SeaLife Reefmasters And Lighting Question

[sig]

I just recently purchase the Reefmaster camera and I am looking forward to using it this weekend. I like to go down to about 90ft on a regular basis and from what I have read I will probably need a strobe at that depth.

Unfortunately I can not afford the strobe right now and I was curious if a flashlight will help any for lighting. Most of my pictures are going to be of my fellow divers next to a cliff. Any helpful hints would be appreciated. I was also curious how the strobe works as I don't see a area to plug it in on the camera.

Thanks

 

[The Chairman]

Hey Sig,

Any will help, but you really need one of the HID units to make much difference. You may also notice quite a bit of "Back Scatter" without a strobe, depending on the water clarity. I actually do a lot of spring diving, and that is what is for.

:tease:

 

[herman]

Hi Sig,

Unfortunately, you are going to need the strobe in water deeper than 10 ft or so and that's assuming you are in gin clear water. Even with a strobe, you will still have to be keep the distance to your subject short, esp at the depths you are talking about. I doubt that a flashlight will be of any help unless it's one of the new super bright ones and at the cost of them, you would be better off cost and picture wise with the strobe. Another problem with using a flashlihgt is that the light from a flashlight is the wrong "color" and will make the color of the pictures to be off. If you have ever seen photos taken indoors without a flash, you may have noticed that they had a yellow (incandesent lighting) or a green tint (floresent lighting). Tbe best advise I can give is to get close to your subjects and start saving your pennies.

As for how the strobe works, it "slaves" off the internal strobe of the camera. In other words, as the internal strobe fires, the light from it shines on a photosencer that fires the slaved (or in the case of the reefmaster, the main) strobe. Ocasionally, these type of strobes will accidently fire on their own if a strong pulse of light such as a glint from the sun hits the sencer, or another photograher fires a strobe near by. .

Hope this helps.

 

[blacknet]

Hello,

I have some great shots at 130' on ambient, yea I had to use high-speed film but they are great shots. It really depends on what you are going for and what film your using and what conditions are like.

FYI, backscatter is the reflection of LIGHT on particulate matter in the water that's to close to the camera (out of range) that shows up as the diaphragm of the lens. To avoid this either stop using a strobe or change the angle of impact upon the subject.

As for the HID lighting goes that is somewhat over kill. They are somewhat high priced and the connections are not quite there in the market place yet. What is recommended is learn to take advantage of the equipment you do have, if you need to take shots of something else then study what your desired output is to be then select the equipment you need.

Couple of tips, lights have what is called a color temp (see the Kelvin scale for more info on this) almost all flashlights on the market has a really ugly looking color while at depth (some are orange or red). What I would suggest (would make for some interesting shots) is go to a higher speed film, i.e. 1600 or 3200 speed would be interesting. However, I’m not sure that your camera can handle that type of speed. Even if it were something like 400 speeds it would make a big difference. Another thing to, lower power or no strobe would make for longer exposures, i.e. the amount of light is inversely proportional to the length of exposure needed (well that's the basics and there's other things to factor in as well but you get the point.)

Happy shooting.

Ed

 

[The Chairman]

Hey Ed,

The Reefmaster comes with a built in flash, that you can not turn off. The external strobe changes the angle of incidence so as to reduce the backscatter and even red eye. The manufacturer reccomends only shooting with 200 ASA.

:nono:

Now guys, this is not meant as a substitute for having too much fun the night before your big dive. Get some sleep!

:tease:

 

[blacknet]

Hello,

I'm not that up to date on the hardware of this model but I was under the impression (could be wrong here!) that they had some ttl connection for external strobes and the internal one was disabled or something to that effect.

BTW you can tape the on-camera flash and cover it up to prevent it from covering your subject

Ed

 

[Tavi]

Originally posted by blacknet
Hello,

BTW you can tape the on-camera flash and cover it up to prevent it from covering your subject

Ed

If you do this with a strobe on the camera the strobe will not fire (see herman's post above).

sig,
I use a Reefmaster. I bought the strobe on the advice of members on the boards. I'm glad I did.
I agree with "save your pennies", get the strobe when you can, it's worth it.I use the 200 speed film as recomended, And I like the results I got from Sea&Sea proccessing.

Check out my homepage to see some of my pics.

Tavi

 

[sig]

Thanks for all the replies.

I got to use the camera for the first time this last weekend. Water visibility was the worst I have seen it in this lake. But even then it's still good. I'd say about 40ft. I took pictures down to 105ft and I was very impressed with the results. I even enlarged two of them. I used 200 speed and took them at about every 10ft and I was surprised how well they all came out. I tried using the top mounted view finder and the built in view finder and as luck would have it I was better using the internal as the pictures came out centered. My friend took one using the top mounted one and he cut off my head. I took pictures from a distance of 2ft to 20ft and I feel 4ft was about the best, the macro lens would probably help for up close as they were out of focus. I also took some night pics and I realized I have to be real close for these. On the way back home we stopped at a man made marina with a suspended layer of silt at about 20ft off the bottom. There was allot of silt stirred up from dropping through the layer and from the silt that was on the sunken F-14. Due to all the crap in the water the only ones that came out good was of the cock pit of the plane. For good color I realized that the best pictures were of enclosed areas that could reflect the light. My conclusion is that I need to take everyone's advice and buy the external flash. Thanks again and I think I'm hooked.

 

[fooks]

If your not looking to take the best pictures and need an extra bit of light, the flashlight can come in handy. Im pretty new to underwater photography, but i have used my dive light as an extra source of light. I simply held the light a bit higher than the camera and aimed it at my target. The pictures aren't the best but they did turn out ok.

 

[sactomags]

I, too, have the camera (fortunately also have the strobe), but have had occasion to take it under and not think I would need the strobe. Plus, for a time, the strobe just plain wouldn't fire when I hooked it up to the camera. Got that fixed during annual check up -- actually, they gave me a completely new system! Anyhow, we almost always dive with a light (even a small one) since California waters tend to get a little dark the lower you go, and I've imposed on my buddy/husband to shine his light on the subject.

Also, that little flash that is on the camera is pretty good. I got an incredible shot of a shark with a squirrel fish right in front at 75 feet -- it was right after dawn and we were the first in the water at Molokini crater (Maui). Still pretty dark down there, but you couldn't tell from the shot I got.

Margaret