Shutter and Speed F-stop Help for Strong Ambient Light

[hutterw]

I am a rookie to underwater photograph and have been hooked on this pastime for about half a year. I consistently making progress but want to maximize the results of my next dive trip. I live in Michigan and unfortunately my warm water trips are not as frequently as I would like. Thus I have long periods between my shooting opportunities.

I need advice on how to set the shutter speed and f-stop when shooting with a strobe and strong ambient lighting. I can consistently get properly exposed photos. I inconsistently restore the color with the strobe and end up with bluish pictures. When I increase the strobe power I tend to burn the picture. My night shots typical turn out very well.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What shutter and f-stop are typical used for these conditions?

Is there an upper shutter speed limit you can effectively shoot with a strobe?

[FONT=&quot]I have been advised to find the proper exposure with the light meter and step the f-stop back two steps. Does this sound correct?[/FONT]

I shoot either 80 or 100 ISO, shutter speed faster than 1/125, f-stop of 4 or greater.

[FONT=&quot]I am shooting a Sea and Sea 1G, DX-1G housing, YS-110 strobe and optical sync cord.[/FONT]

 

[Saltwater Junky]

Having some ambient light in the image is nice. You'll need to have your strobes to be stronger than the ambient light. This will make your stobes the key/main light and the ambient light your fill or your background light. 1 f/stop is adequate to achieve this. The best way to is to use a light meter or you can the trial and error method. Keep your shutter speed constant.

 

[alcina]

Do you have some examples so we can see what you're seeing and then try to offer advice?

A shutter of 1/125 or faster with a low ISO and a medium to small aperture should give you the results you want, but to make the water bluer/richer you will need to bump that shutter up a bit - I routinely shoot 1/160-1/250 for blues and let my strobe light the subject.

If you are burning your subject out, lower the setting on your strobe. If your strobe does not have manual controls, and you don't want to buy one that does, then move the strobe head back a little. Sometimes it doesn't take much.

 

[parabolic]

Back in the old days, when you did everything manually, for a wide-angle photo I would select the highest shutter speed compatible with the strobes I was using (usually 1/125 sec), meter the ambient light (the surface, the water column, whatever I wanted to be properly exposed for the background) for the correct aperture, then adjust my strobe settings for that aperture and the distance between the strobes and the subject. I think that still works. Now with highly reliable TTL metering, I usually just use aperture priority, meter the ambient light, select the appropriate aperture, and let the TTL do its thing with the strobes. Does this help or hurt?
++Ken++

 

[Nemrod]

You could use a meter like this one since there is no such thing as "typcial" settings.

Sekonic Marine meter. Works good and lasts a long time, ebay has them regular enough. The one on the camera has been mine since Nikonos III days, the other I just liberated from ebay.

As far as "typcial" settings, it is fun to have a meter and watch the needle swing from one end of the scale to the other depending upon where the camera is pointed--ON THE SAME DIVE--so much for typical.

N

 

[parabolic]

Nemrod those Sekonic meters are great pieces of equipment. I used one as a primary tool for many years with Nikonos cameras (easier to read than the camera meter), and with a Nikon F3 in a Tussey housing with various Ikelite and Nikon strobes. ++Ken++

 

[ce4jesus]

it is fun to have a meter and watch the needle swing from one end of the scale to the other depending upon where the camera is pointed

I think this is a good key for you, however, without a photo or two to look at its hard to diagnose exactly what's happening.

 

[hutterw]

[FONT=&quot]I will try to attach a photo to my post but I am having an issue with the file size. If I understand correctly, the file needs to be less than 100K. I have not been able to reduce my file to the required size.[/FONT]

 

[alcina]

Have a look in the Sticky - follow the pink link in my signature - and you'll find some step by step details on how to get your image in here.

To resize your image, use your software's "save for web" feature if it has one. Photoshop does and it's great. I make my images 72 dpi (which doesn't really matter for showing, but it does reduce the file size), and the longest side 650 pixels or so and save as about 65-75% jpeg ish. Usually gets the image down to 100-130ish. I then upload to the gallery here and embed the image so it can be seen vs just attaching it so people have to click. I hate having to click and usually don't bother, so I extend that same thought when I post

 

[Nemrod]

Just use Photobucket.com, a free and totaly benign photo hosting service, very, very, very easy.

N