Macro and camera angles

[MitHere 3]

Hi guys,

 

To shoot really good UW macro, what kind of angle do you need from your camera? Undertow here said my Canon G11 sees about 75 degrees above water and around 25% less underwater because of the Canon UW casing!

Will I still be able to get really nice shots and macro shots with that set-up?

Or should I try to get the Fantasea Big Eye wet lens adaptor for the case to get about 80 degrees view? Fantasea also supply a macro adaptor.. Why do you need this?

Does macro use quite high f stops or something a little different than normal? Cheers

[gravity 0]

You don't need/want a wide angle to shoot macro. Rather just the opposite.

 

--The wide angle lenses you are asking about give you a wider perspective which allows you to get closer to large objects and scenes and still get them in the frame. Getting closer is important underwater because it puts less light absorbing, backscatter creating water between the camera and the subject.

 

Macro Lenses:

--On a G11 camera, you can gain magnification of a subject by either getting really close or by zooming in. But you cannot do both simultaneously. If you try to do both the camera won't focus and your pics will be blurry. A macro lens will allow you to both get close and zoom. This means you will be able to fill the frame with a subject otherwise too small. I use Reefnet.ca Subsee adapters for my DSLR and my wife uses them for her G10. We prefer SubSees to others we have tried.

 

F-stops for macro:

--Usually to learn you want to shoot with the smallest (highest) f-stops that you have enough light for. If you have an external strobe that means you will mostly use f7.1 and f8.0 for macro. As you gain experience you may find situations where you want only a narrow slice of the photo to be in focus. In this case you will use larger f-stops (smaller numbers) like f4.5 or f2.8, but will need to adjust downward the power of any lighting to compensate.

[MitHere 3]

F-stops for macro:

--Usually to learn you want to shoot with the smallest (highest) f-stops that you have enough light for. If you have an external strobe that means you will mostly use f7.1 and f8.0 for macro. As you gain experience you may find situations where you want only a narrow slice of the photo to be in focus. In this case you will use larger f-stops (smaller numbers) like f4.5 or f2.8, but will need to adjust downward the power of any lighting to compensate.

Okay sweet, thanks for all the info but you essentially answered another question I asked in the strobe part of this forum - I'll have to down power the strobe if I'm using a larger aperture which I will have to work out via trial and error/on the fly and see what the shot is like afterwards - Whereas on land I can use the ambient lighting and see what the photo will probabbblyyy look like on screen