Sony RX100II WB sucks underwater !!!

[ltworf]

Doing underwater photography for about 5 years now, I want to make people looking for a good compact camera aware of some of what I think is a serious flaw of Sony´s last high resolution compact. Their RX100II is a nice camera on the surface. As a more than 10years Canon user, I succumbed to their lures of specs and after some adjusting, I was able to crank out semi-SLR quality pics on the surface. But taking the thingy down was another story.

I know, what kind of pics I want to take. Big game (rare) and "seascapes" (coral with nice colors, blue water as the sky, fishies swirling around the "hills"). With any Canon compact (S90, S95, S100), I had quite some awesome results I liked. But with my trusty S100 the latest one, I wanted to have some better resolution and low light capabilities. So I thought, putting the RX100II as my newest piece of my collection down could only be even better. BOY, WAS I WRONG !!! . Despite that Sony gives you at the first glance similar control of WB, all I can get is "blue-green-gray". Setting color temp to 9900K and maxing out the WB adjustments to all A/M, this is all I got (see examples from a 30ft reef dive with almost perfect viz and light conditions.

If anybody has any suggestions, what I did wrong, feel free to jump at me. Although I think, it´s Sony´s "magical color sauce", which is not be able to cope with any underwater environment.

I did some research and all the acceptable underwater pics I found where macro shots and some reef shots with obviously the help of artificial lighting.

My verdict: If you want to make artificial lightened macro or forensic underwater pics, this might be your tool of choice. If you want to make colorful pics, scrap it !!! I will try to get an additional HW red filter (Which will steal of course some light) and give it another shot. But as of now, I can not recommend this camera for my style of underwater photography !

See for yourself ! The IMG file is from my old S100, the DSC file is from the Sony.

 

[Interceptor121]

Why are you bothering shooting JPEG at all? Shoot raw and correct in post. White balance is greatly overrated and for stills a total waste of time

 

[ltworf]

Why are you bothering shooting JPEG at all? Shoot raw and correct in post. White balance is greatly overrated and for stills a total waste of time

Because I´m lazy and can get awesome results from my old Canon cams in JPEG ! Pixel jerking is not my hobby ! And where is no red there will be no red. RAW or not RAW ! Wanna buy off my fancy RX100II + Nauticam housing ? I was asking for experience, not for "harrr-harrr". And for me, color is everything, BTW ...

 

[Interceptor121]

White balancing in water for stills is an utter waste of time and only relevant to ambient light shots
Besides canon compact have a tendency to over saturate red and yellow and in your pictures it shows as they look unnatural anyway. Maybe time to update your photography skills and make then current as editing is an integral part of it

 

[ltworf]

OK, you guys obviously do not understand my problem and helping me and just try to beat me down. I like and love, what colors I get from my Canons. I think, I´ve made quite some shots looking great to me (and to other diving and non-diving onloockers) with apparently obsolete equipment (look at my FB page). I was looking for improvement of resolution and low-light-capabilities with the same color rendering ... . Since all you offer is technical BS (which I do understand, but do not care about), I will try to close this threat. To me, WB and color is everything, so I will conclude and go with my old Canons, which give me exacatly the colors I love and skip on the forensic qualities of Sony. Thanks for your ad advise and input anyhow ...

---------- Post added March 5th, 2014 at 01:19 AM ----------

@Interceptor121 But What, if "I" and "others" like my pics ? Where are your pics, "Dive master yoda" ? Who decides, what is a good pic ? To me, a good pic is a pic, what people like. And I do not just mean FB people ...

---------- Post added March 5th, 2014 at 01:36 AM ----------

If somebody would just say: I bought a Sony RX100II and it sucks underwater, that would be fine with me. Just admitting, that you bought a ****ing expensive toy and you bought another ****ing expensive toy with it and it was a failure - how bad is that - BOOOO

 

[Interceptor121]

Well that's entirely your fault you bought a super car you can't drive. Sell it on eBay and get an ixus even a powershot is wasted if all you shoot is JPEG you can go ahead ranting or try and learn up to you. Am sure there will be plenty of buyers for your set up next time explain the shop what kind of shooter you are before going ahead. Or did you just buy it making no research and not talking to anyone? End of stoty

 

[Freewillow]

I tend to agree, for a part, with Interceptor. The Sony pictures AND the Canon pictures are not that good in terms of color rendering. Of course, I am judging on my computor screen. Your experience may be very different.

I started with Lightroom 5 a month ago. It allows me to improve CONSIDERABLY the quality of the videos that I received from my fellow divers on my last trip to Indonesia ( Rja Ampat) . It takes time, especially in the beginning, but what a joy to re-live the nice dives that we all had together. In a way, it prolonges your dive vacations.

When it comes to your specific problem. If you want to continue to shoot in JPEG, buy a red filter. But I agree with Interceptor that, in order to shoot JPEG only pictures, you bought something a bit too sophisticated.

Good luck.

 

[Scubanoobi]

Interceptor knows his stuff, you seem to be asking for advice and then discarding the advice you get.

 

[KeithG]

Like you, I only shoot jpeg and can not be bothered with post processing.

But I can not agree with your conclusion based on the small sample of 2 pictures.
In the canon picture the colors appear to be way off and it looks very unnatural (too me).
Over all the color balance in the Sony picture is much better, but the colors are washed out a bit, maybe from over exposure?

Do you shoot in auto or manual? There are many situations where auto mode is just not up to the job. I suggest a trial series of manual shots where you take the aperature and shutter speed through their full range, and include an auto shot of the same. Compare the images.
I also believe that most cameras in jpeg mode will "process" the picture in camera which may end up affecting colors, sharpness and other aspects of the image.

If you have found an auto mode camera that captures pictures you love, stick with it. But do not be surprised if you graduate to a "more sophisticated" camera and have to learn where it's sweet spot is. It may not be auto mode happy snaps.

 

[00wabbit]

I agree with you that the canon can be more "forgiving" underwater and easy to get an adequate shot from. However I also agree that the rx100 can produce a better shot.

The canon underwater mode is decent for clear tropical water diving and produces ok results. I do agree with others though that your canon shot is pushed too hard in the reds and looks off.

The rx100 really needs to be shot in manual and you need to either set a custom white balance if you are shooting j-pegs or set the light balance later in a raw processor. Also with the rx100 it is not as good underwater in auto modes because it tends to default to aperture 1.8 in lower light. This isn't very useful underwater so shooting in manual becomes more important to ensure you get the shot you want.

As far as white balance goes the camera can only capture what is there. The canon is artificially adding reds in to compensate and you have no control over how strongly it does it. Further if you capture in JPEG then the camera is also disregarding a lot of the light information. By shooting in raw and processing later you can control what amount of red and you can also control exposure somewhat with more information.

Here is is a video I made on lightroom raw processing. I am usually in less than ideal photography areas so I have to do this. Also note once you have settings you like you can save them and have the automatically applied to your photos when you import so it is not a time consuming process.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ti...why-i-shoot-raw-video-tutorial-lightroom.html