Help with overexposed picture (digital)

[diverguy]

Hi,
I was diving in the Key Largo over Labor day and brought my new Canon S400 + Canon housing. I've done video before but have limited exposure (pun intended...) with UW still photography. I took the camera to Flower Gardens earlier this summer and got similar results. Basically some pictures are horribly overexposed. In the attached picture, there's one Scorpion fish picture that turned out ok, but the other one didn't quite come out the way I wanted it... I have it set to default values except for that I set the exposure to -1 to try to make it less over exposed. I'm using the built-in flash. Do anyone have any tips on how to improve my pictures??

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Dee]

Sorry...I'm not that familiar with the settings available on the Canon.

 

[wetman]

Its not completely unsalvagable.

But you likely need to reduce the output on your flash a bit as well as play with exposure settings.

Since i really dont know what color scorpion fish are i made is slightly off brownish

 

[orangeBloke]

Try also playing with the white balance. For most underwater conditions other than right near the surface it's best to go for something like a cloudly day setting. Also some of the Canons have an option to allow you to define the white balance by pointing it something you want it to interpret as white so you can adjust based on that.
Try looking through http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/uwphoto/page/02-e.html for more info on using Canon digitals under water

 

[deepdiver55]

Did you use the flash diffuser that came with the case. I just bought the same set up your using. In some of my test shots (out of water) if the camera was closer than 2 ft I needed to use the diffuser or the picture was over exposed.

 

[Scubatooth]

diver guy

heres some info i have collected over time about canons and being used underwater.

if you are shallower the 40-50 feet use the bright sun white balance setting (unless its cloudy, but keep reading) any deeper then that change it to cloudy but even on a bright sunny day any deeper then 60 feet you will need a strobe. but this advise could be applied to just about any camera.

normally i wouldnt under expose any photo un less i know that part of the exposure the difference between light and dark is drastic then i under expose and then go in and edit them in PS.


as for strobes its been mentioned that you need a diffuser if your closer then 3 feet, which is a very good idea, but since strobe are really on good for maybe 4-5 feet keeping the diffuser all the time isnt that bad because it will more evenly distribute the light.

FWIW

 

[diverguy]

Thanks for your tips! I'll try them out on the next dive trip. I did use the diffuser for the flash and I had the white balance set to auto - maybe I should change that to what Scubatooth suggested.

/Mike

 

[Crazy_J]

Those are tough...atleast for me!....much simpler to fix underexposed shots... anyhew here is my attempt..I brought the brightness down a bit...modified the color and equalized the image. Perhaps if you could provide the EXIF data on the image we could determine more of the causes of your overexposure trauma?

Cheers,
~Crazy_J