White Balance discussion

[billinwilliamston]

I found that manual WB made a big difference for me (oly c740-uz, pt018). I always used a sand patch or some similar pseudo white subject at about the same distance and zoom level from me as the subjects I was likely to shoot. Well, I did until the latch on the pt018 broke. That kind of ended that.

Forgive me if I'm over simplifying here. Unlike top-side where color is mostly influenced by the lighting, color under water is influenced by the water between your subject and the sun AND the water between your subject and you. If you're 60 feet down and set your WB on a card on your wrist and then shoot your buddy 20 feet away from you, your manually set WB is going to be off by quite a bit and probably more off than what the camera would come up with on auto. Or, it could just be that the auto is really good.

 

[Doc Harry]

I found that manual WB made a big difference for me (oly c740-uz, pt018). I always used a sand patch or some similar pseudo white subject at about the same distance and zoom level from me as the subjects I was likely to shoot. Well, I did until the latch on the pt018 broke. That kind of ended that.

Forgive me if I'm over simplifying here. Unlike top-side where color is mostly influenced by the lighting, color under water is influenced by the water between your subject and the sun AND the water between your subject and you. If you're 60 feet down and set your WB on a card on your wrist and then shoot your buddy 20 feet away from you, your manually set WB is going to be off by quite a bit and probably more off than what the camera would come up with on auto. Or, it could just be that the auto is really good.

I thought that as long as I corrected the WB at the same depth that I am taking pictures, it shouldn't matter if the "white card" is 6 inches away from me or 20 feet away. As long as the camera learns what "white" looks like at that depth, should it really matter then if my subject is 2 feet or 20 feet away?

 

[billinwilliamston]

Here's how it was explained to me.

What you're taking pictures of isn't the light around you, it's that light reflected off of something. The water between you and your subject absorbs just as much of the red end of the spectrum per foot as the water above you. Therefore, the light reflected off a subject 20 feet away will have less of the red end of the spectrum when it reaches you than the light reflected off a subject 2 feet away.

I'm not a professional photographer, nor am I a physicist, so that's about as good as I'm going to do at repeating what I was told.

Thanks.

 

[Doc Harry]

Here's how it was explained to me.

What you're taking pictures of isn't the light around you, it's that light reflected off of something. The water between you and your subject absorbs just as much of the red end of the spectrum per foot as the water above you. Therefore, the light reflected off a subject 20 feet away will have less of the red end of the spectrum when it reaches you than the light reflected off a subject 2 feet away.

I'm not a professional photographer, nor am I a physicist, so that's about as good as I'm going to do at repeating what I was told.

Thanks.

Got it! Makes sense to me now.

 

[Papa_Bear]

Here is an example of the effect. In the foreground where the strobe light up the divers face the skin is close to normal, but look at the leg just a few feet further away! And further more the next diver is almost all blue! Blue is the last color in the spectrum before it goes ultra-violet!

Even with a good flash the effective light is only three to four feet! Get close!

 

[UnderwaterBumbleBee]

DOC-

I took a photo class last year at my LDS from a really great UW photographer (She's shot stuff for the Cozumel tourism brochures). I'm still learning and not nearly as good as other's on here but here's the tips on P&S from that class that I carry with me on all trips (I use a Sea & Sea 8000G):

-Don't leave your ISO on Auto, set to 100 or 200 max
-Set Photometry to Multi
-Basic Auto Focus/Continuous Auto focus is fine.
-White Balance set to CLOUDY for daytime underwater photos. This definitely makes a difference. Auto for night dives.
-Set Exposure compensation to 1/3 stop under -0.3
-Digital Zoom disabled if possible or don't use. Better to use optical zoom.
-Set image quality to Fine 32X64
-Flash Set to On (I also have a external strobe which I always use)
-Sharpness, Contrast and Saturation set to normal, those can be fixed later on computer
-When taking photos, fill your frame with 2/3 of the subject and 1/3 of dead space. Avoid shots that will cut shot into 4ths.
-Don't put primary subject right in image unless it's really big.
-Shoot at upward angle or straight across.
-Take vertical shots of divers for best effect, everything else can be either vertical or horizontal.

As long as the visibility is good and there isn't a lot of backscatter, I usually get pretty good shots with those settings.

 

[Papa_Bear]

I would agree with all but one or two of those. I suggest you use spot metering, in water you want the adjustment to meter off the subject not an average as multi will do! I would not reset exposer either as it can be done in the computer. Shoot in raw if you can! -0.3 is not a very big adjustment but the camera is not a good place to do it. The beauty of digital is you can try it and if it works fine, but remember you wont be able to tell on the LCD on the camera. You will have to take those to the computer to see what differences there are.

 

[kreuzerkrieg]

Well, my five cents. I tried both AWB and MWB. I took the image of white board every time the light considerably changed. I use 110W substrobe without diffuser, it gives me 100 (or near) degrees of coverage, the temperature of the substrobe is about 5500K. And I always shoot RAW. Guess what, no difference when you work with RAW (at least I did not notice), you always can adjust whatever you want during RAW import - the color temperature, saturation, blacks, shadows, contrast etc.
So, is it any reason to use MWB???

 

[saudi.diver]

DOC-

I took a photo class last year at my LDS from a really great UW photographer (She's shot stuff for the Cozumel tourism brochures). I'm still learning and not nearly as good as other's on here but here's the tips on P&S from that class that I carry with me on all trips (I use a Sea & Sea 8000G):

-Don't leave your ISO on Auto, set to 100 or 200 max
-Set Photometry to Multi
-Basic Auto Focus/Continuous Auto focus is fine.
-White Balance set to CLOUDY for daytime underwater photos. This definitely makes a difference. Auto for night dives.
-Set Exposure compensation to 1/3 stop under -0.3
-Digital Zoom disabled if possible or don't use. Better to use optical zoom.
-Set image quality to Fine 32X64
-Flash Set to On (I also have a external strobe which I always use)
-Sharpness, Contrast and Saturation set to normal, those can be fixed later on computer
-When taking photos, fill your frame with 2/3 of the subject and 1/3 of dead space. Avoid shots that will cut shot into 4ths.
-Don't put primary subject right in image unless it's really big.
-Shoot at upward angle or straight across.
-Take vertical shots of divers for best effect, everything else can be either vertical or horizontal.

As long as the visibility is good and there isn't a lot of backscatter, I usually get pretty good shots with those settings.

please you can put some pics for looking
thanks

 

[saudi.diver]

Hello,
i am MR.mutaz from saudi arbia jeddah
i like photography
i am instrctor dive in padi and photography
i have some tips
- do not use Red filter with strobe .
- you must use camera it have raw.
- you must make edit with photoshop for make WB.
- you must near from object.

please look to my pic