Question about which strobe and lens for Nikonos.

[Florabama]

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

Thank you very much. Yes, my strobe is pretty small. Instead of replacing it, I was wondering if adding an additional one would help. Anyway, thanks for the lesson. I'm going to print it off and study and try to put it into practice. I did not understand those points before, so this should help. Thanks.

 

[scubabear]

Hi, Wife does the photography, I gawk and point out critters. Three things come to mind that might be helpful. 1) Get a copy of The Nikonos Handbook by Jim & Cathy Church. (2) Treat yourself to diving at Sunset House in Grand Cayman and take
the course Cathy Church offers from there. (3) Or ReallY treat yourself, and take
one of the Jim Church courses taught by Mike & Mike on one of the Aggressors !!

http://www.jimchurchphoto.com/ http://www.cathychurch.com/courses.html

 

[Mike Veitch]

Hey Scubabear you forgot to mention take a course with this Mike in Yap!

 

[scubabear]

Sorry Mike, excellent suggestion. I suspect when wife reads this thread, you and Yap will be on her wish list.

 

[Panic]

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

I didn't even start this thread, but I wanted to thank you for that post. It's been a while since I've done anything more than point-and-shoot photography, so the manual basics have faded from memory. This was a great, informative post. Thanks again.