Olympus XZ-1 underwater white balance

[waynep606]

New to the board and new to underwater photography. Recently returned from live aboard trip to red sea and got to use my XZ-1 and PT-050 housing for the first time.

Worked fine using the scene mode but as I got more comfortable using it tried to switch to more manual so I could white balance and reduce the blue tinge. However I could only white balance against a white slate with the flash on (no strobes connected yet). As vis was great and was doing a mix of wide angel and macro I wasn't always needing the flash but if I ever tried to white balance with the flash off it would come up:

White Balance NG - Retry?

Is this standard with the XZ-1. Buddy had G12 and could white balance no trouble without using a flash?

 

[smoore]

This issue has been commented on before a few times. This usually means that the camera could not detect enough white in the scene to do a manual white balance. If you are more than a few feet deep this will happen. If you are shooting ambient light shoot in RAW and then you can adjust the white balance when you process the pictures. If you are using hte camera's flash to take pictures, then you are getting proper white balance although setting it to auto will likely do the trick.

 

[herbdb]

Your best bet is to shoot in raw mode and adjust later if required. Most wide angle shots will require some adjustment unless they are in very shallow water. If you search the board, you will find many helpful hints on using your XZ1.

 

[staggsSevin]

Your best bet is to shoot in raw mode and adjust later if required. Most wide angle shots will require some adjustment unless they are in very shallow water. If you search the board, you will find many helpful hints on using your XZ1.

^^^^^ Exactly what he said. My only complaint about the xz-1 is the manual white balance doesn't seem to want to work well under 25ft. I haven't tried doing one with a focus light (sola 600) to see how well that worked....dunno why I didn't think about it when I was in Cozumel a few weeks ago.