Canon A720IS Photos from Sipadan Island (Part 2)

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Rickg

Contributor
Messages
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Location
San Diego, CA
# of dives
500 - 999
Entire album can be found at:

Picasa Web Albums - Rick - Sipadan Islan...

and video clips are posted at:

rickgreatting/Sipadan 2007 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

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Great collection of critters!!

Alcina,

Thanks. Unfortunately I still haven't figured out how to touch up my photos to get rid of the backscatter from the in-camera strobe. I have it on my list of things that I want to work on.
 
If you don't have it already, buy the DVD by the Sloss' - Underwater Photoshop Just do it. It's the some of the best 80-90 bucks you'll spend.

I've even found it extremely useful for my land and work photos (and to be honest I've only watched like three segments!!)
 
Great Pics, do you mostly use manual mode while shooting? The wife and I just ordered the A720IS and DC-16 housing. I am sure there will be a learning curve for sure.

Tom and Kim
 
Great Pics, do you mostly use manual mode while shooting? The wife and I just ordered the A720IS and DC-16 housing. I am sure there will be a learning curve for sure.

Tom and Kim

Thanks. The great thing about shooting digital is you get instant feedback after each shot so you know what to do to compensate and try to get a better shot - assuming your subject hasn't swum off somewhere else :) So much better than shooting film when you have to wait until you had your film developed to see how you did. From my short experience with this camera, that instant feedback will shorten your learning curve.

The vast majority of these pictures were shot in the Manual mode. A few of the shallow water shoots were in the Automatic mode but I soon transitioned to the all Manual mode.

Here's what I found:

- full auto works seems to work pretty good if you are in clear, shallow water (less than 6m or so) and bright sunlight
- below 9-10 meters I usually used the "cloudy" setting for WB. I did some comparison shots using "cloudy" and "UW WB" at depths greater than 9-10 meters and didn't notice much difference.
- above 9 meters I usually used the "sunny" WB setting unless it was early or late in the day or cloudy in which case I went back to the "cloudy" WB setting.
- keep your camera in the Macro mode at all times. It will work just fine shooting longer range shots and you won't forget to switch to Macro when you do want to shoot Macro.
- practice how to turn your flash on and off and adjust camera flash levels until you can almost do them with your eyes closed. You'll find when shooting Macro you will have to reduce your flash level otherwise the picture will be way over-exposed, especially if you are shooting against a light colored background (e.g., sand or light colored coral or rock)
- I usually kept the camera in the "center weighted" focus mode. I used "spot" focus mode for Macro shots and "center weighted" for most everything else except of course when I would occasionally forget to switch to "spot" for a macro shot which resulted in some less than optimal focusing for some of the macro subjects.

NOTE: I wasn't able to use my MWB option because as it turned out the directions in User Guide didn't work. When I went online to CanonUSA after I got home I found that the MWB instructions on their website were different than the User Guide. I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to use my camera to see what the results are using MWB.

I have to say Alcina deserves most of the credit for how my pictures turned out. The info she has posted in her "sticky" was invaluable. I spent a lot of time reading the info she has gone to great effort to accumulate and put in one place for all to use. You can find her sticky at:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/un...tting-started-dslr-maybe-look-here-first.html
 
If you don't have it already, buy the DVD by the Sloss' - Underwater Photoshop Just do it. It's the some of the best 80-90 bucks you'll spend.

I've even found it extremely useful for my land and work photos (and to be honest I've only watched like three segments!!)

Alcina,

Thanks for the advise and I've saved this for future reference. Before I buy it though I would have to buy PhotoShop and I'm not ready to lay out the cash for that yet. I've heard great things about GIMP so I think I'll see what I can accomplish with that before I invest in PhotoShop.
 

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