Trip Report Turks & Caicos Explorer II 8/21 - 8/28/21

[Hoag]

Holy crap your pics are good. That blennie shot is my dream capture....

May I ask what equipment you use? You must have one heck of a macro lens!

I am sure it was not on purpose, but you just totally discounted @stuartv 's talent as a photographer.

After an amazing meal, would you ever say to your host

"Holy crap that dinner was good. That Prime Rib was my dream meal ...
May I ask what equipment you use? You must have one heck of an oven."

 

[stuartv]

I am sure it was not on purpose, but you just totally discounted @stuartv 's talent as a photographer.

After an amazing meal, would you ever say to your host

"Holy crap that dinner was good. That Prime Rib was my dream meal ...
May I ask what equipment you use? You must have one heck of an oven."

LOL!! Thank you, but I can assure you there was no offense taken. I do give quite a lot of credit to my equipment. The equipment does not help with my composition, but it does contribute greatly to the image quality/sharpness of my results and to my ability to get a good focus.

Holy crap your pics are good. That blennie shot is my dream capture....

May I ask what equipment you use? You must have one heck of a macro lens!

Thank you!

I shoot a Sony a7rIV with the Sony FE 28-60 f4-5.6 lens in a Nauticam housing.

For wide angle, I put a Nauticam WWL-1 on the front.

For macro (like that Blenny), I put a Nauticam CMC-1 on the front.

All with a cheap 1000 lumen video light on top as a focus light, and 2 x Inon Z240 Type III strobes.

 

[tursiops]

This. I definitely enjoyed it. But, I don't see any reason to spend the extra money it cost to fly to TCI again, over going to Cozumel. Actually, one difference there was there was virtually no current at anytime in TCI. I enjoy the drift diving in Coz, so that might be a reason to choose Coz over TCI, even if cost were equal.

You'd had a problem getting some of those nice macro shots if you'd been on a whizzing drift dive....

 

[Hoag]

LOL!! Thank you, but I can assure you there was no offense taken. I do give quite a lot of credit to my equipment. The equipment does not help with my composition, but it does contribute greatly to the image quality/sharpness of my results and to my ability to get a good focus.



Thank you!

I shoot a Sony a7rIV with the Sony FE 28-60 f4-5.6 lens in a Nauticam housing.

For wide angle, I put a Nauticam WWL-1 on the front.

For macro (like that Blenny), I put a Nauticam CMC-1 on the front.

All with a cheap 1000 lumen video light on top as a focus light, and 2 x Inon Z240 Type III strobes.

How do you like the A7R4? I shoot an A6000 (in a Nauticam housing) underwater and an A7R3 above.

 

[stuartv]

You'd had a problem getting some of those nice macro shots if you'd been on a whizzing drift dive....

True. But I don't mind that. I am pretty much a photographer of opportunity. If the opportunities are all wide angle, then that's fine. I have friends that really prefer to shoot macro. They probably would not be happy with a trip that was all drift diving... but I would be...

How do you like the A7R4? I shoot an A6000 (in a Nauticam housing) underwater and an A7R3 above.

I like it a lot. It generally works very well. I REALLY like the flexibility that 61MP gives me for cropping. The 2 things I wish it did better were better auto focus in low light, and better low light/high ISO image quality.

I deal with the AF by having my focus light and that generally works well. But, sometimes I can tell that the focus light is annoying the subject. Without the focus light, there have been times where my subject was in shadow (maybe in a hole or under a ledge) but still seemed to me like it had plenty of light for the AF to work, but it wouldn't or was very slow.

The high ISO noise is something that generally has me avoiding using anything higher than ISO 400. Even at 400, I run everything through Topaz DeNoise and can pretty much always see a slight improvement by doing so (at least, when pixel-peeping the image). But, at 400 it still does pretty well. Almost all the images I posted in this thread and on FB were shot at ISO 400. Since I almost always shoot with strobes, limiting to a max of 400 does not generally cause me a problem. I can see where it would for shooting ambient, though. And, really, if I get the composition right, so I don't have to crop too much, I can shoot at 1600 and, after DeNoise, still get images I'm happy with.

 

[TabeaK]

I am sure it was not on purpose, but you just totally discounted @stuartv 's talent as a photographer.

After an amazing meal, would you ever say to your host

"Holy crap that dinner was good. That Prime Rib was my dream meal ...
May I ask what equipment you use? You must have one heck of an oven."

Seriously? I have done no such thing and I am very glad stuartv understood the spirit in which my comment and admiration of his pictures were meant...