Out of the way!!!!

[solteszkristian]

Hello!

Ok, the things which are in the way are the distancer pins pointing out from my Nikonos V when macro-photographing using Extension tubes. The pointing things are always in the way, and scare away many living things.

I was thinking of a solution to the problem. Since I'm hobby-electronics freak, i was thinking of building a close range distance sensor into plexiglass pipe, glueseal one end, and have a removable o-ring sealed piece stuck in the other. Using three diodes red1, green, red2 it would be possible to monitor distance

red1 way to long away
red1+green little too for
green perfect!
...and so on

The thing could then be mounted on the NV using Sea&Sea hotshoe. Maybe I would have to attach some angle adjustment possiblilities, and certainly the thing needs to be easily (using DIP-switches) reprogrammable for different tubes.

But before I start (i figure it would take me one week to get all things, and cost some $10) i would like to know if anyone (any company?) ever did something similar, or if there is any other standard solution to the problem of the pointing sticks (except for eye-measure estimation: which sucks). Even some ideas on how to make life easier while sticking to the pointers are warmly welcomed


Cheers

/Chris

 

[Ed Jewell]

Sorry if this isn't much help. I use to be pretty heavy duty into UW photograph. Self-taught myself by reading all the books and Skin Diver articles by Jim and Cathy Church and practiced, practiced, practiced. Took my Nikonos IV and Iklite strobe on almost every dive until I finally, after about 10 years, realized I was becoming a slave to the camera. I put the camera down and have not picked it up for about 6 years now.

When I used extension tubes most of my subject were slow-moving critters (coral polyps, hermit crabs, nudibranchs, arrow crabs, Flamingo Tongue Cowries). As you already know small fish are almost impossible to photograph with extension tubes.

Anyway, I remember reading an article, maybe by Cathy Church, about removing the two verticle frames from the end of the extension tubes. This helps when dealing with the skitish critters. No frames to scare them away. This method will take a lot of trial and error practice.

Of course most of the best macro stuff is taken with 35mm SLRs inside of housings. No frames to scare away your subject. But I'm sure you probably know this.

Sorry if this doesn't help.

Just my 2 cents