First trip with Canon 20D

[humpback 0]

I have been shooting with a Olympus 4040 in an Olympus housing with a Sea&Sea YS90DX for about two years now. I have just upgraded to a new Canon 20D in an Ikelite housing with 2 Ikelite DS-125 Strobes. I have three lenses - A Canon EF 15mm f/2.8; a Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro and a Tamron AF 28-75mm XR DI lens. I am heading to Cozumel on Monday for my first fling with the setup and have been reading the posts here for some time. I guess my question is this: After shooting with a fixed lens camera for a while - learning the nuances of the DSLR and new setup will take some learning - I just wondered if anyone had any general settings that seem to work for them to get started or any general suggestions that might cut down the learning curve. I have been shooting with the camera a lot on land to get familiar with it. My thought was to start off with the Tamron for the first couple of dives and then progress to the Canon 15mm and then if things are working and the currents aren't too bad - spend some time with the Macro.

[Dixter 0]

I just bought the same setup but have not had the chance to take it out yet...

 

But I did test it in the pool....

 

I bought the 8" dome port too..

 

One thing that bug's me is loose hardware... on this housing there is a small

weight located in the houseing tray... it was ratteling around and drove me

nuts.. so I took the tray off and wrapped the weight with some wrapping tape,

the kind you use to seal a box when shipping it.

 

Just one full wrap around the weight, too much tape and the weight wont fit in

the groove correctly, worked great and the salt water wont mess the tape up....

 

Now the weight does not rattle around.. :-)

 

The 8" dome came with the extention ring mounted in the " travel " position...

 

I guess when I mounted it for use with the housing I didn't get it tight enough

and it leaked while testing in the pool....

 

I tightened it as hard as I could and it did not leak after that... it only leaked a couple of drops and nothing got wet as the water stayed in the port...

 

But, I'm glad I checked it out in the pool first...

 

Also, if you haven't done it... make sure you mount all of your equipment and understand how everything works....

 

Took me a couple of seconds to figure out how to get the lenses on the camera and off the camera using this housing...

 

I'm not used to working with my camera body open and no lens on it...

 

So if your like me in that respect... make sure you have the camera body cap

on the body, mount the body to the camera housing plate.. install the back plate to the housing and latch the latches... now reach into the housing from the front and remove the body cap... now mount the lens and turn it to lock it in place on the camera body. This will keep the amount of time that the camera inards are subjected to the air and potential salt... Now mount the port...

 

I guess all I'm really saying is practice with mounting and unmounting all of the components before you go on vacation and check the equipment for potential

leaks " before " you get into the water...

 

do I sound a little paranoid ??? wasn't until I saw my setup with that small leak

in the pool the other night..

 

Make sure you post some pictures for us when you get back....

 

Good luck and good diving

[ReefRoamer 1]

Based on my own experience in switching to a DSLR (D100 setup) a few years ago ... start with the macro. You can find a very-slow-moving or stationary subject, settle down and shoot until you get what you want. With the D100 at its lowest ISO setting of 200, I start with a shutter speed of 1/180th and an aperture of f22. Then, using the histogram display during the image review, adjust your strobe power until you have a good exposure. You can fiddle with the shutter speed some and the aperture to suit your own tastes. At first, it seems like a lot to handle, so being able to work without pressure on a single macro subject gave me time to get comfortable. As the distance and brightness of subjects vary in each situation, I will always fine tune the strobe power, but often leave the camera exposure settings pretty much the same.

Once you've gotten comfortable with getting good digital exposures using the strobes, move on to new territory ... medium range critter shots using a wider lens, and finally to wide angle (which I find the most challenging). And you may find the process goes more quickly if you got the Ike TTL housing for your 20D.

Anyway, it's a nice confidence builder to at least come back with a few good shots your first time out and I think it's easiest to do that if you start with macro. But that's just my opinion ... others may have something else to say. Good luck!

[james 0]

Excellent responses so far - I agree 100%. If you get a chance to hit the pool first, your photos will be TWICE as good on the Cozumel trip.

 

RE some basic starter settings, I'd recommend using the 100mm with the strobes in TTL. Set camera to ISO100, F16, 1/125th If the photos are too dark, use the exposure comp buttons on the back of the Ikelite housing.

 

For the 15mm, take the strobes out of TTL and go to 1/2 power. Set camera to f8 @ 1/125th for shallow reef and 1/60th for deeper. Get VERY close to your subject. If the blue is too dark, go to a lower fstop and if the foreground is too dark or too light change your strobe power.

 

I would use your zoom lens last - it's good for fish faces and whole fish shots of parrotfish, angels, etc.

 

HTH

James

[Snappy 0]

I'd be interested to find out if you are happy with the 20D /ikelite setup, once you get back. Been digital for a while on land, but still swimming with a Subal for analoge EOS underwater. Doubt I can afford to upgrade to another Subal for my 20D, but also in serious doubt if I can be happy with "plastic -fantastic" after having used the Subal for some years...

[humpback 0]

Thanks for all the input. I will have time to test it in the pool and know from my previous setup how much that helped. I appreciate the info and will try the macro first and then the wide angle. From what I can interpret I would do well to concentrate on those two and leave the 28-75mm out altogether. I'll let everyone know how it goes on my return.

[humpback 0]

I am back from two trips with the new camera setup = the first trip was to Cozumel and was really a shake out trip - especially given the currents on this particular trip. Macro was useless but I did manage to get quite a few good wide angle shots with the 15mm fisheye. The second trip was to Roatan and I am sure because of the first trip I faired much better. I love the setup - even though it is significantly more complicated than my old 4040 - the photos are awesome. I hope to download some in the next week or so but just wanted to thank everyone for the tips and report in. The 100mm macro was great although I discovered what I had learned on a photo workshop on the agressor last year about macro lenses is true. I had to be stationary - even trying to be buyount hanging out over a subject in no current resulted in perceptible lens movement. When I was able to anchor myself to the sand around my subject - the results were much, much better. Just love the camera and the Ikelite setup. Headed to Turks and Caicos in July for a photo workshop on the Agressor and can't wait.

[kelpthrasher 0]

I just returned from my inagural voyage with a 20D as well. Like you, I'm very pleased with the initial results. I was fortunate to be accompanied by several experienced digital UW photographers on a 3-day trip to the outer Channel Islands (California). My photo-colleagues advised me to 1) get comfortable with macro shooting before moving on to wide-angle due to the trickiness of getting good lighting for wide-angle shots and 2) don't use a longer focal-length macro lens (such as 100mm) until I'm very familiar with using a lens in the 50mm to 60mm range. I brought two lenses: Canon 60mm and Canon 10-22mm. The outer Channel Islands are known for their rough, unpredictable conditions and on our trip we certainly had less than ideal conditions. Visibility ranged from 5ft-20ft, with 10ft being about average. The rough seas meant lots of surge at shallower dive sites. Here's a link to my first batch of images:

 

Outer Channel Islands Photos

 

Because of the poor visibility, the wide-angle lens never came out of the box. All shots were with 60mm macro, and I was usually moving quite a bit when each shot was taken. Though you may not want to hear this after investing in a 100mm macro lens, I strongly recommend that you at least borrow a 50mm or 60mm for your next trip. The Canon 60mm lets you get down to 1:1 but it's still very user-friendly. Once you feel good about shooting a "rifle" (50mm) you can advance to "bazooka" (100mm) for those really small critters. Good luck on your next trip!