want new kit ...film/no flash/good optics

[NotoriousBOB]

Hello all,
My first post here. I'm a keen surface photographer 9years training so i know some stuff. I want to sort out a UW setup and was looking for sugestions. I mainly want to do ambient light work so i'm after a housing for an old SLR. I have a trusty Nikon F3 but would be willing to buy another old manual SLR for this project, maybe even a medium format job???
Wondering if any of you know of any old housings, where to look.....there must be loads of old unused kit around there. I just need the camera to have long shutter settings or maybe a bulb setting.

Any ideas?????

thanks all

 

[TedJ]

Go to eBay and set up a Favorite search on "Nikon underwater". I've seen plenty of old Ikelite housings over the past year for old Nikons.
TedJ

 

[NotoriousBOB]

Thanks TedJ I've been looking on ebay as we speak!

 

[SubMariner]

NB, I hear you when you say that you want to do "ambient light" pictures, but I think you have overlooked the fundatmentals about taking pictures underwater.

There is a BIG difference between how light travels underwater vs. above water. Light is absorbed much more quickly and in a shorter distance u/w that above. Ergo, the use of a strobe.

In many cases if you did not use a strobe, you would not get a picture.

Just wanted to pass that along.

~SubMariner~

 

[blacknet]

SubMariner,

NOT TRUE! Embrase the ambient is the means that photographers are made! Photography is the essence of painting with light! I will agree it is far easier for an amature to take their huge hulking strobes with them u/w to shoot gobs and gobs of shapshots. Do this, Pick up *any* published work on marine mammals and show me *ONE* that uses a strobe. (if you do find one then that's a MMPA violation) I personaly hate strobes, they do make good door stops.

The study of exposure states that you *can* get exposure with out strobe in many conditions. How do they get those moon shots? That would take one HUGE strobe! Well it's *NOT* a strobe, it's exposure.

I recomend to *all* photographers they pick up this book: ISBN 0130282715 Title "photography" by Barbara London; John Upton; Kenneth Kobre. There you will find practicaly everything you ever wanted and need to know about photography.


NotoriousBOB,

B&H is dumping alot of aquatica stuff on ebay, as is helix. One thing you may want (depeding on your subject matter) is find an older body and a housing for it. One of the *NICE* things about using a pro body in a pro housing is the size of the viewfinder. Also you'll basicaly be using that pro camera as a predominately manual camera but that's another story.

Ed

 

[Dee]

Ed...would you care to explain what a MMPA violation is? Just because you hate strobes and think they should be doorstops, doesn't make anything Submariner said untrue. If fact, everything she said is exactly true. You may paint with ambient light on land but underwater if you want anything but blue colors, you'll also paint with the light from a strobe. Underwater photos are not the moon, even us underlings know not to use a strobe for that one!

Everyone's definition of photography can be different, mine is definately different from yours. That doesn't make you wrong, though. If you have differing opinions from everyone else, please say so but please refrain from calling statements true and not true.

 

[blacknet]

Hello,

Yes it's true that light travels differently underwater than on land. That part I have no problem with. The parts that I was stating was wrong:

I think you have overlooked the fundatmentals about taking pictures underwater.

AND

In many cases if you did not use a strobe, you would not get a picture.

The original post specifically mentioned underwater ambient light photography. For all we know he/she could be using b/w film or something similiar, not everyone uses color film.

Photography is the study of light, that's the base definition. It matters not where you are, what you are doing or anything else. The base definition does not change, it's what you do with it that changes.

MPA is the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Ed

 

[NotoriousBOB]

Uh oh..............
I also think that a strobe is not an essential piece of kit, especially if i wanted to specialise is ambient light work!
Another great book is Ansel Adams 'The Negative'........you'll really find out what you can do with film without a flash!

Fundamentally I wanted to approach underwater photography in my own way rather that 'wide-angle, bit of fill flash, colourful foreground, deep blue ambient background'
I feel that Underwater photography is a bit too 'kit orientated'. Some of the best photos I’ve ever seen have been taken with pinhole cameras. This is one of my reasons for finding a real 'nuts-and-bolts' bit of kit.
Thank you all very much for your thoughts........and the photography banter

 

[blacknet]

hello,

AH yes St Adams is one of the best ways to go. However using the zone system underwater you may have to make some mod's here and there but it can de done. I have a somewhat modified zone chart on the back of my housing so I can use it while in the water and it works very good.

I have sucessfully used ambient light macro photography underwater. Many people told me that I was screwing up untill they looked at the results.

You can get a housing for the luna Pro meter or you could get a good body and use it's meter. Perhaps the easiest route to go is the luna pro housing and a nik V.

Have you thought about what subject matter you want to focus on?

Ed

 

[SubMariner]

NOT TRUE! Embrase the ambient is the means that photographers are made! Photography is the essence of painting with light! I will agree it is far easier for an amature to take their huge hulking strobes with them u/w to shoot gobs and gobs of shapshots. Do this, Pick up *any* published work on marine mammals and show me *ONE* that uses a strobe. (if you do find one then that's a MMPA violation) I personaly hate strobes, they do make good door stops.

Not to burst your purist bubble, but most well known u/w photogs use a strobe: Cathy Church, Stan Waterman, Paul Humann... the list is quite long. Using a strobe while photographing u/w is no more an "MMPA violaton" than actually being u/w.

Again, underwater optics are different than above water. This is fact, not opinion. Talking about people like Ansel Adams may have merit from a theoretical POV, but is not really useful u/w.

BTW, the last time I looked in the dictionary, the word photography did not include "the study of light". That's simply YOUR definition.

~SubMariner~