SP350/PT030 wide angle lense??? What to get...

[Larry C]

OK! Leash is a good idea. My wife handed me my camera on our New Year's eve dive and I felt something hit my foot. Checked out my camera to see what it was-wide angle lens was missing. Probably snapped loose rolling across the tube on my RIB when she handed it to me. Fortunately, though I was unable to drop straight down and look for it due to a cold slowing my descent, our friend John (also known as the equipment rescue king-thank you, thank you, thank you once again John) went on a search and found it directly under the boat in about 60 feet of green water. I'll be setting up a leash as soon as possible. Now maybe I can find the Suunto Mosquito he lost at Pinos rock this weekend....ha, ha, ha.

 

[W8less]

Larry C,

Which Inon lens has the infinity issue? 100 or 165? I have been shooting the 165 in Pacific NW waters and has been fine

 

[Larry C]

I used the 105AD in Fiji and while it was very sharp up close with the camera set on auto focus and area focus, the background stuff from about 25ft. on out was kind of fuzzy, which made the sunballs and such a little less appealing. I've done beautiful kelp shots in the Channel Islands with my Sea & Sea, so I know it isn't the camera. It may be I need to use manual focus with a different distance perhaps.

 

[RockyHeap]

Larry, you got lucky! The dive gods were smiling down upon you, great that you got your lens back!

W8less, I live north of seattle and dive Edmonds alot with my camera gear if you want to play with our lenses.

Here are a couple of my shots with my 165 AD mount fish eye on my SP350. I think it's not as much a infinity focus issue, as the sheer magnitude of the dome and wetmount lens that give them a softer look at far infinity focus.

These are in Roatan on Top of Marys Place trench/wall. Reef top is about 40 foot and the wall goes straight down.

Sorry for the grainyness as I had it on ISO-400, and shooting with manual white balance which is a must for most super wide angle capture the whole reef wall and whole dive group scenes. So while not out of focus, it is a softer look way out there into the distance......heck, this is alot of water to shoot through too!

Shutter speed 100, and F6.5 and 8.0. So even with the 400 film speed setting, I was trying to soak up alot of light. Only some slight very lite color and brightness photoshop tweeking on these.....



These are a couple of my favorite shots, and was the first dive with the 165 fish eye. Yeah, they give you a bit of example of infinity focus!!!

This is what a 165 degree of wide angle freedom can capture for you. Manual white balance a must, (calibrated at depth off a photo-white slate) ain't no way dozens and dozens of strobes would light scenes like these! :cool2:

 

[Larry C]

Those are nice, Rocky. Too bad about the grain. That's one thing that sucks about the Oly. Even at ISO 200, you get grain. Have you tried slowing the shutter? I've been trying 1/30 on WA's with no blur, although I'm using a strobe to light the foreground which freezes the action. Sorry, OP, didn't mean to hijack your thread.