Sponge garden (10.5mm fish eye underwater)

[Willy wombat]

Hi guys

Just wanted to share this pic with you. Havent posted anything in ages. Been working on weddings and model shoots so it was nice to go back over some dives I did in 2010. Seems like such a long time ago now

Cheers
Steve

[ATJ]

Nice, Steve. The colours in the foreground are vibrant. It also looks like it was quite clear.

I would have preferred if the left sponge and closest sponges weren't cut off.

What size dome port and were you using a diopter on the lens. I notice a bit of edge distortion in the lower part of the image.

[Willy wombat]

Hey Andrew

Good point about the left hand side. I was spewing that i cut the edge off in this composition but It was still nice enough to post.

No diopters on this rig
This is just the 10.5 on my D200 behind an 8 inch dome. Distortion is always a problem with this lens when you get so close to the subject.

Do you have any advice on how to fix it?

[biggerry]

nice shot, I wmight even go the other way to Andrew and say I don't mind the chopping off of the coral - maybe even cropping in a bit tighter might help! there is alot to see in this image and the nice school of fish in the centre gets lost in the frame a bit - the ony reason, imo, the eye gets drawn there is becuse of the water mark.

I reckon cropping to just keep the yellow seaweed thingy in the frame and losing just a fraction on the left might also work well.

With that said, its a pretty stellar image in terms of timing and lighting...

[stetner]

I notice a bit of edge distortion in the lower part of the image.

I get the same on my 10mm lens on my canon 7d in an ikelite housing using the 8" dome with the recommended +2 diopter.

I read somewhere that the lens should actually sit slightly behind the edge of the dome, and mine is slightly in front. Not sure if I want to spend $100 to get an extension and find it is useless, it would probably make it sit too far back and I would get vignetting.

I am going to have some time to play shortly as I won a trip to Kavieng, see here where I give the sponsors a plug:

<http://www.stetner.org:8080/wordpress/2011/05/05/i-won-a-dive-trip-to-kavieng-papua-new-guinea/>

Unlimited diving on the house reef in the afternoons after 2 boat dives.... I am going to be one big prune when I get home

Doug

[ATJ]

Edge sharpness can be a problem with wide angle lenses in a dome port. Adding a diopter is meant to help. A +2 is recommended for the Tokina 12-24mm in a 6" dome but I found +4 gives me better edge sharpness, although it is till not perfect.

I'm trying to remember if a larger or smaller dome helps. I think I remember reading on wetpixel about people getting good results with a 4" dome on the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye.

[surenj]

Wow this is a primo shot! There is some great fore, middle and background interest. Printed big, this could occupy the eye for quite sometime!

Maybe you could play with a bit of dodge and burn the foreground to disguise the flash a little.