Above and below shots

Also called half and half, under over, and split shots.

These are among the most challenging underwater images to capture.

On this snorkel I set out just to shoot under overs and this is the only decent one from 80 or so.

This is what I learned....

Need glassy calm, shallow, clear water

Must have a big dome port (8" Ike)

Use the widest lens you have (Sigma 15mm, but wider would have been better. I actually came home and ordered a Tokina 10-17mm soon after)

f/9 is not enough for sharp above and below, need more like f/16

Shoot manual exposure just making sure not to blow out above water highlights. RAW helps a great deal and the graduated filter in CS5 Camera Raw works wonders.

Focus on the underwater detail and lock focus it for the shot.

To reduce water drops in the image, spit on the dome and rub the saliva around the top half.
Start with the dome fully submerged then take the shot within seconds of lifting it up and framing.

Close encounter with a fur seal

Had a wonderful 30 minute solo dive with this big inquisitive fur seal at Cottage Reef.
I have seen seals here a few times but never this close.

It was obviously feeding under the deep ledges, then darting out and peering into my dome port.

Luckily I had the Sigma 15mm lens on, but there was lots of suspended sand in the water. Seems to be a feature of Cottage these days. A fair bit of clone stamp and healing brush was needed.

More shots here.

Setting sun

Rich and I have been doing the odd after work dive at St Leonards. At this time of day the sun is low in the sky which opens up different lighting possibilities.

You can shoot a subject more horizontally and still include some background sunbursts. As the sun sinks lower the sunbursts become warmer and more diffuse.

Also captured this fish-ball shot.

D80, Sigma 15mm and 6" dome.

Bad vis, Wide angle

A perfect flat sunny day above but sandy 3m vis below and I had the Sigma 15mm fisheye on.

Luckily this lens does excellent CFWA close focus wide angle.

Just have to hide the backscatter in a busy background or position strobes out wide. The problem then of course is getting light on that close subject.

TAKA Great Barrier Reef trip

Just returned from 5 day live-aboard trip to the Ribbon reefs and Osprey reef off north Queensland on TAKA.

This was my first venture into tropical and live-aboard diving in 10 yrs and 600 dives! In the past I have always preferred to spend money on scuba and camera gear.

Used the 15mm fisheye and 60mm macro. Started with 2 strobes then switched to 1 to make it a bit easier. Would have been better to have a serious photographer buddy.

Loved the diving, 27c and up to 40m vis in the water, mind-blowing marine life and very well run dive deck.
Wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

Things they could improve on the boat are:
Food - German chef 's last trip after only 3 weeks. Great breakfast and salads but the dinners were like poor quality pub food. Grey/bleeding meat and deep fried crumbed things.
Water urn and brewed coffee was left empty too often.
Noise level in the lounge between dives was annoying. Chef's cd player and lounge cd player competing!

However these are just minor things, the boat and crew were very good. 29 divers and about 8 crew.
The video pro Ben from Scubapix did a brilliant job of the DVD.

Photo set here and my video of onboard life here.

D80 sunburst

Digital cameras generally don't capture sunbursts as well as film cameras. With just a little overexposure you end up with a big ugly cyan blob around the sun.

To get this image I had to reduce exposure as far as possible.

iso 100
1/200th
f/22
Sigma 15mm at 5m depth
Mid morning sun in about 5m horizontal vis.

Brain issue of the day: Just realized that because I wasn't using flash I could have used a shorter shutter speed. Fool!

Housing issue: The dial that operates the front control wheel has started sliding across the wheel rather than turning it. Will have to give the rubber ring more grip somehow.

New year, great vis

Well it's 2008 and so far the diving has been excellent. Vis has been better than average everywhere so I've been giving the Sigma 15mm quite a go.

I've also changed the colour mode from Vivid to Custom (sRGB 3a and normal saturation). Looking back at some of my earlier shots I realized that they looked a little too saturated, now they are looking more natural.

Popes Eye photos

Technical issues on the Tassie trip

Had no problems with the D80 and my lens choices were perfect. Just the 60mm macro and 15mm fisheye.
But how to store and backup 10 days worth of images. I considered buying more SD cards, an image storage device or an iPod/camera connector but found that basic laptops are so cheap these days that there was the obvious solution.
I bought an HP Compaq C710 for $750 and with the current $150 HP cashback that made it $600. It only has 512 RAM but that was fine for saving images and running Photoshop Elements 2.0. The laptop became hot property after each dive as everyone gathered round to view images.

I found Vista to be a very nice, almost Mac like OS. This PC wont be connected to the net. On return I slotted in 2GB RAM for $130 and it runs better than my iMac 20" G5 now.

Now here's a list of gear problems on the trip:
Virg's Aladin Sport wrist computer went "ERR" - meaning Trevor had to borrow one from the dive shop.
Leaking drysuit chest valve - got wet thermal tshirt and jocks every dive. Drysuit needs valve overhaul.
Leaking Inon Z220 strobe socket - now realize this has been going on for a while so the strobe is getting the socket replaced at Sea Optics for $88 plus labour
Port o-ring sucked into the housing - after opening the rear door on the boat to switch back to autofocus. Glad I saw this as it would have meant a severe flood. So didn't take the camera in for this dive at Waterfall Bay split and enjoyed it so much I called this my best dive ever.

Sigma 15mm and 6" dome at St Leonards

Vis was still poor at 3m and NE wind chop was building. Not ideal conditions for first try of the fisheye but results were very encouraging.

This lens is perfect for close focus wide angle. Images here.

Could focus as close as I could get composing carefully through the viewfinder or point the camera in a general direction at arms length and shoot away.

Couldn't really assess corner sharpness but I suspect it's not something I'll be taking much notice of anyway. It certainly wasn't obviously bad on this first test.

Sigma 15mm FE arrived today

The first thing needed was a comparison of angle of view. How wide is this lens with the DX sensor?
Being a fisheye lens the normal angle of view ratios dont apply. With a rectilinear lens you just multiply by the crop factor so a 15mm film rectilinear = 15 * 1.5 = 22.5mm on the D80. A 15mm fisheye is much wider than a 15mm rectilinear lens.

Nikon Coolpix 5000 with WC-E68 wide converter - TOP
Nikon D80 with Sigma 15mm FE - BOTTOM

The Coolpix wide setup gives the same angle of view as a 19mm lens on a full frame camera.
Calculation - 7.1mm Coolpix = 28mm film, multiplied by .68 (Wide adapter) = 19mm

D80 with Sigma 15mm FE gives a slightly wider horizontal view (maybe like an 18mm lens on film) and slightly less vertical view. So the equivalent would be about a 12mm rectilinear lens.
Calculation - 18mm divided by 1.5 (Crop factor for D80) = 12mm

Pay no attention to image quaity. Coolpix image cropped top and bottom from 4:3 to 3:2.

Ordered the D80

2 Sept 07 - Nikon D80Ordered a Nikon D80 (+3yr warranty) with 18-55 kit lens and 60mm macro with spare battery and 2GB Sandisk Ultimate 3 SD card from www.camerasdirect.com.au on the Gold Coast. Very impressive service and communication and prices that can only be beaten by risky ebay imports from Hong Kong. Later ordered a Sigma 15mm fisheye as well.

The lenses I bought were: Nikon 18-55 kit lens - surprising good review from Ken Rockwell, Micro nikkor 60mm macro - It seemed like this macro lens is the most used of any lens underwater, Sigma 15mm fisheye for wideangle - I contemplated the Nikon 10.5 DX fisheye but it seemed way too wide for my needs and A$300. dearer.
The Sigma 15mm, equivalent to a 12mm rectilinear on a DX sensor, is a full frame lens as is the 60mm macro so both are "future proof".

Decisions about lenses and ports were helped/confused by this info at Wetpixel, Splashdown divers , Cameras Underwater,
and by talking to Bruce, Anthony, Aengus and Dave.