Question about which strobe and lens for Nikonos.

[Florabama]

Brand new to photography. I like to take pics of wrecks and divers. Don't really care about Macro. Bougth a Nikonos with a small strobe and regular lens, but the strobe is not big enough for pics below about 30 fsw. I am usually diving 100' to 130'. Pics at this depth turn out almost black even with the stobe. Also, anything that is not shot from less than 15' away looks tiny. Any suggestions?

 

[Mike Veitch]

Brand new to photography. I like to take pics of wrecks and divers. Don't really care about Macro. Bougth a Nikonos with a small strobe and regular lens, but the strobe is not big enough for pics below about 30 fsw. I am usually diving 100' to 130'. Pics at this depth turn out almost black even with the stobe. Also, anything that is not shot from less than 15' away looks tiny. Any suggestions?

The 35mm lens is pretty much useless. Get yourself the 20mm or 15mm lens, that way you can get much closer and a strobe can actually be useful. Strobes only work to about a max of 6 feet away from the subject underwater anyway.

ALso, you can try using a higher ISO film, slower shutter speed, open your f-stop. You didn't say anything about what settings you are using, how clear is the water, is it tropical or green, what time of day you are diving etc etc
Therefore quite difficult to answer your question.

If you are shooting wrecks at depth you need to use natural light which will require a slow shutter speed (30) and a higher ISO film like 400, you may want to shoot print film as it gives more leeway in the exposure dept.

Best
Mike

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Don't know anything about the Nikonos cameras, but welcome to the scubaboard anyway

Shoot me a PM if you're ever looking for a buddy, we live in the same area(I'm just north of Gulf Shores and dive between Gulf Shores and Destin pretty regularly).

 

[Florabama]

The 35mm lens is pretty much useless. Get yourself the 20mm or 15mm lens, that way you can get much closer and a strobe can actually be useful. Strobes only work to about a max of 6 feet away from the subject underwater anyway.

ALso, you can try using a higher ISO film, slower shutter speed, open your f-stop. You didn't say anything about what settings you are using, how clear is the water, is it tropical or green, what time of day you are diving etc etc
Therefore quite difficult to answer your question.

If you are shooting wrecks at depth you need to use natural light which will require a slow shutter speed (30) and a higher ISO film like 400, you may want to shoot print film as it gives more leeway in the exposure dept.

Best
Mike

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. As far as the settings, I'm still too dumb to know where to set the camera. I've been using the automatic setting and the TTL with my Nikonos V. I tried to take pics of my kids diving on the Duane in the Keys and they turned out very dark even with the strobe. I did get one pretty good shot looking up at the crow's nest from the deck of the ship but the crow's nest looked tiny in the print. I was using film, and I think it was 400 speed. Usually I'm diving in water where the vis is between 40 and 60 feet. The Vis on the Duane that day was probably 40' due to high current. Its normally much higher. I live in Pensacola and dive here most of the time. Its not quite the Keys but its not New England either. Vis even inshore runs about 40 ft on average. Offshore, its as good as the Caribbean but I'm usually much deeper before I'm ready to take a picture.

Are you saying that I should ditch the strobe completely? I was thinking I need a bigger one. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Florabama]

Don't know anything about the Nikonos cameras, but welcome to the scubaboard anyway

Shoot me a PM if you're ever looking for a buddy, we live in the same area(I'm just north of Gulf Shores and dive between Gulf Shores and Destin pretty regularly).

Thanks, come on over to Pcola and go diving with us. I'll probably go this coming weekend. Arlene messed up the current weekend. I usually go on the Viking dive boat which is captained by Tim Thorsen. Three tanks offshore is 100 bucks (it was 85 last summer) and less for inshore dives. The dive boat is not much to write home about, but Tim is a YMCA instructor and a heck of a divier himself. He is willing to go out to some of the deeper spots which are usually much clearer.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Thanks for the invite, prices went up in for diving offshore from AL as well. $85 for 3 tanks is a hellova deal, we paid that for 2 tanks offshore(up to 20 miles) last year. We pay $95 for 2 tanks offshore this year. I probably wont' be able to join you guys this upcoming weekend, but don't be suprised if I shoot you a PM one of these days saying I'm heading to P'Cola for some diving

 

[ssra30]

Are you saying that I should ditch the strobe completely? I was thinking I need a bigger one. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

What strobe are you using? Flash underwater photography generally dictates that you need to be as close to the subject as much as possible as even the most powerful strobe will only reach so far.
Granted there are some strobes that are quite weak and are only good for macro where the subject is no more than a foot or two away. Most likely though, you might just be too far away from the subject rather than underpower strobe.

 

[Florabama]

What strobe are you using? Flash underwater photography generally dictates that you need to be as close to the subject as much as possible as even the most powerful strobe will only reach so far.
Granted there are some strobes that are quite weak and are only good for macro where the subject is no more than a foot or two away. Most likely though, you might just be too far away from the subject rather than underpower strobe.

Its an Ikelite Substrobe MV. It came with the camera. The guy I bought it from was mostly taking macro pics in the Caribbean although he did take some longer shots with it that looked pretty good.

Any suggestions on a better strobe for what I would like to do?

 

[Mike Veitch]

Sounds like you are diving in fairly clear water so that is good. There are several different ways of taking wreck photos. One of the more popular is getting in the whole ship, this is best taken as a silhouette or as natural light. Silhouette means you are shooting into the sun from far enough away that you can fit the whole ship in. Best done by using A and a fairly wide open aperture like 4 or 5.6. What A means is that you set the aperture (fstop) and the camera picks the shutter speed. When using a strobe the best thing to keep in mind is that the aperture (fstop) controls the strobe light and the shutter controls the ambient light. Please note that A does not stand for Auto but for aperture priority. A wider aperture (2.8-5.6) lets in a lot of light and is used when further away from a subject you want to light with strobe. Smaller apertures (f11-F22) are used when close to subject and you want to cut down on the amount of light hitting the subject.
Natural light is done by keeping the sun behind you to help light up the ship. Can be taken slightly down facing or parallel. Again A will work ok with open aperture (fstop)
Please note that both times i said sunlight...best to take natural light photos when it is sunny not dark.
You will never light up a whole part of a wreck no matter how strong your strobes are so if you want to light up a large part of the wreck you need to balance ambient and strobe light. These types of photos include lighting up parts of the wreck with strobe or lighting up a diver and a part of the wreck etc. with the rest of the ship lit up as silhouette in the background by the sun.

So here is a little rule of thumb for lighting things up with your strobe. TTL works ok but you need to put your fstop in the right ballpark in order to get good results.

With your strobe is it the little tiny one like i think?
4 feet from subject = f2.8 - f4
3 ft = f4 - f5.6
2 ft = f 5.6-f8
1ft = f8- f11
Note i put two numbers for each, that is for bracketing, take pictures using both f stops

Also, try to always shoot up at your subjects to get blue water backgrounds and contrast. The shooting down i spoke about above is only good if the wreck has a nice sandy bottom and is a bright sunny day, other than that always shoot up.

Hope that helps.
If all else fails...go digital, you can get more photos in a dive and see your results instantly. Its a much better and easier tool for learning UW photography

 

[Mike Veitch]

As for better strobes, get one that is a wide a beam as possible and very powerful, that will help light things up in the deep.
There is a strobe finder database on www.digitaldiver.net that will help you choose a good one