How important is zoom?

[H2O Photo Pros]

DFM, with regard to your question on White Balance we have a great article written by Annie Crawley on our site. Read this article

Annie discusses your exact question in it.

 

[Video rookie]

I have no trouble getting my A1U to white balance without zooming. I usually white balance on the white plastic slate that came with my housing (has the amphibico turtle on the other side) that is used to protect the lens when not in use.

I would think you should be fine without the zoom control, if you find you miss it, it sounds like you have a reasonable plan in place to add it as a future modification.

 

[Okidiver]

Do you folks find that you have to use the zoom in order to fill the field of view enough to manually white balance or can you do it without zooming? Also, I hear of people using dive slates to set white balance. Is this the standard, or are there other materials that people are using for this purpose?

I've zoomed in (using standard port, I can't get it to work with WA) on a white shot line while dropping down and got a good MWB.

 

[DiscoverTheBlue]

Hi DaFireMedic,
Having a zoom is definitely a nice feature on any camera. However, I can totally understand that you don't want the hassle of drilling a hole in the housing and later the testing for leaks etc.
There are several ways that you can try to white balance:

• 
  If you are at a site with whitish sand you can try to use that. It usually works quite well.

• 
  If you're not in sand, you should try to carry a white slate or get yourself white fins to point the camera at. Try to get your camera lens as close as you can to the white object without casting too much shadow. The greater the white area in your viewfinder, the better the WB will be.

• Try the palm of you hand as another alternative if you don't want to carry a huge white slate or don't like white fins!

• If all that fails, you can try to point the camera into the sun and WB using that bright spot at the center of you viewfinder.

Test test test - I'm sure you'll find one or the other quite acceptable, despite not being exact. Let me know how it went!

 

[DaFireMedic]

Hi DaFireMedic,
Having a zoom is definitely a nice feature on any camera. However, I can totally understand that you don't want the hassle of drilling a hole in the housing and later the testing for leaks etc.
There are several ways that you can try to white balance:

• 
  If you are at a site with whitish sand you can try to use that. It usually works quite well.

• 
  If you're not in sand, you should try to carry a white slate or get yourself white fins to point the camera at. Try to get your camera lens as close as you can to the white object without casting too much shadow. The greater the white area in your viewfinder, the better the WB will be.

• Try the palm of you hand as another alternative if you don't want to carry a huge white slate or don't like white fins!

• If all that fails, you can try to point the camera into the sun and WB using that bright spot at the center of you viewfinder.

Test test test - I'm sure you'll find one or the other quite acceptable, despite not being exact. Let me know how it went!

Thanks for the good info. I went ahead and tested the manual white balance with the camcorder inside the housing (on land) and it seems that I am able to fill the field enough to get a decent white balance using a 5x7 white card, so I think a dive slate may do just fine, although I would prefer something a tad larger than 5x7 to avoid casting shadows as you said. But I like the white fin idea (or at least painting the face of an old fin white). I could do something with that idea.......

 

[Annie Crawley]

Move the card closer and you will be fine.

One thing, I do zoom in to get my macro shots and compose shots differently for medium and cut aways too. What is of the utmost importance is to try not to record when you are doing your zoom in and out. This works sometimes, but is an exception to the rule. So you need to zoom in to fill your frame sometimes, yet you want to avoid recording the zoom in and outs.

 

[mdmbike to scuba]

I have the amphibico w/b slate. Its nice if you can get someone else to carrie it along with them. My wife will carrie it some times but all in all just use the sand if you can, its a lot less of a pain in the butt. Mark

 

[ronscuba]

I have the amphibico w/b slate. Its nice if you can get someone else to carrie it along with them. My wife will carrie it some times but all in all just use the sand if you can, its a lot less of a pain in the butt. Mark

I agree. I use the sand or if I'm not near the bottom, my grey fin works too since it has a neutral hue.