "piped" through the fiber cable to the sensor on the strobe. For whatever reason, the light is not making it from your internal flash to the strobe. Check the installation of the fiber and make sure there is nothing over the end of the fiber.

 

[rhayde]

herman,

Thanks for the reply. I guess I will use the fiber optic cable. you seem pretty knowledgeable - any recomendations on a good starter book for me or past posts?

I am a big Bonaire fan also. I have a time share there that I so look forward to each trip. Whats your favorite dive site? Done the wreck up north? I heard this year that there is a guy that does dives on the far side of the island with a pontoon type boat. I gotta check him out! Again - thanks for the info.
Ron

 

[herman]

I don't have any books to recommend, most of what I have learned is from this board, a local UW photographers group and trial and error.

I like the northen sites a lot, Oil Slick Leap and Old Blue being a couple of my favorites. The only wreck I know up north is the Windjammer which is in 200ft of water and is not a rec dive. It's also closed to shore diving for now.
Larry of Larry's Wildside Diving now has a 20+ft inflatable with twin outboards on it. I have never dove with him but understand he runs a nice operation, if nothing else he is a character.