Shooting with Nikon P&S

[BigAirHarper]

I have a camera housing on the way from Fantasea for my Nikon S9 point and shoot camera. Somewhat of an older camera, but I was looking for any advice on things I should consider with this camera U/W. This will be my first attempt at U/W photography. Fantasea makes a strobe kit for this housing, is it something I should look at investing in? Thanks for any advice.

 

[Coralcop]

If you plan on shooting any deeper than about 15' or in low light/low vis conditions a strobe would make it worthwhile. Shallow tropical waters can be shot without a strobe with ambient light making the colors stand out, otherwise you will have a bluish tint to everything.

 

[NC Wreck Diver]

There is a red warming filter that you can use to take the blue tint out of ambient light shots. But remember, any time you put something in front of the lens, you take up light for exposure, and maybe have sharpness issues too. In ambient light, reds and the warm spectrum of light drops off first, then works it way down to the cool spectrum.

The stobe will really help, just get one with a removable diffuser on it (most have this). Do everything you can to keep the stobe angle off the angle of your lens (i.e. don't shoot with the stobe straight into the same plane as the lens). This causes backskatter, and you will have dots all around the image.

Start off simple, then work your way up to using more advanced items. No sense in trying to shoot with a lot of technical gear to begin with. Keep at it, you will get it. Safe diving to you. Post your shots.

 

[BigAirHarper]

Thanks for the info guys. I guess I will play around with ambient lighting shots on my beach dives and see how things go. So if down the road I'm looking to get a strobe setup, would something like this be a good start: Fantasea Line CoolFlash Nano Single Pro Kit 2075 - B&H Photo

And in regards to strobe ange, do I want it pointed directly at the subject, just at a different angle of the lense?