PREPARE YOUR UNDERWATER PHOTO EQUIPMENT

Text: Christopher Bartlett

Well, if you followed the buying advice for underwater photography from the last Le Mag, then you have your new camera, your housing and flashes. The kids will be skiing in just two years. Skiing is dangerous anyway. But before you take the plunge to appear on the cover of Nat Géo, you still have to prepare yourself, otherwise Jean-Louis and Jeanne-Louise will have to work all their vacations to be able to go to college, if you drown your gear. after 20 seconds of immersion.

Although we need lubricant, the foreplay of the photographer-diver is less fun than in other situations in life. In their favor, they are simple and quick and do best on their own without any other distractions. Below is my list of points to follow. Many are so logical that you're going to ask yourself "what sucker would forget that?" ". This is the question that I asked myself, in more crude terms, each time I was in a hurry, that I did not check everything… and that a ball happened to me! Sometimes it was harmless and it only cost me a dive without photos - because removing the lens cover underwater is not easy - sometimes it still cost me between 500 and 1000 euros ... ..

1. Before placing the device in the case, check that the battery is sufficiently charged
2. The SD card did not stay in your computer and has enough space for the day?
3. Lens cap removed?
4. If you use the fiber optic wires, the flash of the camera is in the operating position? your syncros cables are well screwed?
5. Before closing the flash, check that the batteries are all in the correct orientation.
6. Be careful that the seals on the back of the box, the porthole, and the external flashes are clean, lubricated, free from grains of sand, hair, cotton thread, or ass hair? (We will see the stories of lub 'later).
7. See if the seal that you grease every day and that made you dive 200 days without being changed is not a little relaxed? If so, it might get caught on closing, creating a fatal flaw….
8. Won't any bags of silica inside the box get stuck on the joint a little bit when I close it, creating a minimal but potentially fatal leak?

(I know, this list sounds like a moron. But it must be the nitrogen bubbles, because so far every bullshit mentioned above is personal experience. And yet I respect myself. slightly dumber than average only.)

9. Before leaving your room, turn on the whole mess and take a flash photo of anything to verify that everything works, that the buttons and levers have good contact. 99 times out of 100, everything will work flawless. Half the time, if you don't do it and wait until you're 20 meters away, shit. Word of scout.
10. In the boat or even before, set the device to your "typical" configuration. That is, ready to take a photo as soon as you are in the water. It won't screw up your gear if you don't, but it can ruin your morning. A small example. It happened to the neighbor of a friend of my cousin, I promise! I, uh, I mean the guy in question, Bob, was in Zanzibar in April and on the previous dive, he was taking wide-angle shots without flash up to 15 meters with white balance in manual mode. Arrived on the second site of the morning, the skipper of the boat sees about twenty dolphins with their dolphins which advance happily, heading directly for the boat and the site. Bob rushes to take the plunge and not miss the beautiful animals that arrive in groups right on top of him… It is the cover of Scuba-People almost assured! It quickly checks its settings: flash off, Mode M, ISO 200, F8, 1 / 250th. Nickel. It should be fine. There's just. It shoots in a burst, the one and only time the dolphins pass. It smells good. He presses the little blue arrow to see his good job. !! # @ # @? #! Everything is red, redder than the Kremlin in 1950. His white balance remained on the setting of the last shot at 15 meters.

You have to be like Lucky Luke, always ready to draw.

Seals and lubricant

You've unpacked everything on the living room table, and between the two flashes, the camera, any ports and the case, you end up with four or five tubes of silicone grease from at least three different brands. And because you don't have three open tubes of toothpaste in your bathroom, you think you only use one, and then that'll make you one less thing to lug around the world. Except that there, it is necessary. Canon gaskets need Canon grease, Inon gaskets need their own grease. Why ? Because the gaskets themselves are made with slightly different materials, and if you mix grease A with gasket B, you can end up with a big C… .. By force, the gasket will relax, and one day it will go to you. happen this (see photo below). Without having the right fat, saliva works well. Yours or your partner's, whatever.

And then the lubricant, it is applied gently in the light, to identify any sweater hairs, hair, or grains of sand. How often do we fat? It's very personal. There are some - fadas in my opinion - that wash and grease every day when they are traveling. Personally, I do it once a week, or so. I remove the gasket, I clean it with a little soap, then I rinse it before regreasing it with a little bit of the appropriate grease. If you put on too much, it tends to catch the hair and threads.

The device settings.

We will see the camera settings (focus, ISO etc.) in a later article because the choice depends on the type of photo you want to take. But immediately you should go to the main menu and stop the "intelligent" functions of the camera, such as auto-detection of faces, and configure the recording of images in the mode that gives the best. image quality. With gigantic capacity cards, there is no reason to shoot at average quality. If you are recording in JPEG (the other options being RAW, or RAW + JPEG; another debate for another article) choose the mode with the least compression, usually L for wide, or F for Fine.

Some anti-flood tips

If there is room in your box, in addition to a bag of silica to prevent humidity from developing, put a tampax in it. In the event of a small leak, the tampax can absorb a fairly large amount of water.

For owners of Inon flashes, it is possible to find a thin rubber seal that goes inside the cover and prevents flooding if the yellow seal is pinched.
Unfortunately, I learned that a week after my last ball on the charts, a S2000 flash flooded three months ago. As in 95% of cases, it was a human error, a human who closed it precipitously, stuffed for a dive and who was jacting with his next-door neighbor at the same time.
In the next issue, the BA-BA of the exhibition.
Good bubbles! (but not the ones that come out of the box) CB