Before Sue and I ruin all our macro shots of those seahorses smiling
at us (in Las Palmas, La Francesca, and Tormentos on previous days,
and Dalila/cedra today, and are sure to be seen again before we leave),
here's the setting and the question.

The camera is a new MX-10 with YS-40 strobe.
The macro lense and frame (correct one for the camera) was the gift of
Zeus at the bottom of the Ocean in Palau (such gifts never come with a
manual!) hence this question:

What is the appropriate f setting for macro shots (they range from 1.1,
2.1, 4.5, 5.6, ... to 11, 16, and 22)?

I know the photogs on this list don't mess with Push-here-Dummy (PhD)
cameras like the MX-10, but I thought perhaps the principle of the
appropriate setting might apply, or perhaps somebody here actually HAS
a manual to answer the question of the f-setting for macro lense with
YS-40 strobe.

Ob scuba today:

Sunny sky and calm water for the 5th day in a row.  Besides three grande
seahorses (two yellow, and one red) we saw two turtles at Columbia
(with no earth on their backs), a dolphin, two swimming nurse sharks,
two large porcupinefish, and the usual assortment of reef fishes.

In 2000, on the occasion of my 1000 dive in Coz, I "planted" a gold
chain (a real, but expensive one) on a black coral at 218 fsw, at some
location in Columbia Reef with the notion that I could retrieve it if
desired (as I had done so once before with a piece of perosnalized
1-lb lead.

Since 2000, I had looked for it several times without success, not
finding the exact features that would help me locate such a spot, at
218 fsw.  :-)  But TODAY, the features look right on descent, so I
went for it again, and was so sure that I had found the right ledge
that spent a minute of two at that depth looking through the black
coral branches where it might have been hung.  Alas, it wasn't there.
So, I'll have to make another try some time, under more ideal conditions.

I ascended to join the group at 90 fsw, and even though everyone started
to ascend to shallower depth because two Utah divers were already OOA
(very close to it) at the 30-minute mark, my Uwatec Nitrox Pro was
such a CONSERVATIVE pita on air-setting that it had incurred a nearly
30-deco on that dive (at the time my ORCA had already CLEARED for NDL!}

The deco schedule was something like 6 minutes at 30, followed by 9
minutes at 20, and 15 minutes at 10.  But the worst part of it is that
if I ignored any part of the deco, that damn thing would lock out for
24 hours.  .-)   So, I played along for the 30 and 20 ft decos, and
seriously considered using the computer-solo-deco-on-a-string trick
for the long 10-ft deco, but since there were a few things to look at
drifting along the shallow coral heads, I played out the deco ... and
thereby recorded a 233 ffw dive (which was only 225 fsw) for 60 minutes
BT with 700 psi to spare, on an AL80, with which I could have gone at
least another hour on the Aldora-type of depths at the end of their
dives.  :-)

The captain and DM can vouch for these stats, since I had signalled
the DM he could go up with the airhogs at 30-minutes, while Sue and
I finish the dive -- and Sue finally ascended while I signalled
to her that I was finishing my deco ... but she thought I was just
telling her I had more safety stop to do ... and so she didn,t tell the
crew I was doing any deco.  So, while they were not unduly concerned
when I surfaced at the 1 hour mark, they were curious enough to look at
my computers and gauges.  :-))

-- Bob.