TG-3: The utility of the built in underwater settings

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Craig66

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Location
New Jersey
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Has anyone used the built in underwater settings especially as they pertain to WB? For most cameras the built in underwater settings are not really of much use but I am led to believe that in the TG-3 this is not the case and that they are very usable?
 
My wife and I just returned from a 2-week dive trip to Mexico with our new TG-3 and UW housing. We were very pleased with the photos taken. I am still waiting for some custom settings to show up on the UW forums but the camera is still too new. Here were the settings we found to work very well for point-and-shoot simplicity UW... On Main Menu... Set Compression to "FINE". This is a must and remedied the excessive smoothing some have posted about and we noticed early on when taking photos above water. AF Mode set to Spot, Exposure ESP, Digital Zoom OFF, Image Stabilizer ON, AF illumination OFF. Then, select Program Auto setting on the selection wheel and selected #2 Natural, Full Time Flash, White Balance UW setting (fish symbol), ISO Auto, Resolution set to 8MP instead of 16MP photos (I couldn't see much of a difference at all between the 8M and 16M settings on my PC when viewing photos and zooming way way way in, furthermore, I prefer smaller files). After that... we just pointed shot. Subjects far away to within 6 inches were almost instantly locked on focus.
 
Where are these pictures? :D
 
We posted some to Tres Pelicanos' facebook page... I'll try and attach some here. PC220509.jpgPC230562.jpgPC200440.jpgPC160211.jpgPC140065.jpgPC200403.jpgPC200426.jpgPC170282.jpgPC140103.jpgPC130056.jpg
 
Thanks. Really great pictures. I am really excited to try mine out in Bonaire in a couple of months.

Did you by any chance experiment with the microscope/macro mode?
The picture with the Christmas tree worms - was that on regular P mode - wow !!
Did you experiment with the Wide 1 and Wide 2 underwater modes in the scene settings?

Thanks for the input.

Craig
 
I saw this camera in action on a recent trip on the belize dancer. Small, compact housing, easy to use. I was impressed by the package. And the pics the DM obtained. I saw the housing and noted that the lens extension required is very short. This is a good thing for use of wet lens. He did not have a wet lens.

BUT: I have not seen it pushed to its limits. I want to see how it performs with external strobes. And a little closer macro.

Deapsea21 pictures are nice and clear, but lack true color balance that an external strobes may be able to provide and the macro is not yet macro enough for me. The subjects and composition are awesome!

Macro Questions:
- At full wide angle above water, how close can the camera focus?
- At full telephoto above water, how close can the camera focus?

Thanks!
 
giffenk, while I am still waiting to try it underwater, above water, using the microscope mode it focuses literally at a cm or so and infact if you have dust on the housing lens it will focus on that. See the review on Backscatter - it really seems to be a killer when it comes to macro. In non macro it seems to be a really capable package especially given the price and simplicity.

---------- Post added January 13th, 2015 at 11:44 AM ----------

Deapsea21 pictures are nice and clear, but lack true color balance that an external strobes may be able to provide

There is no question that strobes would improve the color but that adds to price and complexity. I am wondering if custom WB might have helped a little more than just using the underwater presets?
 
Craig: Sorry for the delay.. haven't been on in a while. To answer your question, We did not use the Microscope mode. The primary reason for this is the camera will focus in the normal mode down to about 3-4" from the subject. Inside of that.. no luck but at 8-16MP I can crop away and get in close. Additionally, because we were using full time flash, getting in that close in microscope mode would end up unbelievably bright where the flash fired. If I were to guess, microscope mode is best used above water with that optional fiber optic ring to deliver even light when shooting that close. We did not use Wide 1 or Wide 2 settings as I think they are just pre-programed with the UW white balance. I prefered the photos on land we took under the program setting with that "natural" subsetting. Maybe we should have given them a try but I've kind of learned going into the programable settings works far better when we are shooting primarily subjects from 1' - 6' away. Some of the distant shots posted were just opptys that presented and my wife shot them without making any changes to the settings. I'd say 3/4 of her shots are in that 1' to 6' range primarily with the hope that the onboard flash will help "a little bit". I'll post some more of her close-ups for you and all to see.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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