Digital Photography - The Nikon 12-24mm Lens - Update

The Nikon 12-24mm Lens - Update- Page 19

At the end of May and the beginning of June, I had the opportunity to give the Nikon 12-24mm lens with the Nexus housing, 40mm extension, 170mm dome port and a +4 diopter a real workout in the northwestern Bahamas aboard the Nekton Pilot. The first workout came on the White Sand Ridge north of Grand Bahama Island. The Nekton usually visits this area in the morning and the Captain cruises around looking for a willing pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins to join the guest for a swim. Our Captain was one of my favorites, Ephey Priest. Encountering dolphins is a real hit and miss affair and in the past, I have been included in more misses than hits. My last enounter on the Nekton had been with Captain Ephey and he didn't let me down this time. We had been on the prowl for less than ten minutes when somebody yelled, "Dolphins, get ready to go!". I have to be honest, this caught me by surprise and I thought that the person was kidding. When I saw everyone scrambling for the dive deck, I knew it was real and joined the scramble. A dolphin encounter is done on snorkel so I had prepared the night before. I knew that any encounter would be fast moving. I set up my D100 in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second. In shutter priority, you choose the shutter speed and the camera chooses the lens opening. I was using an ISO of 200. It was a sunny day so these settings seemed ideal. I wasn't disappointed. Below you will find a couple of examples from the encounter:
1/200th of a second at f8
1/200th of a second at f8	1/200th of a second at f9
The next opportunity was the wreck of the Hesperus on the Gingerbread Grounds near Bimini. This is another of my favorite sites as it affords the chance to photograph loggerhead turtles at night. This little shipwreck is surrounded by eel grass and is the only structure in the area. Turtles come in at night and find a resting place under the stern of the wreck or tucked under an overhang. This is another iffy place. It is very shallow - approximately 20' deep and is very influenced by wind and current. On our last trip here, the visibility was so bad, that we didn't stay for a night dive - the ideal time to see the turtles. The plan is to do a late afternoon dive and then a night dive. The late afternoon dive can produce turtles but not always. One thing that you can be pretty sure of seeing is southern stingrays. We were not disappointed as there were a whole lot of them. The sand around the wreck is very white and it presents exposure problems when shooting a dark colored ray. I set up my sytem with (2) Ikelite DS-125 strobes on half power, a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second, an ISO of 200, Manual mode and a starting lens opening around f8. I watched my histogram and made lens opening changes based on the histogram. The plans for the night dive were the same. Some of the changes in lens opening were more than I expected. The following are from those two dives.
1/60th of a second at f14
1/80th of a second at f16
1/80th of a second at f14
1/80th second at f13
1/80th second at f14
I believe that if you are using a Nexus housing with the Nikon 12-24mm zoom lens, that the 40mm extension, 170mm dome port and +4 lens diopter are the best combination of all that I have tried. I have done extensive pool testing and some real life tests but this was by far the most extensive real life testing that I have done. I am very happy with the results.

At the end of May and the beginning of June, I had the opportunity to give the Nikon 12-24mm lens with the Nexus housing, 40mm extension, 170mm dome port and a +4 diopter a real workout in the northwestern Bahamas aboard the Nekton Pilot.

The first workout came on the White Sand Ridge north of Grand Bahama Island. The Nekton usually visits this area in the morning and the Captain cruises around looking for a willing pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins to join the guest for a swim. Our Captain was one of my favorites, Ephey Priest. Encountering dolphins is a real hit and miss affair and in the past, I have been included in more misses than hits. My last enounter on the Nekton had been with Captain Ephey and he didn't let me down this time. We had been on the prowl for less than ten minutes when somebody yelled, "Dolphins, get ready to go!". I have to be honest, this caught me by surprise and I thought that the person was kidding. When I saw everyone scrambling for the dive deck, I knew it was real and joined the scramble. A dolphin encounter is done on snorkel so I had prepared the night before. I knew that any encounter would be fast moving. I set up my D100 in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second. In shutter priority, you choose the shutter speed and the camera chooses the lens opening. I was using an ISO of 200. It was a sunny day so these settings seemed ideal. I wasn't disappointed. Below you will find a couple of examples from the encounter:

1/200th of a second at f8

1/200th of a second at f8

1/200th of a second at f9

The next opportunity was the wreck of the Hesperus on the Gingerbread Grounds near Bimini. This is another of my favorite sites as it affords the chance to photograph loggerhead turtles at night. This little shipwreck is surrounded by eel grass and is the only structure in the area. Turtles come in at night and find a resting place under the stern of the wreck or tucked under an overhang. This is another iffy place. It is very shallow - approximately 20' deep and is very influenced by wind and current. On our last trip here, the visibility was so bad, that we didn't stay for a night dive - the ideal time to see the turtles. The plan is to do a late afternoon dive and then a night dive. The late afternoon dive can produce turtles but not always. One thing that you can be pretty sure of seeing is southern stingrays. We were not disappointed as there were a whole lot of them. The sand around the wreck is very white and it presents exposure problems when shooting a dark colored ray. I set up my sytem with (2) Ikelite DS-125 strobes on half power, a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second, an ISO of 200, Manual mode and a starting lens opening around f8. I watched my histogram and made lens opening changes based on the histogram. The plans for the night dive were the same. Some of the changes in lens opening were more than I expected. The following are from those two dives.

1/60th of a second at f14

1/80th of a second at f16

1/80th of a second at f14

1/80th second at f13

TUR-01-9278 Loggerhead turtle and sharksucker

1/80th second at f14

I believe that if you are using a Nexus housing with the Nikon 12-24mm zoom lens, that the 40mm extension, 170mm dome port and +4 lens diopter are the best combination of all that I have tried. I have done extensive pool testing and some real life tests but this was by far the most extensive real life testing that I have done. I am very happy with the results.