A11 wide beam video light

This well designed and super powerful LED video light is a real surprise for the price.

The advertising says it's 20,000 lumen! Seems a lot for a mid sized light but it is very bright.

Requires 4 x 18650 button top LiPo batteries.

It produces a very bright unfocussed light with no hot spot. There are 3 power levels, which is great because full power is too bright for close ups, and 4 red LEDs and 4 Blue LEDs.

The red is used for still camera focus assist, without disturbing the marine life, and the blue is for UV fluorescence (maybe).

The coloured LEDs can also be mixed with the main white LEDs for subtle colour balance changes. There is also a red flashing mode which makes a great rescue beacon.

Solid alloy construction with 2 o-rings, and includes 4 spare o-rings, lubricating grease, ball mount and large handle mount with hex wrench.

Review video

For this shallow pier dive I used it wth an SJCAM SJ7 Star action cam in a Telesin 6" dome housing, with an SJ8 Pro for cut away footage.

Banggood Purchase links

A11 LED Light
Samsung 30Q 18650 Button Top LiPo

SJCAM SJ7 Star 4K 30fps

SJCAM SJ8 Pro 4K 60fps

Telesin 6" Dome Housing for SJCAM

Telesin 6" dome housing for SJCAM

Using a dome housing can let you capture split level stills and video. It also gives an unmagnified underwater field of view and less colour fringing, unlike flat housings.

This is the Telesin 6" dome housing for SJCAM SJ7 and SJ6 cameras. Banggood product page

Review video

Here are some results from surface snorkelling in the Pt Lonsdale shallows.

Screengrabs from the 4K video

Nikon D7000 underwater settings

I have finally put together a page of all my settings with brief explanations.

This is for Nikon D7000, Ikelite, Inon Z220 strobes, macro, wide angle, split levels and video.


Ikelite housing with Inon Z220 strobes, one triggered by wire sync cord and the other slaved via fibre optic cord. Manual Aperture, Shutter speed and flash power.

Initial setup

Movie Settings - Manual Movie settings
ON (for manual video exposure) or OFF (for auto exposure)
Custom Setting Menu
a8 - Live view/movie AF - Autofocus mode - AF-S (AF-F does not work well enough)
f6 - Menus and Playback OFF (Control dials change A and S rather than image displays when image review is still on)
f7 - Release button to use dial (Activates sticky buttons. Tap and release a button, like ISO or WB, and then make changes with the control dial)
White Balance - 5260K for stills. Auto or manual WB for movie

Macro
Lens - Nikon 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro Nikkor and flat port
Quality - RAW 14bit plus fine jpeg (Often just use the jpegs)
Aperture - f/22 (For max depth of field)
Shutter speed - 1/125th (Fast enough to avoid camera shake in ambient light areas)
ISO - 100 (Plenty of light available from close strobes so use lowest ISO)
Flash Power - Adjust as needed (Usually around -3.0)
Focus - AF-S with Single or Auto 39 AF points (I often pre-focus on something then hold down the AF lock lever then recompose with the most important feature in focus)
MACRO photo gallery

Wide angle

Lens - Tokina 10-17mm DX fisheye with 6" dome port and cut away shade
Quality - RAW 14bit plus fine jpeg (RAW much more useful for wide angle. Captures smoother tonal gradation in background water and sunballs. Also allows colour cast adjustment without loss of tonal smoothness)
Aperture - f/8 (Depth of field is not a problem, especially with fisheye lenses)
Shutter speed - 1/60th then adjust to balance ambient exposure with flash
(Shooting towards the sun will need faster shutter speed and smaller aperture)
ISO - 200 (Or higher for deep ambient light shots)
Flash Power - Adjust as needed
Focus - AF-S with Auto 39 AF points
WIDE ANGLE photo gallery

Split level

Lens - Tokina 10-17mm fisheye with 8" dome port. (The extreme wide angle of view and larger dome port are essential for sharp split levels. Need to spit on the dome and rub around to reduce drips in the top half. Dip under water then shoot as you lift up out of the water)
Quality - RAW 14bit (Allows exposure adjustments in Photoshop without reducing the image quality too much, especially the underwater half)
Aperture - f/16 (Need the depth of field to keep above and below sharp)
Shutter speed - 1/125th (or faster to freeze water movement and avoid overexposing the brighter above water areas, like clouds)
ISO - 400 (To allow f/16 and faster shutter speed)
Focus - AF-S with Auto 39 AF points. (Pre-focus on the underwater subject then hold the AF lock lever)
SPLIT LEVEL photo gallery

Video - Wide angle
Lens - Tokina 10-17mm fisheye with 6" dome port and cut away shade
Quality - 1080 24fps high quality
Aperture - f/5.6 (Have to exit live view to change aperture)
Shutter speed - 1/50th (or as close to 2 times the frame rate as possible)
ISO - Adjust as needed (This is your main exposure control for video)
Light - Diffused UK Light Cannon HID torch. (Proper lights would be better)
Focus - AF-S with Auto 39 AF points.
(Prefocus for each scene. Continuous AF (AF-F) is too slow and lens focus noise is intrusive)
VIDEO gallery

Video - Macro
Best done on a tripod to avoid camera movement.
Lens - Nikon 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro Nikkor and flat port
Quality - 1080 24fps high quality
Aperture - f/22 for greater depth of field
Shutter speed - 1/50th (or as close to 2 times the frame rate as possible)
ISO - Adjust as needed
Light - Diffused UK Light Cannon HID torch. (Proper lights would be better)
Focus - AF-S with single point. Prefocus carefully for each scene.

Ozone Paddle Steamer split level

Just 50m offshore from the Indented Head caravan park and in 3m, lies the paddle steamer Ozone.

It's a great spot for a snorkel or shallow dive and a great spot for split level photos. Some days the vis is even better than this.

The Ozone was sunk in 1925 as a breakwater for the little beach nearby.

D7000 split levels

One thing I was busting to try was split levels or under/over shots with the D7000. I had big hopes for the low noise and fast AF.

With my D80 noise is quite obvious in the underwater half at 400iso after some exposure increase adjustment.

The AF on the D7000 is brilliant. In these river splits I was blindly locking focus on something underwater and shooting a few shots while lifting the camera up with great results.

During overcast periods I bumped up to 800iso and although noise is visible in the smooth underwater subjects it can only be seen at 100%.

Here's a shot of Pt Lonsdale on a magic calm sunny day, converted to B&W from a Raw file.

Above and Below with Tokina 10-17 FE

Aha! This is the lens to use for split level shots.

I'm now getting consistently better shots using this technique with the wider fisheye lens and 8" dome.

Results are better on a sunny day but this shot was taken under cloud.

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.