S90 and Ike housing with extra lens

[Puffer Fish]

Ok, finally got to dive with camera after getting the lens error corrected.

I brought three wet lens to test... the Fix wide angle, the Ike wide angle and an Inon macro...

Conditions in the gulf on the surface were calm and very nice... however... at the bottom, on White Hill, it was 63 degrees with a vis of about 4 ft...and I could not even find the reef (only one that went down... was just checking to see if it was divable..

I had attached the Fix lens..

Here is the only picture I took, of the only thing I could see:

Had the lens set to 50mm.. because as you will see later, there was an issue at 35mm

This was taken about 3 ft from the anchor in about 90 ft of water.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Ok, it got wet.. it turned on, and it worked...so on to the next site.

The liberty ship is very close, and it tends to be a bit (as in 8 to 10 ft) clearer.

So off I went to take some test images.

Not bringing that tiny allen key, I had forgotten to adjust the lens shade to match where the camera screwed down to (my defense for not doing this ahead of time is I had gotten the adaptor on Friday.. but it was still dumb).

I found out very quickly that you can see the lens shade in the field of view at 35mm. If done correctly, the long legs of it need to be vertical.

So, there will be a small black area in the side of each picture I took with the camera at 35mm.

Please realize that in 10 ft of vis, with lots of junk in the water, there was not a lot I could take wide angle pictures of... and to be honest... I was cold... as I had assumed (stupid number 2) that the gulf was warmer, it was, at the surface. So, I decide to wear a wetsuit...

Here is the sort of results I got:

 

[Puffer Fish]

Ok, they suck... center is very clear, edges terrible.

Zoom out a bit, and the results improve:

But you loose the value of a wide angle.

So I do one more test, I put the camera in macro and check how the pictures look:

Oddly, it did really well

I did another, just to check how sharp it was, and it was very crisp:

The above was shot in macro, with the camera at 50mm...how very odd.

 

[Puffer Fish]

But if you look closely, you will see that the auto focus point is slightly long on both pictures. Not sure why that is happening, but every image was like that.

 

[Puffer Fish]

So now problem number 3.. I go to take the lens off (it was just lightly screwed on) and the adapter stays on the case and the lens comes apart via itself... and I cannot get the adapter off.

It later took some major clamps and giant wrenches to get off. Seem the aluminum to aluminum seized up.

And with the adapter on the case, using the camera without it was only practical when zoom out to 50 mm or more... ok will never do that again.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Why are the edges so out of focus? Don't know.. but really close does not seem to have the issue. But taking the lens off with 5mm gloves on is no fun.. so will have to wait for another day.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Ok, so next day.. it is macro testing....and boy was that not fun.

Every picture I took was way out of focus...yet the camera thought it was in focus.

Not sure if the dirty water is causing this, or if the auto focus is being effected.

To make matters worse, as I get closer, I cannot get the strobes down low enough to prevent over exposure (I eventually move the strobes way to the side to get some distance).

I have the camera set of spot focus.. center frame...most of what I took was not worth even posting... but if I put the camera zoomed to the widest, the depth of field was enough to allow one to see what the issue was, if you had something in the image closer:

The center of the image is just to the left side of the blenny:

Notice the twig above it is actually in center focus.

Using the macro in that way, at least I could get pictures, and if you were a bit away, they were not that bad:

But zoom out and everything was out of focus.

I should point out that I have the magnify on when in focus, and it would come on with the image completely blurry. At the time I did not know if I was too close or too far away, jus that it would not work.

 

[Puffer Fish]

So, for reasons I don't right now understand, the wide angle cause the focus to be too close (but at least reasonable), and the macro cause the focus to be too far. Was not expecting that.

Don't know right now if the crappy water was part of this, or it is just the lens/case/camera... will not be diving this weekend, but the week after should be able to get some more details

 

[FrankPro1]

Interesting series of events. I'm completely clueless on how your focus issues have came to be. Let us know how your next series of tests go.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Interesting series of events. I'm completely clueless on how your focus issues have came to be. Let us know how your next series of tests go.

Will do... I also happen to have 2 S90's... will work with this one first, but just to check, may put the other one in the case.