Eddy's Scuba Blog

Today was a chance to review the settings that I have used on my Olympus SP-350. Jack Drafahl was also a fan of the SP-350, so this was good opportunity to tweak some of my settings and learn from the masters.

I first learned what settings to use on the SP-350 with a private class that I took with Cathy Church in the Cayman Islands. She had taught me to use two settings that she stored on the "My Mode" settings, one for Macro and another for Wide Angle. Here's a table of those settings.

Mode Menu -> Setup Tab

Reset	Off
Language	User Preference
PW On Setup	User Preference
PW Off Setup	User Preference
Rec View	On
Speaker	Off
Beep	User Preference
Shutter Sound	User Preference
My Mode Setup	4 Custom Modes
File Name	Auto
Pixel Mapping	Run Occasionally
Screen Bightness	Middle point
Date	Date
Dual Time Setup	User Preference
M/Ft	User Preference
Video Out	User Preference - NTSC for US
AF Illuminator	Off
Short Cut	A: Flash+/-, B: ISO, C: Macro
Histogram	Off
Frame Assist	Off
Custom Button	My Mode

This is what I have programmed as "My Mode 1":

MY MODE - Wide Angle

P/A/S/M/Scene	M
Fno	5.6
Shutter	1/125 sec
Monitor	On
Zoom	38mm
Flash Mode	Flash (Lightning Icon)
Metering	Center weighted (Screen with dot in the middle)
Macro (Flower Icon)	Off
Drive	Single
ISO	100
Timer/Remote	Off
Flash	0.0
Flash Sync	Sync 1 (Front Curtain)
Flash	External
Digital Zoom	Off
Noise Reduction	Off
AF Mode	Spot
Focus Mode	AF
Fulltime AF	Off
Microphone	Off
Time Lapse	Off
Resolution	SHQ or RAW
WB	Cloudy
WB +/-	0
Sharpness	0
Contrast	0
Saturation	0
Info	On
Histogram	Off
Frame Assist	Off

This is what I have programmed as "My Mode 2":

MY MODE - Macro

P/A/S/M/Scene	M
Fno	8.0
Shutter	1/500 sec
Monitor	On
Zoom	38mm
Flash Mode	Flash (Lightning Icon)
Metering	Center weighted (Screen with dot in the middle)
Macro (Flower Icon)	On
Drive	Single
ISO	100
Timer/Remote	Off
Flash	0.0
Flash Sync	Sync 1 (Front Curtain)
Flash	External
Digital Zoom	Off
Noise Reduction	Off
AF Mode	Spot
Focus Mode	AF
Fulltime AF	Off
Microphone	Off
Time Lapse	Off
Resolution	SHQ or RAW
WB	Cloudy
WB +/-	0
Sharpness	0
Contrast	0
Saturation	0
Info	On
Histogram	Off
Frame Assist	Off

First Boat Dives: Witches Hut and Nearest Point (Klein Bonaire)

We started the day with a boat dive. I had purchased from the Drafahls 10 boat dives at a discounted price of US$ 10/dive. I was disappointed that you were on your own on the boat dives, we did not go out as a group. The boat dives as well as the shore dives were just opportunities to capture pictures to take to the class. I had been "warned" by Sue Drafahl that the best dive was the house dive: the shore dive right on Captain Don's. She was right. The two boat dives that I did that day was somewhat disappointing and compared to yesterday's ,I did not see as many interesting creatures.

I took this opportunity to play with the settings of my camera and tried to "practice" both wide and and macro. I tried the macro settings on this anemone on Klein Bonaire and soon discovered that there was a pederson shrimp inhabiting it.

Playing with macro shots I discovered that focusing was really hard to accomplish. For some reason the camera had a hard time to focus. At that time I knew that my camera had manual focusing, but I had not learned how to use it yet.

Lecture: Menus and Exposure

That night the lecture gave me some hints to refine my settings. The lecture was on Camera Menus and Exposure.

Menus

• Nikon: Icons
• Olympus: Rotating Menus
• Drive: Single shot or multiple
• Contrast: Use zero or slightly negative
• Histogram: Not a lot of value under water, hard to see under water

ISO speed

• Not the same as in film. Point & shoot: up to 400. SLR up to 1600 because of bigger chip
• if using higher than ISO 400 on a P&S, pictures will be very noisy
• P&S sensor elements are crammed together. On SLRs, they are more spread out
• DON'T use auto ISO underwater

White Balance

• Use cloudy setting or shade
• Custom WB: Use a white card only (that you carry with you), not sand on the bottom
• My mode: Program WB at 10, 20, 30, 40 ft, specially when relying on ambient light
• Jack uses ISO 200 or ISO 400 always. Not ISO 100. Modify settings until exposure is right
• ISO 200 is more versatile. Use ISO 200 for night dive

Resolution

• Always set to maximum resolution
• Don't use TIFF, massive file use lots of space

Sharpness

• Use default

Modes

• Don't use P/A/S modes
• Shutter Priority: Use if need to freeze the action
• Sharks in the water use ISO 800

Shooting Techniques - Exposure

• Use Manual exposure. In Bonaire, can only use Manual
• Shutter speed: Regulates more or less ambient light in the picture
• F/stop max F8.0 on P&S
• Background: Sunlight control by shutter speed
• Foreground: Fix with F stop, flash and ISO

Lighting

• On shallow and white sand bottom, turn flash off, and use "P" mode
• Deep Large subject. Use "P" mode, let camera decide

Backscatter

• Change the shutter speed by one stop to reduce backscatter
• Use twin flash
• Point flash away from the lens

Macro

• Subject to distance really close
• When diving deeper you have more control of exposure, because of less ambient light
• Manual exposure works with TTL
• Use manual even for bright sun

Blooming effect

• Problem with red sensor
• Use shutter speed to fix it, use higher shutter speed

Flash Position

• Make sure to point flash in position. When changing WA to macro, needs flash adjustment
• Simulate sunlight: Put flash above, looks like sunlight
• Two flash: One above, the other on the side, not necessarily symmetrical

Coming up with More Settings for the SP-350

After listening to Jack's lecture I confirmed my thoughts for settings for night dives, shark dives and macro. Here's a list of those settings that I started to use on this trip.

Macro

Macro	Super Macro
Focus Mode	MF (Manual Focus)

Regular Macro allows you to get as close as 8 inch. Whereas, Super Macro allows you get as close as 0.8 inch. Once the MF (Manual Focus) mode is set, use the up and down arrows to focus. You can turn the manual focusing mode on and off by keeping the "OK Menu" button depressed.

Fast Moving Wide Angle (Shark Dive)

Fno	5.6 - 2.8
Shutter	1/30 - 1/125
ISO	200 - 400
Flash Sync	Sync 2(Rear Curtain)

As confirmed by Jack's lecture it is better to use a high ISO for fast moving big creatures as in a shark dive. Unfortunately, there was no shark dive in Bonaire. But I made notes for myself. A slow shutter (1/30) would create an impression of motion and a rear curtain flash sync (firing the flash at the end of the exposure) would create a lighted imaged in from with a trailing image behind.

Night Dive

Fno	8.0
Shutter	1/200
ISO	50
Flash Power	-1.0
Flash Sync	Sync 1(Front Curtain)

I came up for these settings for night dives after some experimentation. In some sense, it is similar to a Macro shot in that you want all the light coming from the strobe. These settings are for a Sea & Sea YS-110 and Heinrichs-Weikamp connector. Depending on whether I am shooting wide angle or macro I would adjust the the f/stop and flash power. However, at night I have found that most of my subjects were no further than 3-4 ft.

After the Nekton cruise I had decided to stay for several days at Sunset House, in Grand Cayman. The main reason had been to take a class with Cathy Church. I was so impressed with the capabilities of the Olympus SP-350 that I decided to buy it. I was already looking for a new camera to replace my Sony Cybershot. I had been looking at the point-and-shoots with manual settings. It came down to two choices: the Canon S80 and the Olympus SP-350. During my scuba trips I had heard many good things about the Olympus 5060 series, which was already discontinued. The Olympus SP-350 was the continuation of that pedigree. The big seller for me was the TTL capability. Having used a fiber optic connector, often times I would end up with overexposed pictures. With TTL you would never get an overexposed picture. The SP-350 is one of the few point-and-shoot cameras that have a hot shoe. Getting the Canon S80 would imply the continuation of the use of the fiber optic cable.

So I decided to buy the camera and the housing. Prices in Grand Cayman were full price, so I ended paying far more than I would have back in the US (I later learned that you could get the camera even at Costco). I decided not get the strobe, thinking that I could get the strobe back in the US. In addition, I already had my existing strobe, a Sea&Sea YS-25 which had performed well so far. So I went with the fiber optic option. Cathy even made a custom gromit on the housing plate (in front of the flash) to fit the fiber optic connector.

Anatomy of a Flooded Strobe: Trinity Caves and Royal Palms Ledge

It's funny how fate is, after deciding not to get a new strobe, something happened to my own strobe. This was the first time I was on a boat dive at Sunset House and we were at a site called Trinity Caves. The site consisted of a series of caves and channels. By the end of the dive, I noticed that tiny bubbles were coming out of my strobe. Immediately, I said to myself "uh-oh". It was strange that a leak happened at the end of the dive, not at the begining. Could it be because of the pressure? I was down to 98 feet at that dive. When I looked at the front of the strobe, I noticed that the water was already inside and it was dark. It looked like something had corroded really quickly. The strobe was completely lost.

Once on the boat I knew that strobe was already useless. We still had a second dive so I promptly detached the strobe arm from my camera and planned to use my (new) camera without a strobe. The area around the flash on my housing was (neatly) taped up (so that the built-in flash would never be used), so I didn't want to take it out. I was going to take pictures with ambient light.

Unfortunately, on our second dive, we went to dive site with very little ambient light. The site was Royal Palms Ledge. As it names suggests, it was a round ledge, like circular channel with overhangs in some areas. Actually this was one of the most interesting sites in Grand Cayman. There were lots of small creatures like coral banded shrimp, juveniles and this Caribbean scallop that I have never seen before:

I was kicking myself for not having a strobe. The scallop was inside a hole on one of the ledge's walls. The reason the picture looks washed out was because of the very low light conditions. My dive buddy Gordon and I were using our flashlights to try to illuminate the scallop. It was really a shame that I didn't have the right equipment.

Once back at my hotel room I examined closely what happened to my strobe. When I removed the battery cover, I found that the o-ring out of place towards the inside. I was trying to figure out whether I had closed the cover incorrectly with the o-ring out of place. If I had, bubbles would have come out when testing it. This was really strange. Another things that happened was that the batteries were seriously leaking. This probably caused the water inside to go dark. If there was something wrong with the batteries, the strobe would have not worked at the begining. I was able to take pictures at the begining of the dive with the strobe. In conclusion, the most plausible explanation was that the o-ring was a bit out of place and caved in with the pressure. However, it never broke, it was just out of place.

Flooded Strobe: Sea & Sea YS-25

Flooded Strobe: Dark waters coming out

After the strobe incident I immediatley went to Cathy's shop to rent another strobe. It was Sunday and they were all out for a photo shoot! The store itself was closed. This was my unlucky day. Since I couldn't do anything about the strobe I decided to relax and have a stroll in downtown Georgetown. Sunset House is located within walking of distance of downtown. It was about 10 blocks away. Since it was in the middle of the afternoon, it was really hot. There was nothing out of the ordinary in Georgetown. There were the usual jewelry and watch stores, clothing stores and souvenir shops. After a couple of hours I was done and returned to the hotel.

It was past 6:00pm when I was sitting at the outdoor restaurant right next to bar when I saw one Sunset House's boats unloading divers. It was Cathy and her crew returning from the photo-shoot. Then it went to my head: Salvation! They were going back to the shop. I took the opportunity to "intercept" Cathy at the shop and told her what happened to my strobe. According to official business hours the store was already was closed. However, she told me to return the next morning before the dive boats leave (8:00am), she said somebody will be at the store at 6:30am. I also asked her about her photo shoot, it turned out that they were at Royal Palms Ledge that day. This kind of confirmed my opinion on the dive site. If the dive site was good enough for a photo shoot, something must be out of the ordinary there.

Eden Rock

The next morning at 6:30am I was able to secure a Sea&Sea YS-90, just like the one I've used during the two classes I took. I was breathing a sigh of relieve. Since I already had a fiber optic connector hookup, I was ready to go. I just needed to set the strobe in "slave" mode.

Today's dive boat was heading to two sites: Sand Chutes and Eden Rock. Sand Chutes had some channels and some swim thrus. I was surprised about the desolation though, there was not much coral life. I didn't like this particular dive too much.

On our second dive we headed to Eden Rock or Devil's Grotto. This site is quite famous because of the dramatic lighting effects inside the numerous grottos and swim thrus and it is only in 30 feet of water (average). The site was located not far from Sunset House. In fact, you could see Sunset House from it.

Eden Rock was quite interesting from the get go. At the begining of the dive, I found this purple-tipped anemone and stopped by to take a picture. Julianne, one of Cathy Church's staff, who was with us as a "photo buddy", took this picture of me taking the picture. To this day, I don't know whether she took the picture right at moment my strobe fired or if she triggered my strobe thru the slave mode. Anyway, the picture turned out to be great!

I didn't know that Julianne had taken this picture until I showed up at the store. Julianne was very excited and told me "you have to see this picture of you". When I saw it, I had to get it. It cost me $US 30, again priceless.

And this is the picture that I was taking while this picture was taken:

This was not the only anemone around there, soon after I ran into another anemone, this time it was a green-tip one.

So far I had noticed, that using the SP-350 with the fiber optic connector was more sluggish that using TTL. Since the built-in flash had to be charged every time, the cycle time and responsiveness was slower than with the TTL connector. With the TTL connector, only a small electrical signal was needed, this obviously cut down on the camera's battery life.

My dive buddy at Eden Rock was Gordon, a geology professor traveling with his son. We were passing one of the formations when I noticed a ledge at the bottom of it. It turned out that you could crawl underneath into the other side, which turned out to be a cave. I took the lead as I noticed it first, Gordon followed after. To my amazement, I ran into a tarpon inside the cave. I was at the right place at the right time. The tarpon got later spooked by two other divers coming from the cave side, it turned out that there was another entrance.

We went thru numerous swim thrus and caves. One of them I recognized from pictures: the Devil's Grotto. It is a smaller cave than what it looks in pictures. Only one person can go in at the time. There is an opening at the top of the cave and the noon sun light comes as a beam of light, like a spotlight into the cave. I took this picture with only ambient light with high aperture and slow shutter (F/2.8 and 1/60 sec).

Eden Rock was the best dive definitely that day and one of my favorites in Grand Cayman. Specially for the opportunities for underwater photography and best of all, it is not very deep, the max depth was 40 feet. So you can stroll around for even more than 1 hour.

Visiting the Mermaid Again

That afternoon I did a shore dive from Sunset House. I buddied up with Randy whom I was diving with on the same boat dives during these couple of days. This time I put my macro lessons to practice, as well as some of the lighting techniques that I learned in the past.

For example, with this yellow tube sponge, I used "rim lighting", meaning that I point the strobe right above the tube along its vertical axis. This illuminates the rim of the tubes and gives it a different and dramatic effect. This picture was taken at F/5.6 and 1/250 sec.

For this next picture, I was practicing "back lighting", having the strobe point in the opposite direction of the camera, with the aim to capture some "see thru" or transparent aspects of a formation or creature. I was taking a picture of this soft coral and making the strobe light shine thru it. While I was setting up my strobe, I noticed a small well camouflaged fish among the branches of the soft coral. It was juvenile scrawled filefish. This picture was taken with macro settings of F/8.0 and 1/500 sec. The fish was really difficult to shoot because it was moving around and the camera was going crazy with the autofocus.

In retrospect, I could have used manual focus; however, at that time I didn't know I had that capability with this camera. I could have just set the focus to say 10 inches and move the camera back and forth.

After noticing the sluggishness of the camera using the fiber optic connector, I decided to go for the TTL connector. Right after the shore dive, I went to Cathy's shop and told them to install the TTL bulkhead for my PT-030 housing. They did it right away, but I had to leave it overnight. The next day I picked it up right before the boat dive.

Northwest Point and La Mesa

This was my last boat dive at Sunset House. Today we were going to North West Point and La Mesa. At North West Point, I didn't manage to see anything interesting. I had buddied up with Randy and we went our own separate way. The other group had seen all the goodies including a moray eel and a turtle.

La Mesa was a more interesting dive. It was similar to Royal Palms Ledge. It was a circular ledge with a lot of nooks and cranies. On this dive I was able to practice both macro and wide angle. And since I now had a TTL connector, my macro pictures won't be overexposed. I took a number of macro pictures of coral formations. These were taken with inches away from the camera.

Smooth Coral	Coral Closeup
Web-like Coral	Arrow Crab inside Vase Coral

I also took a picture of this juvenile rock beauty. Unlike adult rock beauties, this guy swam around, but around his home. Adult rock beauties are particularly hard to shoot because they swim fast and they don't stay in one place.

Another opportunity for macro was taking the picture of this diamond blenny. This picture was taken at F/5.6 and 1/125 sec. Blennies tend to stay on the ground for a bit, but then they "jump" to another place. The challenge is getting them in focus, because they are so tiny.

At the end of the dive, we were surrounded by big schools of fish, grunts and Caribbean chubs. This was a chance to take some wide angle pictures.

School of Grunts

School of Chubs

The past 3 days were a roller coaster experience with my new camera. I went from being excited of trying this great camera, the Olympus SP-350, buy it, flood my existing strobe, rent a strobe, feel disppointed with the fiber optic connector, and finally get the TTL connector. Every day something was going on with my camera setup. It was though a great learning experience to go with the different camera setup conditions.

The day after the Nekton cruise I had another photo class at Cathy Church's Centre. This time it was with Cathy herself. I had arranged that before coming to the Caymans.

Since I didn't know anything about macro photography, I decided this to be the subject that I would like to cover. First we had a classroom session to review the theory, then a dive to practice the skills and finally a photo critique.

The Classroom Session

During the classroom session we reviewed some of the theory behind macro photography. The settings for macro photography is very similar to a studio situation where you have a fixed distance between the camera and the subject and fixed strobe position (very close to the lens). Therefore, unlike wide-angle photography, the variables are fewer.

I went over the table that I had reviewed with Eddy (one of Cathy's staff) and we reviewed it with macro photography in mind. In this table, the areas with light blue background are the ideal settings for macro photography.

Aperture (F stops)	Shutter Speed (secs)	Film Speed (ISO)
2.8 (+ more light)	1/15 (+ more light)	1600 (+ more sensitivity)
4	1/30 (blur)	800 (noise and grain)
5.6	1/60	400
8	1/125	200
11 (SLR)	1/500	100 (preferred)
22	1/800 (max sync)	50
(- less light)	1/1000(- less light)	25(- less sensitivity)
Master Control: Strobe Ambient Depth of Field	Controls: Movement Ambient Light	Controls: Overall Sensitivity

For macro photography, depth of field is an important factor. Since the camera lens will be inches from the subject, we want to maximize depth of field, so that the (small) subject is completely in focus. Therefore the smallest Aperture is ideal. An F/5.6 or smaller is required. Most point-and-shoot cameras don't even have F/11 and only SLR lenses can reach F/22.

Since all the light that we care in a macro picture comes from the strobe, the Shutter Speed needs to be specifically set to only capture the strobe light and no ambient light whatsoever. In macro photography, there is no need for metering the environment. A very fast shutter speed will give the best results, usually around 1/500 of a sec. A factor called "strobe sync-time" comes into play. Strobe sync-time is slowest time difference between the opening of the shutter and the strobe firing. For example, if a camera/strobe setup has a sync-time of 1/500 sec, the strobe will fire at worst 1/500 secs after the shutter. That means that with this setup you cannot use a shutter speed faster than 1/500 sec, since you might miss the strobe light altogether. Cathy explained to me, how a strobe gives power over time. This graph illustrates how a strobe gives light:

Most of the power in a strobe is given off after 1/1000 of a sec. The difference in light power (from the strobe) among 1/500, 1/250 and 1/125 secs (after the shutter) are really minimal. However, the slower the shutter speed the more ambient light (the ugly blueish light) we will get. So the shutter speed that we pick needs to capture most of the strobe's light, not get ambient light and account for the sync time. According to the graph the shutter speed of around 1/500 is that ideal number.

In terms of Film Speed we want to minimize noise and grain since we want to probably "blow up" macro pictures. Also, since in macro photography we are setting up for a controlled environment, ie. fixed distance from the subject and position/power of the strobe, there is no point in using higher film speed. A film speed of ISO 100 or slower works best.

After going thru the lighting theory. We took the camera, an Olympus SP-350 and made a couple of "test" pictures on land. This was to become familiar with the controls and how the camera feels. The SP-350 has a "super macro" mode that allows you get really close to the subject. I took a couple of test pictures of a written page being about 1 inch away from it. Almost touching the subject! Since being close to the subject and remaining close to it for some time is critical to macro photography, Cathy emphasized good buoyancy control, which we would practice in our practice dive. Since it is almost impossible to remain suspended in the same position in the water column above the subject, Cathy told me about the "underwater photographer's finger" technique (which I alredy knew). It consist of finding a dead spot in the coral and use one finger to remain fixed above the subject.

Guided Dive with Cathy

About 30 minutes after the classroom session, we met by the water at Sunset House's dive dock. Getting into the water was a bit challenging, since we didn't want to jump with the equipment. We used the stairs instead. Cathy was wearing a writing pad (looked like a edge-a-sketch) so that she could give me instructions under water.

The camera setup that we used was the Olympus SP-350 --capable of taking 8 MP pictures-- an Olympus PT-030 housing, Sea&Sea YS-90 strobe, Sea&Sea TTL sync-cord, Heinrich-Weikamp TTL bulkhead and Ultralight buoyant arms.

The first exercise was to check my buoyancy. Right after we got into the water, Cathy grabbed a hermit crab on the sandy area and told me to get a really close picture of it. She laid the hermit crab on the sand with the opening facing up. While I was trying to get a shot whe would "correct my posture", sometimes pushing my feet down. My feet tended to float up while I was taking the picture. Then I understood why she was wearing ankle weights. The hermit crab would sometimes hide inside or turn over and walk away. It took several trials to take this shot.

Before this picture, I didn't realize that hermit crabs had so much "hair" around their legs! I guess that's how they cling to rocks and such.

After about 8 minutes and about 8 pictures, we moved on to another subject: Squirrel fish. Squirrel fish usually stay stationary outside their "home", a crevice or a hole in a coral formation. They are not spooked easily, so if you approach them slowly, you can get really close to them. This picture was taken less than one foot away. You can even see the curvature of the cornea of the fish.

The next subject was christmas tree worms and feather dusters. These guys could be challenging to shoot, since they would hide away if they sense movement close to them. So the trick was to have all the settings ready and approach slowly for a shot. I later was impressed at the the detail and color that I was getting with this camera. You could even see the feather details.

This next picture was a bit challenging to take. There was a slight current that was moving the feather dusters back and forth. And also it was hard to stay stationary in one position. One thing that is very gratifying, is to see (in the picture) the real color of what you see down there, thanks to the strobe light.

On the next exercise, Cathy instructed me to take a picture to something on a coral head. It took me a couple of minutes to even notice this tiny guy. It's a "spinnyhead blenny" that has carved out a hole inside a coral head. This image is a magnified image (at least 200%). The guy looks like a green martian. I was so close to the coral head that my camera lense was touching the coral head slightly.

On the next set of pictures, we focused on taking close pictures on the resident gray angelfish. I've seen this guy before on my previous lesson about a week ago. The staff at Cathy Church's use a can of Cheese-whip to lure him and pose for the picture. Here's a picture of Cathy's hand luring the gray angel.

On this picture, Cathy put the can of cheese-whip inside the barrel sponge. And you thought those "perfect" underwater pictures happens by chance? Sometimes they are staged, like this one:

Finally I took a picture of the gray angel while it was swimming round. Digital point-and-shoot cameras have the disadvantage that they have a lag time between the time you press the shutter and the actual picture is taken. So the trick is to put your subject in the frame for a long time (like shooting viedo) because the picture might take a while to be taken. While I was putting this guy in my camera sights, Cathy was positioning me in the "right place", that is helping me turn around.

It was about the end of the dive, the batteries on the strobe were starting to run out. We headed back to shore and I was shooting at whatever we saw on our path. Like this "saddled blenny" which is tiny, about 1.5 inch long.

Cathy Church's Photo Centre: the Shop

Cathy Church's Shop is located in the basement of the main building of Sunset House. It is a well stocked underwater photography store, camera rental, repair shop and poster/print store of Cathy's underwater pictures.

Cathy Church's Centre: Photo Rental Corner

Cathy Church's Centre: Olympus Galore, with a big inventory of Olympus SP-350 and PT-030

The Shop is a big fan of the Olympus SP-350. They use it for rentals, professionally for photo shoots and obviously resell them. They offer a "photo buddy" service in which one of their staff will join Sunset House's boat dive, take pictures of you and sell them to you later.

There is an area in the shop where you can review your photos with the assistance of one of their staff. They are a Macintosh shop with two iMacs in the back of the store and use iView Pro software to review the photos.

Cathy Church's Centre: Photo Review Stations

Cathy Church's Centre: Poster Corner

In general, the whole experience with Cathy and Cathy's staff was great. They are very knowledgeable and I learned a lot from them. However, their services, as anything in the Caymans, is pricey for the priceless experience.

After having done two shore dives the day before, I was ready and eager for my first lesson at Cathy Church's Photo Centre. I had talked to them the day before and I was scheduled for a classroom session, a guided dive and photo review. The instructor was Eddy (curiously named like me).

The Classroom Session

The classroom session started at about 9:00am at the Photo Centre. We first talked about the basic relationship between aperture, shutter speed and film speed in underwater photography. Eddy (the instructor) made me realize that notions in underwater photography have special considerations (if you are coming from land photography). For example, nobody would make pictures darker (by turning down aperture or faster shutter) and use a strobe in plain daylight in land photography (unless you want very special effects). In underwater photography, you do, because ambient light is your "worse enemy", this is the light that makes your pictures "green". Most of the time you want the light to come only from your strobe. The exception is when you are taking pictures of big animals, things close to the surface or sillouttes.

The discussion centered around this table that depicts the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and film speed:

Aperture (F stops)	Shutter Speed (secs)	Film Speed (ISO)
2.8 (+ more light)	1/15 (+ more light)	1600 (+ more sensitivity)
4	1/30 (blur)	800 (noise and grain)
5.6	1/60	400
8	1/125	200
11 (SLR)	1/500	100 (preferred)
22	1/800 (max sync)	50
(- less light)	1/1000(- less light)	25(- less sensitivity)
Master Control: Strobe Ambient Depth of Field	Controls: Movement Ambient Light	Controls: Overall Sensitivity

The first column is Aperture. This is the master control for strobe light, depth of field and ambient light. The bigger the aperture (smaller F stop number), the more strobe light and and ambient light the picture is going to get. The relationship between aperture and depth of field is inversely proportional, the bigger the aperture the less depth of field, the smaller the the aperture the more depth of field, because of the "pin-hole" effect. Depth of field is the range of how many subjects are in focus in your picture. The more depth of field the more subjects in focus you have. Depth of field tends to matter most when shooting macro (small creatures). If a creature you are shooting is along the line of your lense, some of it might be out of focus (unless you purposely want that effect). It is recommended to stay around F stops 5.6 and 8, but if you have 11 and 22 (with an SLR) even better. The rows shaded with light blue are "recommended" settings in underwater photography.

The second column is Shutter Speed. This setting controls movement and ambient light. A fast shutter speed (1/800 sec) will freeze the image of a fast moving fish, whereas, a slow shutter speed (1/60) will cause your image to be blurry. For point-and-shoot cameras, trying to shoot fast moving subjects is close to impossible because of autofocus lag time. SLRs are the king in this category, they have much better shutter response speed. For subjects that are more stationary, shutter speed also matters. If you take a picture with water as the background, shutter speed regulates how dark your water is going to be. With 1/800 it will be dark, with 1/60 it will bright. The shaded rows in the table, depict the recommend range for shutter speeds. Anything slower than 1/60 will make your pictures blurry or shaky (unless you have a tripod underwater ;) ) and anything faster than 1/800 will have trouble with strobes, because most strobes cannot synch faster than 1/800.

The third column is Film Speed, which regulates how sensitive your sensor is going to be to light. Anything higher than 400 will make your picture grainy and subject to noise which will ruin your picture for a blow up. It is recommended around ISO 100. There are more advanced concepts like increasing your ISO, so that you can take subjects with a faster shutter speed, but that's a subject for another course.

Then we spent some talking about strobe positioning. One key consideration is backscatter. The way to get rid of it is to position your strobe away from your lense; therefore, longer arms are preferable. Because of this reason you will most of the time have side lighting, causing a shadow on the other side. That's why a second strobe is used. Using two strobes gives you a way to simulate front lighting without the backscatter.

Here's an exercise that we did by shooting a model fish to explore the different strobe positioning possiblities.

Front Lighting - This is what we want with fish subjects most of the time. However, the fish appears flat. If a subject had more texture, you will not see that texture. Use side lighting instead.	Back Lighting - This kind of lighting works better for semi-transparent subjects, like corals. This effect will allow you to see the light thru the subject.
Side Lighting (Right) - If using a single strobe, this is the kind of lighting that you will end up having. In this particular example, the fish is swimming to the right, aiming the strobe to the head with lighting on the right side would be the recommended way.	Side Lighting (Left) - This is similar to side lighting on the right, but you have to switch depending on the subject. In this particular example, the fish is swimming to the right side and we are using left side lighting. A bad idea, a shallow will appear on the fish's head and we won't see the eyes and the mouth.

The classroom session lasted almost two hrs (with some interruptions). We tried to base it on the camera that I had (Sony Cybershot DSC-P9 with Sea & Sea YS-50), but quickly realized that we needed manual setting capabilities to make the discussion useful, so we based on the Olympus SP-350 (more on that below). We concluded the course with this summary of key considerations:

• Maintain close distance to the subject
• Regulate strobe power and aperture
• Aim your strobe correctly
• Mind your background exposure

After this we took a 15 min break to get ready for diving and apply the concepts that we just learned in the classroom.

The Camera

The camera of choice for the class and the dive was the Olympus SP-350 with an Olympus PT-030 underwater housing, 0.7x (wet) wide angle converter lense, buoyant Ultralight arms (ulcs.com), Sea & Sea YS-90 strobe with a TTL connector and Sea & Sea 5-pin Nikonos sync cord. I rented this setup for the dive. This is the exact same setup that Cathy Church's staff uses for some of their photo shoots and services. The lense of camera had an (35mm SLR) equivalent range of 38-114 mm, so the wide angle converter gave it a range of 27-80 mm. This was a very nice setup, it was compact yet powerful. All the main controls, were on the right hand side, so you could potentially shoot and make adjustments with one hand.

The Guided Dive

We started the shore dive by swimming down to the coral formations off of Sunset House. Cathy Church's staff has already "pre-defined" stations to take practice shots. These stations are spots on the reefs that are interesting to shoot. In addition, they have "trained" a number of gray angels and red snappers to complement your shots. They have done this with a can of Cheez Whiz.

The first station that we visited was a rock where a red coral had grown. Underwater you couldn't tell it was red. Our first exercise was to practice "bracketing", that is, taking the same shot with different settings. Eddy, the instructor, had a writing pad with him and sometimes he even manage to talk thru his regulator.

Red Coral at F8.0, 1/60, ISO 100. Notice the light blue color of the background water. In some areas of the reef, it seems over-exposed.	Red Coral at F8.0, 1/125, ISO 100. Notice the darker background water, colors on reef appear richer. Some side background is still visible.
Red Coral at F8.0, 1/250, ISO 100. Notice side backbround turning black (almost dissapearing). Yellows on the reef are more visible. My favorite setting for this shot.	Red Coral at F8.0, 1/500, ISO 100. Notice everything is turning darker, even the main subject. Perhaps too dark for the main subject.

For this picture of the red coral, I had my strobe on the right side with the arm completely extended (close to 3 ft away) and I was very close to the subject, no more than 2 ft. For this type of shot, you want to move as close as possible, use a fast shutter speed like a 1/250 to isolate the subject and play with the position of the strobe. Positioning the strobe below the camera was an alternative. Eddy, would also try to lure fish around this shot, so that you could "compose" a shot with a gray angel or a red snapper with it. Unfortunately, none of those shots came out well. Now I knew how they came up with all those "nearly perfect" poster shots at the store, with the help of an assistant and Cheez Whiz.

Taking on Bigger Subjects

After a couple of more braketing exercises with coral subjects, we move on to bigger subjects, the "Mermaid" or "Amphithrite", it's original name. You might have seen her on the cover of scuba magazines. This particular subject had different considerations, the subject was about 6 ft tall, so you had to be at least 3 ft away from it to cover more subject. At more than 3 ft of distance from the subject, more ambient light got in the way. But after looking at the set of pictures, having that "green" look seem to look the most appealing, personally. So in this case, more ambient light was ok.

Amphithrite at F8.0, 1/60, ISO 100. Notice the reef background around her feet, it is still visible. Her surface has that "green" look from ambient light.	Amphithrite at F8.0, 1/250, ISO 100. Notice her "real" colors starting to appear, including some reds and oranges.
Amphithrite at F8.0, 1/400, ISO 100. Notice most of the background is already dark.	Amphithrite at F8.0, 1/800, ISO 100. Notice, the whole subject starting to turn too dark. Not the ideal setting.

In retrospect, I should done a 1/125 shot, but I didn't. My favorite of this set is the shot made with 1/60. However, I would have like to see how a 1/125 shot would have look like. On the 1/60 shot, being able to see the background appears to look better, it gives you the impression of the "beauty" contrasted with the not so appealing surrounding rocks. Also the "green" look, having more ambient light on the subject, gives her a more bronze-like appearance, which is how we are used to see statues (like the Statue of Liberty).

Practicing the Classroom Techniques

In the addition, to the backeting exercises, I did some fun shots as well, that is, working on my composition and some of the tecniques that I learned in class.

Here's a picture of tube corals with below lighting, that is, with the strobe positioned below the camera. It was taken at F8.0, 1/160 and ISO 100. This techniques allows you to present color in the foreground, and more "blueish" colors for more distant subjects. It emphasizes the sense of depth.

This next picture of a red snapper is almost exactly the picture that I took of the model fish in our classroom session. The side lighting was on the right side, while the fish was swimming to the right. The strobe was pointing right at his head. This picture was taken at F8.0, 1/800 and ISO 100. The slow shutter speed made everything in this picture a bit dark except for the head of the fish. However, it gives you a ghostly impression of the fish coming out of darkness which I think works.

This final picture is a close-up of Amphithrite. The picture was taken at F8.0, 1/125, and ISO 100. The strobe was on the right side and above almost aligned with the direction that she's looking.

After the dive we took a break for lunch and scheduled a session for a critique of the pictures that I took. A lot of the comments that I got, I already mentioned on this posting. After this course, I was more aware of the considerations when taking underwater pictures and I badly wanted this camera. In a lot of aspects it was better than my current camera, the response time, strobe cycling time, exposure control and manual settings. I thought of buying the camera for my upcoming liveaboard (which was boarding tonight), but I did not have a laptop with me, so I did not have a way to download my pictures if I had this camera. So I left that decision for another day, which would come sooner than I expected ...

This trip to Cayman Islands was a trip that was put together rather hastily; however, it turn out to be pretty good. On this trip, I was going on the liveaboard Nekton Rorqual (nektoncruises.com) and staying several days at Sunset House for photography lessons with Cathy Church. I had been on a Nekton cruise before with the Pilot, and I knew what to expect (see also my posting on the Nekton Pilot and Belize). I also had attended a seminar with Cathy Church at Beneath the Sea and I knew that she also was an excellent underwater photography instructor (see my posting on her Mastering Strobe Techniques seminar). So in my mind I had this trip kind of planned, but I didn't know when it was going to happen. But I'm glad that the opportunity came up :).

The flight to Georgetown, Grand Cayman was pretty convenient. I took a USAir flight that departed Boston at 8:00am and arrived Georgetown at 1:00pm with a layover in Charlotte, NC. Here's a picture of Georgetown as the plane approached.

I really like flights that take you to the Caribbean by noon or early afternoon. That way you can dive the same day you arrive!

First Shore Dive, off Sunset House
I arrived at Sunset House at about 2:00pm. The ride from airport was pretty quick, no more than 15 mins and cost about $15. The first thing I did after checking in and drop my stuff in my room was to check in with the dive shop (Sunset Divers) and Cathy Church's Photo Centre. I had scheduled 5 days at Sunset House, one night before the Nekton cruise and 4 nights afterwards. My plan was to take the first day as "aclimatization", a first lesson with Cathy Church's staff and then another lesson with Cathy, after the Nekton cruise.

My first task that afternoon though was to look for a buddy for a shore dive. I have learned over the years, to plan always for a "low impact" dive the first time in a trip. That way you have time to check your gear, re-acquaint yourself with your equipment and in my personal case to practice equalizing my ears after a period of non-diving. Soon enough, I ran into Justin who had to travel with a non-diving friend in the last minute.

Dealing with Sunset Divers was quite painless, we got our tanks and weights and off we went. The setup at Sunset House is quite convenient for divers. There are gear lockers, although the choice of having wooden lockers seemed to be a bad idea for me. I remember the lockers at
Scuba Club Cozumel to be made of cement. Much better choice to deal with the wetness, and consequent smell. There were also large camera-only rinse tanks, which was to be expected given Cathy Church's op. There was also a shower and gear rinse tank by the shore.

It was almost 5:00pm when we got ready to get into the water. The shore dive off Sunset House is quite famous. People from other places come here to visit the famous Mermaid or Amphitrite , as she is called. However, on this day we did not find her. We swam all the way to the last buoy which marks the site of small wreck (didn't get the name, it was a 50ft+ boat). The swim
was quite long, must have been over 100 yds. Finally, when we reached the buoy, we could see the wreck from above. It was siting at about 65 ft. of water. The marine life around it was not that abundant. Although, occassionally you ran into the likes of a gray angelfish:

I later learned that this gray angel fish is a local resident and the "super model" of a lot of Cathy Church's pictures. This angel fish gets fed every time there is a person taking a photo course. The guy was unafraid of human presence and I was quite lucky to get this shot with strobe pointing downwards to his head. The first thing you notice on this picture is the eye of the fish. I think somebody has told me in one photo class that people always focus on the eyes of creatures.

Except for this gray angel, the dive was becoming somewhat uneventful. There was not much coral on the wreck, therefore I suspect that it was relatively recent sunking. I went around wreck several times, inspecting every nook and crany. On one corner of the wreck, there was a gaping hole and saw this fish sitting in the darkness. I believe it was a tiger grouper being cleaned by damselfish. The odd thing about this guy, was that his head was colorful while the rest of his body was bleached out. So I'm still not quite sure whether this is a tiger grouper, because you cannot distinguish the stripes. The other fish with similar characteristics is the graysby; however, this guy was quite big, over 2 ft long.

On the swim back to shore, we wanted to stop by the Mermaid; however, we could not find it underwater. Our navigation went out of whack, because we had gone north, and we should've headed east. Anyway, we surfaced and turned out that we were going in the wrong direction. We had another long swim back to shore.

That night, Justin and I went for a night dive. Again we went for the wreck which in retrospect was a mistake. The swim from shore to there was exhausting and we ended up seeing very little. There was a french angelfish and another tiger grouper among the night residents of the wreck. The bottom geography was featureless, so the navigation again was challenging. This time we did not try to swim ashore underwater. We surfaced and swam back. During this dive I also noticed, that my BC has not holding my air, for some reason the air was leaking. It turned out that the ring that holds the inflator hose to the BC was loose. I managed to screw it tight, while underwater at night. I felt proud of myself :).