and Staying Safe and Getting Better Images.
Underwater Photography Forum
The Fuji F30 underwater outfit is a really good choice for getting started in underwater digital photography. It's simple to use, packed with useful features instead of gimmicks, and has the scope for shooting great images under the most demanding conditions.
The F30 meets the three most important criteria that we have when recommending a digital compact underwater camera to our clients. All go towards ensuring that your camera can meet your immediate needs, but can also grow with you if you want to shoot images that go beyond point-and-shoot photography.
Firstly, the F30 camera can be set to fully automatic for simplicity, leaving you with not much more to do than frame the picture and press the shutter button. But, secondly, it also has an aperture priority mode, essential for good strobe or flash photography. By using this and the exposure compensator control, you can pretty much also shoot manually for full creative control. This is important because the nature of underwater photography often involves tricky lighting, such as framing a manta against the surface, shooting out from within a cavern or portraying a wreck.
Our final criteria is that the camera can be fitted with wide-angle and macro lenses. Wide-angles are needed for photographing larger subjects including whale sharks, reefscapes, divers and forced perspective shots where small fan corals, for example, seem to dwarf the dive boat anchored overhead. It's also vital for shooting small subjects such as nudibranchs and cup corals that you can fit close up lenses. The F30 accepts Inon fisheye, wide angle and macro lenses using an adapter, which allows you to switch lenses underwater in seconds. This gives you the capability to photograph a wreck like the Dunraven in the Red Sea and capture exteriors like her propeller and rudder, then move inside for shots of the boiler. As you move up the reef she struck, you can remove the fisheye lens and use the Fuji F30's built in 36-108 mm zoom for fish photography and finally fit a close up lens to portray tiny invertebrates towards the top of the cliff face.
The Fuji F30 and housing are extremely compact. It can easily be clipped to your harness or placed in many BCD pockets until you want it. The outfit can safely be dived to 40 metres. Unlike many compacts, the Fuji F30 has virtually no shutter lag, making it an excellent choice for fish photography. The large 2.5 inch screen makes viewing while wearing a mask a pleasure. Low light photographers will appreciate the 3200 ISO setting, making this a fantastic contender for British, Northern European and South African locations. Fuji have built in an electronic filter for correcting colours in blue water. This helps enormously with restoring true colours, like flesh tones, without the need for an additional strobe, helping to reduce start up costs, bulk and keeping the camera very easy to use. It's also great for shooting video clips with the F30 as it avoids having to own and carry a high power video light. Because the filter is electronic, you can turn it on and off underwater as needed. Fuji have also solved a major problem with some compacts - battery life. Fuji use a camcorder battery from Sanyo in their F30 and this is good for around 600 shots per charge.
The Fuji F30 dive package is superbly specified for beginner and serious compact photographer alike. It is both extremely user friendly and very versatile. We recommend picking up an Aquatec camera clip and a Michael Aw "Essential Guide to Underwater Digital Photography" guide when you buy your camera. Maria Munn of Ocean Visions can be relied upon for superb courses that will get you off to a flying start.
If you would like to pick up your F30 in person, then allow half an hour or so for one of our team to show you over your system properly, including a run through on how to prepare the seals for diving and the pre-dive tests you need to make.
If you can pick up your Fuji F30 underwater camera system in person from Mavericks Diving London, our team of experienced underwater photographers will be pleased to spend a little time with you over coffee talking you through the basics that will help you get started on the right tracks.
The Fuji F30 muck diving underwater camera outfit is the ideal starter system for those long dives in the Lembeh Straits.
A big part of the Mavericks Diving London service is taking the time to run you through a few of the basics that will help you get started - so if you can drop in for your Fuji F30 underwater camera system, put a little time aside to chat with our team of experienced underwater photographers.
The Fuji F50FD is packed with user-friendly features. The 6.7 cm (2.7 in) monitor is easy to see and the intuitive displays are large and bold, making them easy to read. The Fuji F50FD offers single autofocus mode, which is great for still life photography, and a tracking or continuous mode which works well with moving subjects like fish. You can choose fully automatic exposure for point and shoot photography, ideal while you are getting started, or take more control when you want to. Underwater photographers will appreciate the aperture priority mode, which is essential for good strobe photography. Shutter priority is provided as well and is ideal for action and sports photography on the surface.
Colour correction is provided by a compliment of white balance options including manual white balance or custom selection. This is a bonus for shooting under the water. The Fuji F50FD also offers a very useful underwater setting that helps to automatically restore the colours lost through absorption as you descend through the water column. A great benefit for divers in low light levels, such as UK, South Africa and Norway for example, is the Fuji F50FD's exceptional low light capability. The maximum sensitivity of this camera is 6400 ISO.
Naturally you have a built-in flash, which works fine for close ups in good visibility (the Fuji F50 has an excellent macro facility). You can easily add an Inon D-2000s, D-2000 or Z-240 off-camera strobe for TTL flash photography in lower visibility, for wide angle work or just to enjoy more creative lighting options. The Inon TTL system is well proven and altogether does away with the hassles of setting your flash power manually.
Other features include a video mode to let you capture the action, such as swooping manta rays, built-in camera shake reduction to keep your pictures sharp and the choice of black and white shooting for a different look.
Fuji's WP-FXF50 Underwater Housing is matched to the Fuji F50FD. Hugging the camera reduces the size to an absolute minimum, this is a pleasure to dive with. All camera functions can be used and changed underwater and the layout of the WP-FXF50 makes handling easy and decisive, so you won't be faffing and missing shots. The WP-FXF50 underwater casing has a very positive latch with a useful safety lock. Another impressive feature of the Fuji F50 underwater housing is the double O ring seal. The housing is rated to 40 metres.
The Fuji F50FD underwater outfit is supplied complete with a 1 GB card, carry case, software, leads and O ring grease.
Ocean Optics/Mavericks Divng London has already supplied Scottish Natural Heritage with two Fuji F50FD underwater camera systems with an extensive range of Inon lenses and strobes for scientific research diving.
If you are able to pick up your Fuji F50FD underwater camera outfit from our London showrooms, please set aside half an hour or so and one of our team of experienced underwater photographers will show you through the basics of operation, including the all important pre-dive preparation. Mavericks Diving London is owned by Ocean Optics. Ocean Optics is the longest established underwater photography equipment supplier in the UK and celebrates 30 years in business next year. Our clients include some of the world's top underwater photographers, authors and photo journalists, so you'll be in good hands.
If you can pick up your system in person from Mavericks Diving London, our team of experienced underwater photographers will be pleased to spend a little time with you over coffee talking you through the basics that will help you get started on the right tracks.
The Mavericks Diving Fuji F50FD muck diving underwater photography package solves these problems. We've combined the excellent Fuji F50FD with an Inon UCL165AD close up lens. This lens allows you to use your zoom lens to really fill the frame with the tiniest creature. Your built-in flash works perfectly and a special diffuser spreads the light evenly to light your photograph without using an additional strobe. You can also keep your distance, so there's less risk of frightening your subject.
The Fuji F50FD muck diving underwater camera outfit is the ideal starter system for those long dives in the Lembeh Straits.
A big part of the Mavericks Diving London service is taking the time to run you through a few of the basics that will help you get started - so if you can drop in for your system, put a little time aside to chat with our team of experienced underwater photographers.
If you can pick up your Fuji F50FD shark diving underwater photography package in person, then one of our experienced underwater photographers will run you through the basics. So set aside 30-45 minutes for your visit to Mavericks Diving London. Two of our crew have won awards for their white shark images and Mavericks Diving London organised Shark Day with Shark Trust and London Aquarium in 2007.
Most wide angle lenses have a field of view of around 100 degrees. The Inon UFL165AD covers 165, taking in a hugely expansive viewpoint. Subjects simply to large to shoot with conventional wide angles are easily taken with fisheye lenses. This makes fisheye lenses essential for wreck photography, where shooting impressive bows on shots of ships like the Thistlegorm or shooting in confined areas such as engine rooms isn't really possible with normal wide angles which see little over half the area of the Inon UFL165AD. They are also ideally suited to working in low visibility, such as around the UK coastline, when working with divers for example, because you can work from only half a metre away or so and photograph a diver full length. This is around half the distance you need to be with normal wide angles and the result is a much sharper image because you are shooting through less dirt.
The Inon UFL165AD is so close focusing it can actually photograph subjects on the dome port itself. This makes it an excellent choice for creative image making when you want to play with perspective to add impact to your images.
This incredible lens is sharp to the edges and offers breathtaking depth of field. Naturally it can be installed and removed from the Inon AD adapter on your camera with just a quarter turn for your convenience.
The Inon UWL105AD will let you shoot closer to large subjects, such as divers and mantas, providing crisper images by reducing the distance you must be from your subject and the amount of dirt you are shooting through. By photographing at near distances, your strobe will be more effective and will deliver stronger colours. You can also use the Inon UWL105AD to create perspective shifts for creative photography including close focus, wide angle imagery.
Inon close up lenses feature two coated glass elements as you'd find on top of the line land close up lenses. This assures your extreme close ups will have lots of fine detail in them. The bodies are aluminium for durability and anodised to prevent corrosion.
The standard AD mount accepts the UCL165AD close up lens, 105AD wide angle lens and UFL165AD fisheye lens.
The D-2000 was created for digital compact users, but offers a near identical specification to the D-240 which is aimed at Digital SLR users. The twin flash tubes provide 100 degree coverage to suit popular wide angle lenses, including the Fuji F30 fit Inon 105AD. You can increase the angle and soften the light by using Inon diffusers. These fit easily and securely to the front of your Inon D-2000 with a screw. You can choose white diffusers in strengths of -0.5 stops to -3 stops.
The guide number is 20, so you've got lots of power available. On full power recycling is around two seconds, so the Inon D-2000 is usually ready to fire again before the camera is. It's rare to need full power, so usually the recycling is near instantaneous. The Inon D-2000 runs off just four AA batteries. These are easily removed for security inspections. The D-2000 has a transparent battery cap and the silicone O-ring used to seal it is easily visible through the cap. This helps ensure that you can see the O-ring is properly seated before diving.
Exposure control on the D-2000 is usually TTL (through the lens). Your own camera determines the correct exposure and instructs the D-2000 to add the right amount of light to properly expose your subject. The advantage of using the camera's own light meter is that the light meters are now very advanced, so results are usually excellent, and that the light meter will be pointing directly at your subject (the strobe often isn't for very good reasons). Any changes you make to your camera settings that would influence the flash, such as increasing or decreasing the ISO, will automatically be made to the strobe. So it is hassle free and much more reliable than an auto strobe.
That said, TTL isn't perfect and some subjects can confuse it. A good example is a diver in a dark suit. The meter will overreact to the suit and cause the strobe to overexpose. So the Inon D-2000 has a compensation feature that allows you to slightly under or overexpose your subject. You can also control your gun manually, choosing from twelve power settings. This provides very finely controlled exposures as each setting adds or subtracts a half stop.
The D-2000 is equipped with a modelling light. This lets you check the colour of subjects that are close to the camera and is a nice feature at night or in wrecks and caves. You can choose whether to lock the light on or have it activate for just a few seconds at the push of a button.
The Inon D-2000 connects to your Fuji F30 housing using a reliable fibre optic wet lead. It isn't necessary to have a through-housing connection. Because the camera's own flash is used to control the D-2000, it has to fire. This would cause cross lighting and backscatter in many situations. So it is important that light from it does not penetrate into the water. Inon's very neat solution is to provide reusable filters that cover your built in flash and convert the white light to infra red. Infra red won't travel through water for any distance, so any potential problems are solved. Inon offer several wet lead options for twinning up the D-2000 for dual strobe photography.
Ultra compact, the Inon D-2000 is easy to travel with, weighing only 525 grams without batteries. Inon strobes have proven themselves to be user friendly, rugged and dependable.
We have strong views on scuba diver training. Steve Warren (owner of Ocean Optics and Mavericks Diving London) and Andrew Pugsley (Mavericks Diving London's chief instructor) have been in diving for a long time and have seen scuba training courses becoming ever shorter and more intensive. Bluntly, they feel that many scuba divers have been qualified to dive when their training was inadequate. In the push to get ever more people to dive and then to buy underwater cameras and underwater photography courses, safety sometimes seems to get left out. For the record, we advise making around 20 dives post certification before working with underwater cameras. The reason for this is that to take good underwater pictures safely you need to be able to dive intuitively. If you've just come off a learn-to-dive course, during your next few dives you'll probably still be fumbling your buoyancy control, getting lost and trying to deal with all the other distractions that thwart all of us when we're beginners.
When you have a camera in your hands, it's easy to become fixated on your subject. While you're framing the shot, it's very easy to drift up or down and not realise it's happening. That can mean an unsafe rapid ascent or a fast fall into deep water. The buddy system also suffers. Many underwater photographers prefer to dive alone so that they are absolved of responsibility for another diver and can concentrate on taking pictures. Diving solo is also often seen as advantageous because your buddy doesn't impact on you (and vice versa) by getting cold, running out of air or refusing to hang around while you devote thirty minutes to taking a shot of a sea urchin - or piggishly refuse to move on in search of amazing and mythical sea monsters because you've just discovered a nudibranch.
So it's imperative to be a good diver before you take up underwater photography. Crucial to this is good basic training. If you have any concerns about this, then please take a look at our scuba refresher. You'll see it is a very thorough workshop based on our own Mavericks NAUI Scuba Course. We think this may be the most thorough learn-to-dive course in the UK. Good buoyancy skills are essential for underwater image makers. Mavericks Diving London provides precision buoyancy control workshops using the Diamond Reef system. A review of The Diamond Reef Precision Buoyancy Control workshop appeared in The Independent [link].
For more information, or if you have any questions, give us a call (020 7240 8193) or email us - Steve and Andrew (AJ) are always happy to discuss dive training with you.