Olympus xz-2

[TheTrickster]

The Olympus XZ-2 is a great little camera, that DOES produce excellent results underwater.

For macro stuff (and now you have a strobe - which one?) set the camera to Shutter Priority and set to 1/200th and iso400. Mount the strobe directly above the lens and pointing slightly up (so not full power directly on the subject).

You need to click up the flash before inserting it in to the housing, as it can't be done once in the housing.

Confirm the strobe is connected via an optical cable, in TTL mode and the camera is set to Flash 'Fill-In' mode.

You will be pleased with the results - for sure!

 

[Foxtrot16]

The Olympus XZ-2 is a great little camera, that DOES produce excellent results underwater.

For macro stuff (and now you have a strobe - which one?) set the camera to Shutter Priority and set to 1/200th and iso400. Mount the strobe directly above the lens and pointing slightly up (so not full power directly on the subject).

You need to click up the flash before inserting it in to the housing, as it can't be done once in the housing.

Confirm the strobe is connected via an optical cable, in TTL mode and the camera is set to Flash 'Fill-In' mode.

You will be pleased with the results - for sure!

Can I ask why you would use ISO 400 - assuming he is diving in daylight and it is good light (i.e. not overcast / cloudy) then using the lowest ISO possible will give much better images, for the XZ-1 I assume that this would be ISO 200 (as per most Olympus cameras) when using a strobe. Without a strobe and using natural light then I would use a slightly higher ISO to get a fast shutter speed to freeze the action but then you would need only a shutter speed of between 1/80 - 1/100th which would freeze all but really fast moving critters / fish and for macro would be more than enough.

The only other reason to use a fast shutter speed - 1/200th - is to get a darker background.

Even on a really cloudy day with a strobe ISO 200 would work really well - I would only use ISO 400 or higher for low light dives such as night dives etc.

Also IMHO - I personally don't like TTL (yes there are pros and cons for TTL) but I believe that you will get far better results learning how to manually set your strobe along with your camera settings especially for macro - wide angle is better for TTL - but if you are going to use TTL then IMHO you need to set the metering to 'spot meter' for macro because your subject should be filling the frame.

Anyway there are different ways of looking at different things and achieving similar results.

Karl

 

[KF LEONG]

the coleman shrimp was shot with build-in flash only.
the transparent shrimp with Inon S-2000 strobe (due to low lighting - hiding in rubbles)

thanks for the advise. I will try during my next trip.

just for your info...i updated the camera software today from 1.1 to 1.3. the photo result is somewhat disappointing, not for my liking. big regret.
i will recommend any xz2 user to maintain the 1.1 version of software.

---------- Post added December 27th, 2013 at 05:25 PM ----------

thanks for the comment Karl.
so far, I tried manual for all strobe shots. not too bad. manual is good.

 

[BlueDevil]

Very impressive KF!