Lighting and wideangle

[whacky]

Hey all,

As most of you know I now have now bought a tokina 10-17 and dome port to try my hand at wide angle.

I have been having a play with the camera in the housing and today prior to my red sea trip I had a go with the strobe on aswell to check it fired. Now I didn't fire it to many times as I believe it can damage the strobe so I am going to get to the pool next week hopefully. But I notice it was tricky to light the whole frame. I only have the one strobe and I guess from Rob's comments that may be part of the problem but unless I see one secondhand I doubt I'll be getting another strobe this side of my trip.

So anytips on making the best of what I've got

[GLOC]

might do!

If you only have one strobe I would place it bang in the centre above the housing, a fist or so above it, and the front of the strobe level with the film plane.

I personally run everything in manual, metering for the ambient light and playing with the aperture and strobe power to fill the foreground in.

I know this is green water, but the same applies in blue water

Trip report from Malta - Team foxturd: If Carlsberg Made Normoxic Wrecks...Malta Would be the Place...Part 1 and Team foxturd: Part 2

Regards

[Cussy]

Steve,
My "style" is under-expose the background to get dark blues/black and use the flash to colour the foreground. This is posibile with one strobe, but easier with 2. With 2 on I don't have to rely on reviewing the image so closely and moving the strobes around. With one you have to take a look and move the strobe a lot more. My main struggle was moving objects don't allow you time to adjust the strobe position.

What is easier to do is expose more correctly for the backgound and add Martin Edge's "kiss of light". One strobe is fine for that.

My best advice would be to find out what sort of area your strobe will light. Then find subjects to pick out and light. I normally get to within a foot or two of say a coral and highlight that.

Another struggle I was having is one strobe CAN mean heavy shaddows . Move the strobe too close to the lens and you may end up with back-scatter - hence another struggle.

The 10-17 is great as you can switch to 17 and then not so much to illuminate.

What strobes do you have?
Rob

[whacky]

At the moment I have a single Sea & Sea YS110. I'm off on a Martin edge trip so I should be ok. But I do like the darker backgrounds but it's all practice so I will go with what I have.

[Cussy]

I've got a YS90Duo (not digital) if you want to borrow it. You'll need to shoot in manual.
Rob

PS is this the same trip Tazzie is on?

[whacky]

I guess if Tazzie is going fron the 1st to the 8th of july it must be. I had been thinking to myself that I hadn't seen much of Tazzie about here and was going to drop her a line.

Might take you up of the offer of the strobe Rob