TG-6 Custom Settings (C1/C2) - Unexpected Behaviour

[Peter Bomberg]

I just came back from a 2 week dive vacation and overall I am thrilled with the TG-6 (I however have a TON to learn). But there is something that has me very confused (likely I am missing something).

I first followed the guidelines from Backscatter, but I was not thrilled with the background blue, so I played around and found the fish modes to fix that issue, however on STTL the dual inon S-2000's seem to blow out many pictures so I changed them to -2 (C) and that seems to have fixed the issue.

However when I tried cloning the setting to C1 so I could retain the flash setting as the fish mode remembers the flash for all 4 modes and I want flash on for all microscope and off for all wide angle (by default) the colors simply don't match, it seems all settings are the same but the colors are not even close.

Does anyone know how to clone Fish - Wide to C1, Fish Microscope to C2, and make them truly identical?

 

[Chris Ross]

By fish mode I assume you mean underwater colour balance mode ? Fish mode sets WB to a high value to correct for blue/green light in ambient shots so is close to what you want for your wide shots. In macro shots the light source should be 100% flash with minimal contribution from ambient light. Your flash is a 5000-5500K light source so the WB needs to be set for that and normally autoWB works best for shots that are using flash as long as you have enough flash to overcome the ambient light contribution. So I don't believe fish is the right mode for both flash and ambient shots.

The fish mode is just a stab at what the right WB for an UW shot might be. If you use it shots taken near the surface will be reddish and if you go too deep bluish.

You have attached 3 images the first blue scene looks about right for an ambient shot, the sections of reef are in shadow and distant so wouldn't expect them to show much colour.
The octopus looks reasonable maybe needs a slight shift in tint to make it less green and a colour tweak to add some more red. In camera you would turn up flash exposure and reduce shutter speed (-ve exposure comp).
The turtle is a little on the blue side but will balance out readily - I'm not clear if you had flash on this shot - if you did the power needs to be increased and shutter speed increased - which you would do by using -ve exposure compensation .

 

[Peter Bomberg]

Thanks Chris Ross, my question was why the cloning did not work but I will take help when offered.

Yes sorry I did mean underwater (fish icon so was not thinking)

The cave scene was taken using A priority and underwater mid WB and underwater picture mode, using only ambient light.
The octopus was auto WB, strobes, vivid picture mode using A priority. I have not done any tweaking but since you mentioned it I am not fiddling and your right removing a bit of green and adding red makes it more dramatic and nicer
The turtle is underwater wide, strobes, underwater mid WB, underwater picture mode.

Overall I am very happy with the results I learnt after to remove the diffuses and move the arms out further when far away from the subject, and your right for microscope I want autoWB, but that brings me to the how do I get underwater wide into C1 so the pictures look the same as when I take them using underwater wide?

 

[Chris Ross]

My experience is with a TG-4 and setting it up for my daughter to use. With that you just made all your settings and just saved them to a custom mode and it seemed to work it was set with Av , UW WB no flash on C1 and AWB with flash for macro on C2. The manual has a list of what settings are stored in custom modes on P140.

Looking at the manual it seems there are a few options you can go into UW mode on the dial and there are few different UW white balance modes to choose from - it doesn't seem to use a fixed WB color temperature according to the table.

As I recall I gave up using the UW mode (fish icon on the dial) as it restricted what you could do in individual settings and worked out how to make it work in in Av. To do that you would need to work out what WB mode the camera switched to when you are in UW wide mode. It would likely be fish icon 1, 2 or 3 from the WB menu. See if you can set the camera to the same WB mode in Av.

You might need to go into the EXIF data for the shots you made to see what the camera did with WB when in UW wide mode.

 

[Peter Bomberg]

Looking at the EXIF info the only thing I can see is the is the temp differs, Ahhh I might just have to start all over

The only issue is my next planned dive is on the GBR and I sort of wanted to have this figured out before then.

I was going to use Av on C1 and Microscope on C2 as it seemed to be the ideal but to be honest using UW is pretty fast (now that I learned there is a single button press to select mode). But yes the C1 and C2 option allows more memorized settings so easier in many ways.

 

[Chris Ross]

The point I was making is that if the temperature in the EXIF on ALL the shots taken in underwater mode is the same all that UW mode does there is change to a preset colour temperature. If you look in the manual it does not actually say what the temperature is - it might be for example a certain colour temperature and auto adjustment of tint to pull more green out or it might be an UW biased auto WB.

If it does revert to a constant colour temperature you can emulate that in Av mode by entering a custom white balance as your white balance option. I found on the TG-4 that Av with one of the UW white balance modes seemed to work quite well.

I also believe microscope mode places restrictions on what you adjust for example not all flash functions are available. In the TG-6 apparently the 1cm close focus is also available in Av mode.

It may work better to use Av for storing various features in the custom modes.

 

[Peter Bomberg]

Alas no luck on the color temp, I think I Av with UW and then keep playing is going to be the way to go (and yes C1 and C2 will be Av based) UW will be the default until I figure everything out.

Backscatter has a great guide but they only show videos not pictures so I am not sure if the issue I am facing (the background blue just isn't as appealing in Av as it is in UW). Makes me wish I had another week or 3 to play but overall a great toy (now to go buy more stuff, my GF needs a dive light so look a perfect justification for me to get a second video light).