The problem:
I bought an underwater case for my digital camera, but all pictures turn out cloudy, dark, just bad! The results are acceptable only at depths less than 3m with bright sunshine and in clear water! What's wrong?
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For many digital cameras, underwater housings suitable for Scuba-diving are available. But only few housings offer the possibility of attaching an external underwater flash.
Without auxiliary lightning, even the best digital cameras produce only gloomy pictures once you reach a few meters of depth. The built-in strobe is insufficient for objects farther than a meter. In addition (due to the close arrangement of the lens and the built-in flash), particles suspended in the water will light up and thus be visible on your pictures as white snow.
[Much backscatter from the internal strobe - even at nice vis!]
The
solution:
If lack of light is the problem, why not buy an external underwater flash with Slave-Mode?
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The use of an external flash will bring a clear improvement to your pictures. However, while various manufacturers offer special "Digital strobes" for digital cameras, most of them are not only weak, but also expensive. As few manufacturers offer TTL control, their use is restricted to manual mode.
[With external strobe - nice exposure and no backscatter!]
Are there alternatives to attaching external strobes directly, especially
if the digital strobe from my manufacturer is too expensive?
Yes, since many non-digital flashes use the "Nikonos standard." Now that a lot of underwater photographers switched from film to digital camera, those flashes are widely available as used items.
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