Wide angle lens for Fuji F31?

[Kirstie]

Originally Posted by wooflad

Hi kirstie , i own an F31 with the fuji dedicated strobe mounting , bought the fish eye lens and adaptor from the dive show in october . cameras underwater wanted nearly £470 for them both, but the Photo partner stand as mentioned early did the same deal for £271 after i got my bill and all the exchange rates were sorted. The lens is great, got pics of my son in full from a few feet away, and it works fine with macro stuff as well. Now i cant say if a dedicated macro lens would be any better cos i havent got one. If you want a few examples of my rather ordinary photos with this set up , just shout.
I too bought the martin edge book which is excellent reading, but i thought it concentrated more on DSLR's. I was lucky enough to get a canon eos 400d for xmas, so now im looking for a suitable housing for it, which i hope wont cost the earth. Have fun, i know i am, its great learning how and what these cameras can actually achieve.
Bri

Can you show me some examples of your photos (distance and macro)? (You can pm them if you're bashful!)

Thank you.

[XeN]

Noooo - Don't be bashful - I wanna see too

[Bardo]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

Roughly how many warm-water holidays do you think it would take before I could resolve this problem?

Don't be put off by those that tell you that you'll have problems using the Fuji with an external strobe - it really isn't rocket science, I assure you. If the camera can trigger the strobe then the camera itself will do a perfectly good job of balancing the exposure so that shots aren't overexposed. If you do get problems with overexposure then simply either wind down the strobe (most have some sort of power setting) or use 'exposure lock' to reduce the exposure to a more manageable level. This is pretty much what I do with my Canon and it didn't take me long to get my head around the best way to get great shots. Your best bet is to buy yourself the camera system and then spend a day in a muddy puddle getting the hang of it. Trust me - it'll all come together very, very quickly. That's the beauty of shooting digital - you can instant feedback and you can keep playing until you get results you like.

[Kirstie]

If I were to order a wide angle lens and adaptor from the Japanese website, what level of import tax/extra costs would I be looking at?

[Cussy]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

If I were to order a wide angle lens and adaptor from the Japanese website, what level of import tax/extra costs would I be looking at?

I bought from Yuzo in November and wasn't stung a penny, even though the items were shipped via Tennessee. I've never been stung from the east, only from the west.

In answer to some of your other questions:
You can do close-focus wide-angle. Main problem here is barrel distortion from a fish-eye, so you have to pick your subject carefully. With some of these lenses, although I have no experience of the Inon, they can focus exceptionally close.

Strobes and fisheyes: Fisheyes can be almost 180 degrees in horizontal view. A strobe, even the best, can't illuminate all of this area, so what you have to do is have something small and close for the strobe to illuminate and have the rest blue/green. With my Olympus 7070 and Epoque WA lens I tended to shoot only natural light as my S&S strobe couldn't illuminate enough.

Will the expense ever stop: NO!!!!

Martin Edge's book: I thought this book was 90% about the mindset, not necessarily DSLR bias.

HTH,
Rob

[Kirstie]

Cussy, how long did your lens take to arrive from Japan?

I think I'm going to go for the standard wide angle lens rather than the fisheye, at least initially, and practice with that for a while.

I like Martin's book because of the mindset bias - I've really only flicked through it but there seems to be a lot of good advice ref positioning/thinking about what you want from the shot/the overall effect of choosing one shot or angle over another. I find this more interesting and useful than the technicalities of photography, although heaven knows I need all the help I can get in this area too!

[Cussy]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

Cussy, how long did your lens take to arrive from Japan?

Week at the most, probably less; but it was just a small, light Nexus wet close-up lens (which I still haven't used).
Rob

[ChristianG]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

I've got a Fuji slave strobe, presumably this would solve any colour/flash problems.

Well, sort of Kirstie. There are strobes ... and then there are strobes:

Nova

Sorry, you'll need to learn German but I can assure you that that is one serious strobe (for serious money - US$1800 odd) which probably makes yours look rather like a candle. Incidentally, I WANT one, in fact two, but that rotten old Bank Manager won't let me.

Originally Posted by Kirstie

It's like this one:

Great Digital Deals - Fuji UW-120 Strobe & Arm Bracket

"Product not found" - but I can imagine.

[uwila]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

If I were to order a wide angle lens and adaptor from the Japanese website, what level of import tax/extra costs would I be looking at?

17.5% VAT
4.9% import duty

roughly a quarter in total.

I was lucky in as much as a friend lives in Tokyo and brings me gifts from time to time!

[peter lamb]

Originally Posted by Bardo

Don't be put off by those that tell you that you'll have problems using the Fuji with an external strobe - it really isn't rocket science, I assure you. If the camera can trigger the strobe then the camera itself will do a perfectly good job of balancing the exposure so that shots aren't overexposed.

The camera flashes twice once to set the correct exposure then a second to take the photo but the strobe ignores the first flash and only fires on the second flash. even with the flash set on its lowest setting it overexposes i have tryed the filters supplied with the strobe but i havent got the correct combination of settings yet.
Anyone solved this yet?