Aquatica just announced an exciting new development and partnership between them and Ikelite. Starting with the upcoming housing for Canon 7D Mark II camera, the two companies will be partnering to bring the world renowned Ikelite TTL control circuitry in the Aquatica housings. This new development means that you can have the high quality aluminum housing, known for its rugged construction and nice ergonmic design complete with full TTL control when using Ikelite strobes and sync cords.

Using sync cords allows you to take advantage of the lightning fast recycle rate on the strobes, and Ikelites TTL circuitry keeps up with that fast recycle rate, providing accurate flash metering to give you a well exposed image automatically.

TTL is great when you are shooting in situations where taking the time to adjust the strobe power and dial in the shot may mean you miss a fast moving or shy subject, so the pairing of the excellent Aquatica housings and Ikelite TTL looks to be a very promising solution.

The first housing to have this built in will be the Aquatica housing for Canon 7D Mark II which should be shipping at the beginning of 2015.

The post Aquatica Announces Ikelite TTL Control first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Ikelite officially released their new lighting system today. This system includes a brand new ball arm system, that looks very familiar to popular ball / clamp arm systems used by many other companies.

From Ikelite:

The ever growing selection of lighting accessories on the market demands a mounting system that’s highly expandable, flexible, and streamlined. In answer to this need, the second generation of our 1-inch ball arm system provides improved ergonomics and versatility in a lighter, sleeker package. Possible combinations are virtually endless, with opportunities to mount an additional lightweight accessory almost anywhere along the length of the arm.

The 1-inch Ball Arm System Mark II features 1-inch ball components with a groove and o-ring to prevent slippage for improved holding power with less force. While underwater, clamps may be finger-tightened to keep lighting in place yet allow repositioning without loosening the clamp. All parts are hard coat type III anodized for a long lasting, scratch resistant finish.

This new design with 1″ ball and o-ring will allow the new Ikelite arms to be compatible with other brand arms like Ultralight, BTS, Nauticam and iDas. Contact us for more details or to purchase!

The post Ikelite Announces New Ball Arm System first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Looking to use a WET wide angle lens with your G-series Canon camera? In all housings, the port is too long to make effective use of wet wide angle lenses. If you’re using the Ikelite housing, however, you now have access to wet lenses via their wide angle port.

Wide angle port with Inon H100 Type 2 lens.

By swapping the existing flat port with the shorter, flat, wide-angle port you gain access to a number of wet wide angle lenses, such as the Inon H100 Type 2. The shorter port means the wet lenses are placed closer to the camera lens when fully zoomed out, limiting or completely removing vignetting depending on the wet lens used. However, shortening of the port also limits the zoom some, but you can still zoom out to 85mm without issue, just over 3/4 of the full zoom range.

Wide angle port with no additional lens from the same viewpoint.

It is important to use care when zooming with the short port, as going past 85mm will cause the lens on the camera to hit the port glass, creating a lens error that will shut down the camera. However with practice, or by customizing the rear dial for “step zoom” (see page 168 in the Canon user manual) you can control the zoom with ease. The step zoom function is fantastic as it allows you to step the zoom up to specific focal lengths, so you never have to worry about going too far. We found during tests that using a diopter at 85mm gives you just a little less magnification as using the diopter at full zoom in the standard port, so you don’t sacrifice much in terms of macro when using this wide angle port.

All in all the Ikelite Wide Angle Port with 67mm threads for the Canon G15 looks to be a great solution for being able to use great WET wide angle lenses and allows for more versatility underwater with your Ikelite housing and Canon G15.

Note: Keep in mind that these examples are all from top-side tests and that underwater images will have added magnification due to refraction causing the image to be slightly less wide.  To get identical results would require the addition of a dome port, like the Dome Unit for the Inon H100 lens.

The post Ikelite Wide Angle Port Grants Access to Wet Lenses for the Canon G-15 first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.

Colorful, beautiful, and devilishly quick.  Those are just some of the words I’ve heard people use to describe juvenile garibaldi.  These tiny versions of their parents, sporting their temporary iridescent blue spots, spend their days darting in and out of the shallow reefs.

Mirrored image? These two seem to be playing an optical illusion trick on us. 1/10, F22, ISO 100.

This past weekend I set out with the intent of capturing these speedy subjects, and portraying their elusive nature.  But how?  Certainly focusing, and then maintaining focus while they dart around would be near impossible, and frustrating to say the least.  My approach: let them come to me.

These little guys and gals seem to stay in a relatively small area of the reef (at least from my observations).  With that in mind, I set my dSLR to AF-C (release), utilizing the AE-L/AF-L button to focus.  This would allow me to set my focal plane at a specific distance, and leave it there.  By using the AE-L/AF-L button to focus, this freed up the shutter button to only release the shutter, so I could fire the trigger whenever my heart desired, whether or not the subject was in focus.  This allowed me to do two things:

1. By predetermining the focal distance, I could focus on another object at the same distance (a rock, for example), and then position my strobes for the ideal lighting and take test shots.
2. Once the focal plane and strobes were set, I could concentrate on timing and composition.

I decided on an aperture of F22 or higher to provide the depth of field I would need to get a majority of the fish in focus.

Anything but cryptic, this juvenile looks surprised as it peers from behind its algae hide-a-way. 1/10, F25, ISO 250.

You could do the same thing with any camera by determining the distance you want to compose the image, then keep the shutter pressed halfway down until the fish came into focus.  You would just have to repeat the pre-focus after each shot if you did not have a separate button for focusing.

For this shoot, I really wanted to capture and portray the speed and elusive nature of these colorful critters, so I decided to use really slow shutter speeds to show the movement (e.g. 1/1oth of a second).  By setting my camera to rear-curtain sync, the camera would expose the movements of the ambient light, before the strobes would fire at the end of the exposure, therefore freezing the motion and allowing for a colorful and sharp photo.

A pair of juvies chase each other around the reef. Their speed, combined with a shutter speed of 1/1o, shows the “streaks” of their movement and brings a sense of motion to the photograph.  1/10, F22, ISO 100.

All photographs were taken with a Nikon D7000, Sea&Sea Housing, Nikon 105mm macro lens, and dual Ikelite strobes.  Special thanks to Selky Charters for a great day on, and under, the water!

A young garibaldi, streaking across the frame, proudly showing off its gorgeous blue markings. 1/10, F22, ISO 100.

These two seemed to chase each other for most of the dive. It was great just to pull the camera from my eye and watch them hide behind my housing. 1/10, F22, ISO 100.

The post Capturing the Elusive first appeared on In Focus Underwater Photography Blog.