I returned from a wonderful week at Turneffe Island in Belize on Saturday. This trip was the maiden voyage for my new camera system. In addition, I tested the video/dive light versus strobe theory mentioned in my previous post on a few dives.
Equipped with my new 9-14 lens and dome port I opted to concentrate entirely on wide angle images. Instead of capturing brilliantly composed scenes of horse eye jacks schooling over The Elbow, I left Turneffe Island completely empty-handed after five days of moderate shooting. The camera settings weren’t difficult to manage, but using a true wide angle set-up, instead of an arrangement on a point & shoot camera, will take practice.
My major challenge was getting too close to subjects with the dome port and negatively impacting the focus. Everything appears fairly small on the LCD with a wide angle lens. As a result, I took numerous shots at macro distance trying to enlarge a fish on the LCD. After a few days of diving I began to get a get accustomed to the space required for a decent picture by peeking over the housing after seeing an image on the camera screen.
The Sola video/dive light attached to the housing hot shoe worked very well during the day dives – no night excursions on this trip. The compact light really does put all the colors back into the coral and has the potential to eliminate strobes. The only disadvantage to exclusively using Sola is the beam strength scares the fish. Relatively stable creatures like lobsters, crabs and eels retreated as soon as the halo illuminated them. Video shooters successfully use video/dive lights, but they’re sweeping the reef and not trying to capture tight images. The benefit of strobes is the quick burst of light that fish can’t react to before the shutter snaps. In the future I’ll be carrying a combination of the two light sources to maximize my options underwater. At the very least a housing, or arm, mounted Sola eliminates the need for a primary dive light and extra batteries.
A trip to the Flower Gardens is coming up over Labor Day. I’ll be giving the dome port another try.
Equipped with my new 9-14 lens and dome port I opted to concentrate entirely on wide angle images. Instead of capturing brilliantly composed scenes of horse eye jacks schooling over The Elbow, I left Turneffe Island completely empty-handed after five days of moderate shooting. The camera settings weren’t difficult to manage, but using a true wide angle set-up, instead of an arrangement on a point & shoot camera, will take practice.
My major challenge was getting too close to subjects with the dome port and negatively impacting the focus. Everything appears fairly small on the LCD with a wide angle lens. As a result, I took numerous shots at macro distance trying to enlarge a fish on the LCD. After a few days of diving I began to get a get accustomed to the space required for a decent picture by peeking over the housing after seeing an image on the camera screen.
The Sola video/dive light attached to the housing hot shoe worked very well during the day dives – no night excursions on this trip. The compact light really does put all the colors back into the coral and has the potential to eliminate strobes. The only disadvantage to exclusively using Sola is the beam strength scares the fish. Relatively stable creatures like lobsters, crabs and eels retreated as soon as the halo illuminated them. Video shooters successfully use video/dive lights, but they’re sweeping the reef and not trying to capture tight images. The benefit of strobes is the quick burst of light that fish can’t react to before the shutter snaps. In the future I’ll be carrying a combination of the two light sources to maximize my options underwater. At the very least a housing, or arm, mounted Sola eliminates the need for a primary dive light and extra batteries.
A trip to the Flower Gardens is coming up over Labor Day. I’ll be giving the dome port another try.
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