Question: EPL1 White Balance Issue

[KelnKelp]

Hey All...took my EPL1 and Oly housing out for the first time... and while it worked great for the most part I had two quick questions:

1) I had issues with the WB giving me a NG (no good) when I tried to set custom white balance at depth off my slate. By depth I mean around 90ft (so my thought is that there was too much color leeching for the camera to correct it, or just not enough light for it to properly balance) Is this the case? (I have no strobes or lights yet...)

2) I was able to get the white balance to work around 60ft, but it really brought out the grain in the images (haven't had a chance to check the video yet) and you can see grainy red dots along the images (see sample)...is this fixable..either for next time or in post...my photoshop skills are limited, but I can follow directions really well

again, I know i was pushing the camera in tougher conditions. Was shooting aperture mode, wide open with the 14-42 lens @ 3.5 and had to push the ISO to 1600 to get the shutter to be decent enough to not just get blurred images (around 1/20-30). shooting in about 20-30ft viz between 65-90ft depth.... any thoughts let me know. Strobes are on my list, just need time to save up the dough. Otherwise I've been liking the camera a lot.

Picasa Web Albums - 11607118293586223...

 

[nudibranco]

Hi! for your kind of water viz conditions you definitely need some strobes (at least one) and get closer to your subjects...
However regarding white balance (when you do not use the strobo) I realized that without enough light the EPL1 will not often give you a good reading. I did not use to have a problem with this in the past so it may be that the epl1 is not a good one at doing WB in low light. I spent frustrating parts of my dive trying to make it work. I see the same problem on land actually. I am experimenting with a diffuser right in front of the lens and it seems to work more consistently... but have not done enough trials yet...

cheers!

 

[KelnKelp]

Thanks! I figured it was a light issue, and yes I know I need strobes... but I can't afford them yet.

 

[under water]

Kelli, Were you shooting with RAW? You may not need to WB as much if you do. You can WB after the fact with the SW you can get from Olympus or in Lightroom, etc.
I too have found the E-PL1 to be difficult to set WB under less than ideal conditions, even on land.
You may want to to try using a U/W orange (or magenta) filter, these are especially helpful with video.

 

[bmchugh]

You have a lot of noise especially on the red channel. I normally won't shoot anything higher than ISO 400 due to noise but I have the E-520, the EPL-1 may do a bit better. At 90 feet there will be very little red light, hence the noise. Without a strobe or another artificial source you will not get good color. You might try rendering the image as a black and white given the little color saturation you will have with ambient light.

Brian

 

[BluewaterPhoto]

hi Kelli

nice job with the underwater ambient light shots.. I used to try lots of similar types of shots a few years ago in so-cal.

regarding your questions:

#1 - that is very normal once you go deeper than a certain depth
#2 - the grain is because the camera is trying to restore colors from information that isn't there.. it's normal when doing a custom white balance so deep. Brian also mentioned this. you'll have better results in shallower water (15-30ft deep). the grainly red dots are not fixable.

keep up the good work! and feel free to stop in the store if you want to check out some different strobes.

Scott

 

[MJSmith]

What would be the results if you had not done a WB? Would the picture just be more "blue" at that depth?

 

[KelnKelp]

Thanks all! I figured it was just that I had pushed the camera to the limits (go big or go home right? ha) at ISO 1600 and so deep that theres not much red... so I'm not surprised by the grain...mostly by the fact that the camera wouldn't balance, but I think that was just the lack of light that deep. I was shoot jpg at this point (need a bigger card!) but I shot some raw the first day, problem is I can't open the files in photoshop CS3, it doesn't recognize the .ORF file type! I need to look at the disk that came with the camera, i'm sure its got software on it to help...

as for the B&W, I'm actually planning on playing around with that tonight, I know they'll look a little better, possibly like old school film B&W with the grain from such a high ISO. I'll post one up here if I like the way they turn out! Thanks guys, really looking forward to exploring more with this camera... especially once I am able to finish the set up with a pair of strobes and focus light!!

 

[KelnKelp]

What would be the results if you had not done a WB? Would the picture just be more "blue" at that depth?

I have some, they were really really flat and very green. I shot some raw with no white balance, but I can't open them... I'm also worried about really being able to do anything with them as they are pretty flat images.... we'll see once i sort out the raw issue.

 

[under water]

check out this SW from Olympus. It will do a decent job on your RAW files.

Olympus Imaging Software - Olympus Master 2

Added .. As Andrea mentions below. Viewer 2 is a newer option and compatible with Win7
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/oima_software_viewer2.asp