newbie needs help with UW settings on new Casio EX-Z55

[achenry]

I have a new Casio EX-Z55 digital camera and accompanying housing. It's a 5 MP camera. I've been reading through the forum and getting some ideas, but want to just see if there's yet any more advice or if anyone has this particular camera. I don't understand much about Fstops and shutter speeds...i'm more of an "auto" or "bestshot" kind of girl. i do have the ability to adjust the flash strength and white balance. i also have a "cloudy day" or shade setting. So any down and dirty advice that will give me decent pics and isn't too horribly complicated?? i don't want to miss out on my dive by having to do alot of Fstop or manual adjustments if i can help it.
thanks a bunch!!! you all are so helpful!!! (am headed to belize in feb....haven't been diving in 2 years!)
ac

 

[alcina]

Congratulations on your new toy!

I haven't used this camera, but with my Canon A series cameras I have needed to decrease the flash from full by one small click or when I move into minimum focus distance the highlights blow out badly. Decreasing by one give me very good exposures over a wide range of shooting. The only realy way you are going to be able to tell is by doing...you can "test" it out on land but it may not be the same as underwater.

I would take the camera out for the first time with the plan of testing the following:
- flash intensity. Shoot several frames up close, as close as you can. Don't worry about what is in the frame, you're looking for flash power here. If it looks too bright or has glaring white areas in your lcd, turn the flash down by one.

- basic settings. I shoot manual and it isn't complicated and mostly you do not adjust each setting for every shot...especially when you are mostly doing a point and shoot dive or recon dive. I start with the lowest ISO my camera has, set my aperture for 4.5 -5.6 depending on how much light there is (the more light the more tempted I am to start at 5.6) and my shutter at 1/125 (again, if I know it's going to be really bright down there I will increase this (1/160 or 1/200 ish). When I first get down, I do a couple of test shots to dial in for the majority of shots I will do.

If my background looks washed out instead of a nice deep colour, up goes my shutter speed. I leave the aperture alone.

I change aperture when I change subjects - for those macro shots of nudibranchs, sea stars, urchins etc I move to f8. Most of the time my shutter will remain the same.

Manual isn't hard to get started in. A little time spent learning how to use and most importantly your camera will pay off big on your dives!

Have fun!

 

[Mike7]

Good call alcina.

 

[Bbarnes]

I am a kind of 'auto' kind of girl too. The settings that my husband uses on his Olympus 5060 were set by Cathy Church in the Caymans. It might be a good place to start. First, the ISO is on 100. (some recommend 200 for all around conditions) If you go to 400 or more you can get kind of grainy pictures. Set your white balance for cloudy. She told us that she would rather tweak things like sharpness later, by using something like PhotoShop. Be sure to have your picture quality set as high as it goes. It will make a difference, especially if you crop your images or enlarge them. Better to have fewer great pictures that a whole bunch of ones that you can't really blow up or look their best. (Besides, with the 1 gig and 2 gig cards available it shouldn't really be an issue anyway.)
If you haven't been diving for 2 years, you need to focus more on feeling comfortable in the water and retuning your skills instead of messing with multiple fstops and aperture settings. Start to experiment with these after you are confident in your diving skills again. Some would suggest you leave your camera on the boat for the first couple of dives. The only problem with that is that will be the time the whale shark, manta etc happens by.
Good luck and have a great time in Belize! Try to dive the Hol Chan cut if you can.

 

[alcina]

Good point about the best quality setting possible! It's worth it.

I also don't let my camera sharpen etc for me - I prefer to control that in post processing as much as possible. You might want to check your settings on land and figure out how much sharpening and other bits (saturations etc) you want the camera to do for you.

And of course, all advice re getting good photos relies on you being a good diver with control of your skills, air management and confidence first! The more comfortable you are while diving, the better your photos will be.

One thing you also need to look at is how to set the white balance on your camera. This might be a very easy way to get some nice colours from your shots. Use the manual set as light changes dramatically with depth, angle of the sun, your body position etc. Some cameras make it very easy to set this and others insist you wander through multiple menus to get there, which can be frustrating.

All of the presets will work OK in some conditions and not so OK in others. It's digital, go ahead and experiment! If possible, experiment on the same dive/shot to give yourself the best chance to come home with "keepers"! Have a read of some similar getting started threads around this board to see some of the pros and cons of working in the preset modes.

Looking forward to seeing your shots!

 

[achenry]

thanks for the advice everyone. you are absolutely right about me needing to feel comfortable diving again which is why i was hoping to not have to monkey with my camera too much under the water. i will give your tips a try and see what happens. also read sticky's article which had a few easy tips.
thanks again!!
ac

 

[CyberFish]

I too shoot with a digital compact like yours, I am also a noob, but I have fund setting 1 or 2 things as you begin the dive can be almost as good as point and shoot. You camera doesn't allow you to set the focal length or shutter speed, so there are 2 fewer things to worry about.

As Alcina said, one of the things I would concentrate on would be learning to use the manual white balance. It will make a huge difference to the pictures at depth by minimising the "blueness" of the photos. By pointing the camera at something white, like a slate (or your buddy's white tank, etc.), when you are underwater and calibrating on that, the camera will add a lot of the red that is eaten by the water above. If this is the only setting you change, I think you will be surprised just how good the results are.

Be careful with using the flash, I assume you don't have a strobe. If you use the built in flash you can get light reflecting off any suspended particles in the water making specs appear in the photo. Increasing the ISO when you switch the flash off will help to keep the pictures sharp but personally I would rather use a flash than go to ISO 400 as the picture quality tends to be a little poor. To be honest, I tend to leave the ISO on auto and be done with it. At depths below 12m I find I have to use the flash no matter what.

On a practical note, are there any pool sessions you can get on before you dive? I wish I had been able to experiment with places to tie the camera in a confined setting rather than in the sea when there are other things to consider. It would also have allowed me to determine exactly where the camera will float in the water - I have had to ask my buddy to pass my camera to me more than once before when I couldn't find it.

 

[f3nikon]

The only problem is that this Casio may not have a Manual Mode.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0408/04082503casio_z50z55.asp

Better get the pictures right when you are above water, because underwater it gets worse.