Advice wanted

[KenByrne]

In UK waters the shutter speed is largely irrelevant once you stop down. There isn't enough light to give an exposure except at extremely long shutter speeds. The flash exposure is very short (thousands of a second) and this will stop any motion more effectively than short shutter speeds.

[Cussy]

Originally Posted by KenByrne

In UK waters the shutter speed is largely irrelevant once you stop down. There isn't enough light to give an exposure except at extremely long shutter speeds. The flash exposure is very short (thousands of a second) and this will stop any motion more effectively than short shutter speeds.

I know what you are saying Ken, but both photos shown are at close range, so you could up the shutter speed and close the aperture and let the flash do all the lighting. I think you can see the difference a higher shutter speed makes if you look at my 2 threads on St Abbs last August, on the second trip I was using a much higher speed for close-up work and it made a world of difference (can't remember who on here pointed it out to me). Admittedly if you have fish and reef then it's a different matter in UK/NZ waters.
Rob

[wally2]

I don't know if this applies, but I will take a stab at it anyway. Most cameras I have used underwater, I shoot manually with auto focus. All of my cameras have the ability to change the focus point. I usually set my cameras to focus on a single point, instead of the normal multi-focus points. I either set the single focus point dead center or to the right or left side of the camera. That way I can fix the focus dead center on the subject I most want to be in focus.

This takes the focus point out of the hands of your camera and put it squarely in your hands. I normally have little problem with point of focus using the single focus point setting. While I don't know for sure, I would guess that most modern digital cameras allow the user to set the focal point as that is a key feature of most photography.