Patima and the G11....help....anyone....please!!

[Dazza da diver]

Am looking to get into this most confusing and wondrous of fascinations called "Underwater photography"....should be easy one says to ones self.....hmmmmf....whats so hard about this....I am mature....intelligent (or so I thought) can make logical decisions and....who am I kidding!!! this is rediculous.

All I want to do is take pictures underwater...

Have been told about the magic dance before and after shaking hands in some mysterious soothsaying midnight encounter with the all seeing.

but I still want to take pictures underwater..

So.....This is what I recon....and am open for more enlightened comments from those who know more please.

A Patima housing
A G11 Canon
2 strobes of some type, sort and description magically fed by some sort of cable.
I only want to do this once....so to a degree....money is not the limiting factor.
I am going away in September this year for 3 weeks being forced to dive in the tropics and try to enjoy myself.....and if I can take some photo's to prove that I was there and I really did see Davy Jones....then all the better.

I am looking for some advise as to what parts of my hair brained thoughts above are not going to work and or would work better if I did it like this.....places to buy, traps and a good psychologist to visit once I have finished.

Any advise will be received greatly....and probably more so if its not in Techno Babble. I am but a mere male with limited brain cells that must last me a few more years yet.

Thanks

Oh Yeahh...what are "trackbacks" please....anyone????

 

[M_Bipartitus]

That list of gear will cover just about anything you want to do. However, A few comments:

Strobes: It's likely overkill to jump into two strobes, unless you are already familiar using multiple flashes on land, or plan on diving deep. Shallow tropics dives may not need any extra light added. Either way, take some time to practice with your strobes above water, and on local dives or in a pool. Try to get a feel for the different effects of strobe power and what direction they are pointing.

Wet lenses: I might suggest looking into wet-mount wide-angle or macro adaptors. The G11 is a great camera, but lacks the full wide angle settings that many underwater photographers like to use. The widest settings allow you to best follow the first rule of underwater photography (get close) while still getting a lot of the space in the photo. The macro adaptor is more for those who like to get lots of photos os the little critters on the reef.

Practice: No matter what camera and accessories you get, take some time to get to know your system. As with any endeavor, you get better with practice. I'm sure you would hate to miss a great photo of some part of your dive because you couldn't remember which button to push, or had the wrong setting enabled. My suggestions for practice:

1. Get familiar with the camera above water. Take a lot of pictures above water. Any experience helps, but more with wide angle and/or close-ups will help you diving photos. A garden or back yard can be good for wide angle. And remember to get close to your subject. Pets can be great practice if you want to take pictures of fish. Get used to panning to follow motion, such as a dog running or fish swimming by. Take a lot of photos. Digital file space is cheap and you can easily delete photos later if you don't like them.


2. Put the case on the camera. There are often subtle, yet important changes to the handling of your camera in it's case. Controls may move around a bit, it could be hard to see through the viewfinder, for example. You don't even have to go diving. Just use your camera in the underwater case for a while and it will be that much easier when you do go diving.

3. Pool time. Next step is to get out to a pool or local dive site. Hopefully by now using your camera is second nature, so addidng it to your dive should be easier to maintain buoyancy and situational awareness while using your camera. If you go to a pool it could help to bring something along that you can sink to act as a subject. Remember to take a lot of photos, you can delete them later if you feel like it.

4. Go on your trip. After the steps above, you should be set to have a dive with your camera without any surprises or delays. Be curious to other divers, don't touch the reef, and bring back some good shots.

Feel free to post any questions you have, and you can post photos along the way for suggestions, or just to show off...

 

[HerraduraDivers]

Here my 2 cents as i have a G11 and a Patima housing:
1. The G11 has a 28mm wide angle lens, what is not enough wide angle. (Wide Angle is never wide enough...)
2. The Patima G11 housing has two ports, a non treaded universal/zoom port and a 67mm treaded WA port. The wide angle port allow to mount directly a INON UWL-100 Wide angle lens (+ Dome Port), 10 Bar F104, Dyron, Epoque, Fantasea 67mm Bigeye Domeport, and with a micro of zoom there is no vignetting.
3. The included zoom port for the Patima Housing has no tread for wet lenses. The very specialized Austrian UW Photography shop unterwasserkamera.at produces a slip-over adapter with a 67mm tread to allow the use of 67mm tread macro lenses like Inon, Epoque,Subsee, Dyron.
4. I personally don't find two strobes a overkill, two strobes is the right number of strobes to use and i am miss a second one. To learn to handle one or or two strobes is not a huge difference.

For the rest i agree with M_Bipartitus

Chris

 

[Banon]

Dazza,

Great advice from Chris and Bipartitus. They covered wet mount lenses and strobe quantity.

I've got a Canon G9 in Canon housing with DIY 67mm wetmount ring, flex arms, and S&S YS-110a strobe. My wife has the Canon G11, Canon housing, aftermarket wet lens mount, ultralight base and arms, and Inon Z-240 strobe.

On the base and arms, definitely go with the "ultralight style" with the 1" ball connectors and clamps. You'll be happier with those long term over the flex arms. I'm not sure there is much difference between actual Ultralight and the 3rd party knockoffs. Some others may have a different perspective.

For the strobe(s), I like the Inon Z-240 the best, but the S&S YS-110a is real close and you can save ~US$200 per strobe if you buy them from a site like www.i-divesite.com, Divervision, or Fun-In. Don't plan on any support if you go that route.

If you go with the Z-240, they are negatively bouyant so make sure to buy bouyancy arms instead of normal arms to offset. Your forearms will thank you after a long dive. The YS-110s are very slightly positive so normal arms are fine. (I'm not sure about the Patima housing, you might check it for bouyancy.)

I see 4 viable/safe choices on strobes:

• Inon Z-240 type 4: high end, best feature set, bright, focus light, negatively bouyant so you'll want bouyancy arms. Anything more (e.g. S&S YS-250) is going to be overkill for the G11. You are not getting an Ikelite housing, so I wouldn't recommend an Ikelite strobe.
• Inon D-2000 type 4: great choice, slightly less powerful version of the Z-240. I can't personally speak to in water usage.
• S&S YS-110a: almost as good as the Z-240, can be purchased for ~US$200 less, almost neutral in the water
• Inon S2000: tiny, getting great reviews, only strobe in this list that doesn't have a focus light or support a hardwired TTL connection if you ever wanted to go that route in the future. This would be a great choice if you wanted to go with a super tiny yet powerful setup.

Have fun!
Banon

 

[deeper thoughts]

I too am looking at the Canon G11. I am considering the Ikelite housing/ds51 strobe package. I am also looking at the wideangle/macro additions. Any suggestions pros/cons. Thnx

 

[PatW]

I too am looking at the Canon G11. I am considering the Ikelite housing/ds51 strobe package. I am also looking at the wideangle/macro additions. Any suggestions pros/cons. Thnx

I just went out with my G11 with Ikelite housing and ds51 strobe. I really liked the set up.

In photographing other divers, the macro would probably do very well. I did not fiddle with wide angle too often. But given that any distance at all sucks out sharpness, the closer the better.

I did mostly shots of fish and small marine life.

One thing I would really recommend, is shooting RAW. If you get anywhere close with a RAW photo, you can get a good image in post processing. In JPG, it is pretty near what you see is what you get. Also critical in RAW, is you can fool with white balance to your heart's content. I don't like the idea of opening my case on a boat between dives, so I use a 4 GB card which gives me more than 250 exposures in 2 dives. Which is enough. At least so far.

The other thing I noticed was getting the hang of the strobe. You can get too much reflection off of sand. You can over expose in shallow water. It worked really well under ledges though. It worked pretty well for macro. But I still have a learning curve.

The camera and case and strobe have a definite negative density in water. It was not too bad. But you might think of a tether for it and/or packing on a little foam to make it more neutrally bouyant or even a little positive.

The thing is that the case, camera and strobe gave me good results on the first times out and with each dive, I got better at handling it. So I was quite pleased with the results. It is not a DSLR but it is a very capable and flexible point and shoot. Also, I found the controls to be reasonably easy to handle and pretty intuitive.

I was quite pleased with the system.

 

[deeper thoughts]

I just went out with my G11 with Ikelite housing and ds51 strobe. I really liked the set up.

In photographing other divers, the macro would probably do very well. I did not fiddle with wide angle too often. But given that any distance at all sucks out sharpness, the closer the better.

I did mostly shots of fish and small marine life.

One thing I would really recommend, is shooting RAW. If you get anywhere close with a RAW photo, you can get a good image in post processing. In JPG, it is pretty near what you see is what you get. Also critical in RAW, is you can fool with white balance to your heart's content. I don't like the idea of opening my case on a boat between dives, so I use a 4 GB card which gives me more than 250 exposures in 2 dives. Which is enough. At least so far.

The other thing I noticed was getting the hang of the strobe. You can get too much reflection off of sand. You can over expose in shallow water. It worked really well under ledges though. It worked pretty well for macro. But I still have a learning curve.

The camera and case and strobe have a definite negative density in water. It was not too bad. But you might think of a tether for it and/or packing on a little foam to make it more neutrally bouyant or even a little positive.

The thing is that the case, camera and strobe gave me good results on the first times out and with each dive, I got better at handling it. So I was quite pleased with the results. It is not a DSLR but it is a very capable and flexible point and shoot. Also, I found the controls to be reasonably easy to handle and pretty intuitive.

I was quite pleased with the system.

Thnx alot. I figure the whole set up like that with lens and adaptors should run me around 1500-2000

 

[pjhansman]

I have a G11 (which I really like) and just received my Ikelite housing and ds51 strobe after a long wait (housing was back ordered).

Looking forward to trying it out this weekend.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Great price on the YS110a's.

Dazza,

Great advice from Chris and Bipartitus. They covered wet mount lenses and strobe quantity.

I've got a Canon G9 in Canon housing with DIY 67mm wetmount ring, flex arms, and S&S YS-110a strobe. My wife has the Canon G11, Canon housing, aftermarket wet lens mount, ultralight base and arms, and Inon Z-240 strobe.

On the base and arms, definitely go with the "ultralight style" with the 1" ball connectors and clamps. You'll be happier with those long term over the flex arms. I'm not sure there is much difference between actual Ultralight and the 3rd party knockoffs. Some others may have a different perspective.

For the strobe(s), I like the Inon Z-240 the best, but the S&S YS-110a is real close and you can save ~US$200 per strobe if you buy them from a site like www.i-divesite.com, Divervision, or Fun-In. Don't plan on any support if you go that route.

If you go with the Z-240, they are negatively bouyant so make sure to buy bouyancy arms instead of normal arms to offset. Your forearms will thank you after a long dive. The YS-110s are very slightly positive so normal arms are fine. (I'm not sure about the Patima housing, you might check it for bouyancy.)

I see 4 viable/safe choices on strobes:

• Inon Z-240 type 4: high end, best feature set, bright, focus light, negatively bouyant so you'll want bouyancy arms. Anything more (e.g. S&S YS-250) is going to be overkill for the G11. You are not getting an Ikelite housing, so I wouldn't recommend an Ikelite strobe.
• Inon D-2000 type 4: great choice, slightly less powerful version of the Z-240. I can't personally speak to in water usage.
• S&S YS-110a: almost as good as the Z-240, can be purchased for ~US$200 less, almost neutral in the water
• Inon S2000: tiny, getting great reviews, only strobe in this list that doesn't have a focus light or support a hardwired TTL connection if you ever wanted to go that route in the future. This would be a great choice if you wanted to go with a super tiny yet powerful setup.

Have fun!
Banon

 

[fjr_wertheimber]

Well, count me in with the G11/Ikelite/DS-51 crew... Nice to see this is a pretty popular setup, I can't wait to get mine wet! My housing and strobe just arrived today in Iraq! Woohoo! R&R, here I come (eventually LOL)!