Banded Jawfish spitting. Movie

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013 01 06 BHB Banded jawfish spitting. Movie.

Today I had 2 options. Go east and try to get a better shot of the seahorses or do something different and try the video mode on my slr. I decided to go for the second. I read the manual in the car on the way to BHB and off I went straight to the one interesting subject that is readily available at the moment. It took me a couple of seconds to find my jawfish with blue eyes, its eggs were more developed than last time I saw it. It was so full that it couldn’t close its mouth. I landed and slowly approached, pre-focused and it started pumping like it was going to spit. I hit the record button and it spit a few seconds after. I stopped the recording as it finished. Then I played with different combination of settings …and hopefully I get to know them better with the time.

Camera Movie Settings:

Movie quality: 1920X1080, 24 fps, high quality

Microphone: Off

Destination: Slot 2

Manual Movie settings: Off

(Initially I had them on but the camera would give me ISO 2500 and I wasn’t comfortable with that number and I couldn’t adjust the iso without turning the movie settings Off)



Custom Setting Menu:

A8 Liveview Movie

Autofocus mode: AF-S

I tried AF-F Full time servo but not sure I like it until I see it in screen

AF-Area mode: Face Priority

I also tried Wide-area AF

Normal area AF

Subject tracking AF

…My impression is that the camera locked in a high contrast area and that’s it. I have to read more about it. Not sure what is the proper setting.

I started at f22 but the eggs didn’t look so sharp so I higher up and can’t wait to see the results.



Problems:

1.Its hard for my small hand to push the white/balance preset and I can’t skip that. Do it with the camera pointing down at the slate and with the sun in the back.

2.The record button is hard to push. I need to lengthen the bar It is short for my hand to reach the focus button and pre-set and switch to the record button and while I switch holding the camera with the other hand I easily loose the focus point.

3. Get a gorilla tripod.

4. Try Ev -1 always for video (De Neef recomends -0.3 to -0.7)

5 Use the grid d2

6. Steve de Neef recommends the 60mm with still (105 needs manual focus).

30fps 1/60

24 fps 1/50

Anything less that f11 is unusable f11-f22 is ok

Iso 320 and probably no higher than 1200.



This is the most helpful review I found so far: http://www.divephotoguide.com/underwater-photography-special-features/article/macro-underwater-slr-video/




Then I waited for it to spit again and tried to shoot him from different angles. Judy showed me a dusky with huge eggs but just a few all the way inside its mouth and hard to see. Then I saw a boxer crab, a pipefish, a tiny seahorse …headed back. Today was my last dive at the bridge for the month to follow. 😞

13ft 217 min 77oF S100cc 7mm Pinnacle Ankle weght+2

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