Need an uw camera "expert"...?

[cicopo]

Tigerman, I hear you. In the summer I shoot a lot of R/C events & I shoot about 1000 + images per day, set to large fine jpg + RAW. When I download each night & ALL images get backed up to 2 additional drives beside the main drive BEFORE re formating my cards. When I travel I bring close to 1 Tb of memory cards, download every night, & backup to large jump drives and in most cases I don't have to re use any of the cards so have those as back ups too. Memory is cheap these days & I watch the sales on the big ones. (My desktop has 5 hard drives built in).

 

[Tigerman]

Problem at the moment with hard-drives is that they are getting stupid expensive due to the flooding in Thailand and they expect it to stay that way for about 3 months :/

 

[DevonDiver]

Get an online storage account. Plenty of free ones available, but they have limited storage capacity. Paid storage/back-up solutions are much bigger. If you'd pay for a HDD anyway, why not consider remote storage?

 

[DandyDon]

Pretty high tech advice here for a first time camera owner.

Whichever camera you get, also buy a Sealife orange float strap. It seems like most first time camera owners lose theirs.

And get a pony bottle as divers with camera are horrible buddies.

 

[Sideways]

Pretty high tech advice here for a first time camera owner.

And get a pony bottle as divers with camera are horrible buddies.

Hey Don...hold up now!!! That there is profiling....and profiling is WRONG!!!!!

 

[driftin' by]

Nah, if you have a 10mpx camera the RAW files would be approx 20mb each, plus the 5mb jpeg. Thats 40ish pictures per gigabyte.
In other words 160, lets be conservative and say 150 pictures on a 4gig card.
The 4gig cards cost next to nothing and even 16gig cards is $20-25 so I wouldnt worry about that.

I worry more about storing the backups on harddrives as I tend to have the RAW file, an edited JPEG, the original JPEG plus for the pictures I want to put more work into a multilayer psd (which can get SERIOUSLY big). And for redundancy you should keep those on two separate disks..

No I agree, cards are cheap (now) and you have options for off loading. But it's definitely something to consider that when shooing RAW, it's going to take 5 times as much as you're previously used to. Not all the long ago (2006ish), when I got my G9 I had purchased 2, shiny and new class 6, 4gb SD cards that were about $60 each at the time. I had made it a point to never take a lap on vacation and didn't think I'd ever use up 8 gigs. Shooting in RAW for my first dives with my G9, I maxed out the card on the second dive a 12-dive trip. I decided not to shoot RAW that trip and spent a couple hours deleting all those RAW files from the camera one at a time. I now take a netbook to not only back up the still cards but to also off load the ~32 gigs of video from my GoPro each day.

 

[Hatul]

Hate to ask here...but since you're my "gang" and I'm not getting a lot of help from the photography forum, anyone here willing to let me pm you with a few questions about purchasing my first UW camera?

Thanks!

Why not start by getting a housing for the camera you have now for taking pictures on land? For example the Canon underwater housings cost around $150 and the other manufacturers should be about the same. That's all you need to start.

Adam

 

[buton]

get a basic used canon power shot with semi manual controls for AV and TV a sealife cheap strobe and thats all you will need....

 

[danvolker]

Don't?

To me - unless you are a good above water photog - you wont be a good under water photographer. Plus unless you are going to spend a LOT of money, you will have a hard time getting good pics. Plus.....unless you are experienced at shooting in current (as I assume this relates to taking said camera to Cozumel?), you will have a hell of a time shooting anything as you go by in the current. Trying to stop to set up pics causes you to grab stuff, slow down the group, seperate the group, split the group, and generally piss off the rest of the group.

Novice photographer + low end camera + current = bad pics and irritating the rest of the group IMHO.

I say this, as on my July trip to cozumel, I had said n00b photographer (x2!) on most of my dives. On the 2nd or 3rd day, they busted out a pelican case and said "hey lets try our cameras!" and went about assembling a pair of decently sub par set ups, with not enough flash, and NO clue as to how to use said cameras above, or below ground. Suffice it to say: they constantly stopped (or tried to) in the current, grabbed stuff, slowed us down, stretched us out, got seperated etc etc etc. Add ot it, 95+% of their pics were horrid.....yet they kept at it day after day. By my last day I was tempted to find a dive knife and cut the camera tethers and send them to davey jones camera locker!!!!

I have dove with good experienced photogs, and the difference is night and day, especially the guys who are good in current - but if you are new to it, Cozumel is not the best place to learn. Plus for the money you would spend on GOOD gear, you would be much better off buying a GoPro vid camera, mount a decent LED light to it with a home made handle system = WIN for making memories of your dives. Much easier to accomplish and get GREAT results.

/end soap box on my biggest Coz pet peeve!

I realize many answers have addressed this post, but let me offer another perspective....
If a diver has the mental "wiring" to be a good artist--above or below water, they could very well learn photography underwater and never shoot above ground. When you compare a David Doubilet, and your normal shooter on a Cozumel or Florida reef, the REAL difference is not in how many above water pictures were taken...it is the pure artistic talent and compositional skills of a guy like Doubilet that makes the difference.

The true artistic that get into diving, will be able to take great shots with cameras and strobes that are under $1000....but even though they may take much better shots than the clueless yuppie with a $12,000 camera system, they could take themselves much farther with a pro level camera and pro level strobes.

As to current, you need to dive real current with a buddy that is really good in currents, and is willing to mentor you.....Learn the tricks of how to move effortlessly in big currents, like what we have in Palm Beach, and shooting your camera in the big currents is not much of a stretch. You know where to hide from the current, in the lee side of large objects, and how to be a small profile in the "flow". You learn to be low or flat to the bottom, and not to have your fins facing the current, but your head instead ( shooting what is ahead of you while going down current will only work if you are swimming downcurrent--if you try to stop, you're fins will catch the water and "bowl" you over, and buffet you).
But these issues immediately are apparent to a person with good drift diving experience in a place like Palm Beach ( where drift diving is done properly

 

[Tigerman]

Speaking of currents and how to handle them..
This shot is taken in current too strong to swim against..