Taking pictures with Sealife Reefmaster digital

[jaycanwk]

I have a sealife reefmaster digital with a strobe and took my first pictures with it recently. I have attached a couple of samples without any alterations that I took with just the automatic seetings for white balance etc.. Is there anything I could have changed in the camera setings or technique in order to get a better oringinal to start with?? The first pic is the bow section of the USS Duane, the second of the crows nest of the Duane.

JASON ~~

[ChelBob61]

Hi there. I notice you had no responses yet, and while I can't answer your question, I can tell you we are have similar problems with our newly purchased camera. Are you also having problems when it comes to printing your pictures? Ours look fine (at least like yours, but still not as good as they should be) but when we go to print them, it's like they come out in x-ray on some shots - others are fine. I'm sure it's some kind of setting that we don't know what we are doing wrong on, but the confusing issue is that they are fine ( again, at least as good as yours were) when we view them on the computer, but when we print them, the quality goes out the window and they look all funky.
Any thoughts would be appreciated, any maybe we can solve both problems at once.
Michell Newton

[mack50md]

I have a sealife reefmaster digital with a strobe and took my first pictures with it recently. I have attached a couple of samples without any alterations that I took with just the automatic seetings for white balance etc.. Is there anything I could have changed in the camera setings or technique in order to get a better oringinal to start with?? The first pic is the bow section of the USS Duane, the second of the crows nest of the Duane.

JASON ~~

I have a DC310. Had similar experience. Strobe is only good for a couple of feet. Your pics are shot at some distance from the focal point (mast & bow) and at some depth. The closer the better (2-4 feet). Distance also creates more backscatter with the strobe. Not much you can do shooting that far away. Just as easy to enhance on the PC by increasing brightness and contrast. Add some red to the spectrum to color correct. Did your close shots come out better?

[mike_s]

well I had a similar experience with the DC310. Mine is brand new and only has two dives on it.

One thing I did wrong was I didnt put it into SEA MODE before the dive, which changes the settings for underwater and helps with the color. I think it also changes
the "pre flash" settings.

Anyway, I know that will help the next time I go diving.

I also noticed that akaline (Duracell/engerzier) batteries didn't recharge the flash
quick enough. I've purchased some 2300mah NiMH batteries that will hopefully
take care of this problem.

[jaycanwk]

Thankyou for the input guys :-). Yes, I did take them at a bit of a distance. My closer shots were much better. Would a second strobe help at all? Also, as mentioned, I had to work a bit with the guy at the photo store to get the pics right. They looked fine on the preview monitor at the store but different when developed, so we had to do some tweaking. I had them developed rather than printed. It helps to go to a real photo place cause the people there tend to know what they are doing a little more than say Wall-mart.

Since then I baought a wide angle lens that I have yet to try out. All I was after here with this post was if there was anything in my picture taking technique I could improve first before worrying about touching up after.

[aeroman]

I also recently purchased the reefmaster. Used it on two dives so far with mixed results. Found that you need to swish the lens with your hand underwater to get the bubbles off. The lakes here in Texas are extremely green so my photos had to be taken close. Had mixed results with the strobe and back scatter (snow). The one thing I can say is, TAKE LOTS OF PHOTO's. You can always delete later. As for printing. I've tried changing paper types and print settings with out any good results. Going to try a print machine at Wal-Mart next to see if that comes out better. Good luck!

[*Floater*]

I'm fairly new to both scuba and (underwater) photography, but I've been happy with my DC310's macro shots when using an external flash strobe (though I had to partially cover the external flash with my hand to avoid over exposing the shots):





The further away I'm from the subject, the worse my shots generally look with the Reefmaster, though in fairness I've had fewer chances to make use of the wide-angle lens.

[ChelBob61]

Floater,

What distance were you from the wonderful objects in your attached pictures when you took the shot. I don't have the macro lense, but am considering the purchase. What kind of luck do you have when printing? I can't seem to get a good picture to print. It's fine on the screen, but when printed or developed at, say, Walgreens, most of the shots almost look x-ray and are grainey when the don't appear that way at all on the monitor after they are downloaded. One person mentioned taking the shots to a "picure develper" instead of someplace like Walgreen or Wal-Mart. Any thoughts?

Again, Great Pics! Thanks for sharing.. now at least I know great pics can be obtained from my camera :-)

ChelBob61

[*Floater*]

Floater,

What distance were you from the wonderful objects in your attached pictures when you took the shot. I don't have the macro lense, but am considering the purchase. What kind of luck do you have when printing? I can't seem to get a good picture to print. It's fine on the screen, but when printed or developed at, say, Walgreens, most of the shots almost look x-ray and are grainey when the don't appear that way at all on the monitor after they are downloaded. One person mentioned taking the shots to a "picure develper" instead of someplace like Walgreen or Wal-Mart. Any thoughts?

Again, Great Pics! Thanks for sharing.. now at least I know great pics can be obtained from my camera :-)

ChelBob61

I used the 8x,16x-macro lens set for those pics above. That set comes with a wand that attaches to the camera, and you may use it underwater to get the distance right. However, it's just a rough guide. I usually shoot about ten pics of a given subject (if the subject allows) from slightly different distances and angles, and then I pick the one with the sharpest focus - you may adjust the colors with photoshop or some other program later if there's a need for adjustments (the lionsfish pic colors were adjusted slightly, but the other two pics I did not edit other lowering quality so that the filesize would be small enough to post here).

A lot of my pics were out of focus as well, but if you happen to get the distance just right - either by luck or by taking a lot of pics of your subjects, then the pics will come out very sharp.

The instruction booklets list the following distances:

16x for 8"-11"
8x for 11" to 19" (or 16"-19" according to another sealife instruction booklet)
3x for 22" to 36"
24 mm Wide angle lens for 2' to "infinity"
No lens for 3.5' to "infinity"

I haven't tried to print any of my pics - I just email them to friends, but I don't see why you couldn't print a high quality version of the computer image if you have access to high quality printing equipment.