newbie with little digi...

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

Ok, so I picked up a casio 3.2 megapixel Exilim EX-Z30 a while ago. I also picked up the casio underwater housing specific for this camera. I need basic aid in what to do and what not to do.
An instructor comes from another town (im in college in Colorado) and teaches an SSI open water class once a semester. I joined his last class in the water and took tons of photos of them doing their pool training. I found that i did not get very good perfusion of focus with a flash diffuser and had a difficult time getting very sharp images (there were few exceptions with damn fine results, might i add). the camera doesnt take crappy photos by any means, but underwater i had a tough time. Any tips would be great.

 

[ThatsSomeBadHatHarry]

here's an example of one decent and one bad.

 

[utnapistim]

Hi,

I'm not familiar with your camera model, but for shooting UW, you will probably want to check for some manual settings.

I mostly use the setting of white balance manually; what you have to do is point the camera towards something white and set the balance against it; since white/gray appears with a blue or green tint underwater, when doing this the camera will adjust all color levels so that whatever you pointed at will no longer appear bluish but white.

It will take a few sessions to getting used to this, but the results can be very good .
(If you overadjust this (pointing it to something too blue) the pictures will take a red tint ).

Here are some samples:

Here's an over-adjusted one (red tint):

 

[alcina]

Here's some manual white balance tips:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?p=862362&posted=1#post862362

Here's some general getting started tips regardless of model for the most part:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=1103341&postcount=4

Have a look around the forum at recent discussions as there is a lot of information in there, too!

Ask questions and most of all, get out and shoot (even on land will help!).