Better technique vs. better camera?

[cburdick1]

Good morning,

For the past year or so I have dabbled in UW photography while diving. I bought a Canon housing for my SD850 and have used it on a dives on Maui and in Cancun with mediocre results. I've had some problems, mainly with white balance and ISO/exposure time.

I think that I have the white balance problem licked by installing the CHKD hack which will let me shoot in RAW format and edit white balance on my PC (haven't used it yet, though I will in January while in Maui). The ISO issue is a problem that I haven't figured out yet. I've tried shooting at ISO 80 / 100 to keep noise down, but I find that I cannot hold still enough to prevent fuzzy pictures with the long exposure times. ISO 200 is better, but I still wind up with a 1/5 second exposure time which means that my photos of fish are a hit or miss activity. Shooting at anything over 200 gets noisy quickly.

Now, I've also been considering replacing my 850 with a higher end camera (g9 or g10)that will allow me more manual control over my pictures (night shots, action, etc). I could pick up a housing for it and use that as my UW camera (I'll learn how to use it on land before diving with it, of course).

Here's my quesiton... or questions I suppose. The way I see it, I have two options: Use SD850 as UW camera and the G9 as my nice dry camera (if I can use some technique advice to get better shots underwater with the 850). Or, if I'm going to upgrade to a better camera anyway, get the appropriate housing and use it underwater as well.

Advice or opinions are welcome. Thanks!

 

[rjsimp]

Do you have a strobe yet? It sounds like with the settings, you don't and that is your main issue. It is very hard to shoot underwater without a strobe and use settings (faster shutter speeds and lower ISO) that will give you good results.

The strobe would be the first thing I look at getting if you don't have one and if you do, then you need to change your settings dramatically because you should be able to shoot ISO 100 with a shutter speed of 1/200 and faster.. I shoot macro at 1/250 on my DSLR all the time and point and shoot at 1/500 for macro. Wide angle you can drop the shutter down to 1/60-1/125 or so.. but nothing anywhere close to 1/5.

 

[cdiver2]

I have to agree with rjsimp it sounds as though you are shooting without a strobe, if so try it, you will notice a big difference

 

[Narcd_dvr]

Keep the camera and get a strobe (two would be better).

 

[cburdick1]

You are all correct, I have not been shooting with an external strobe. I've thought about the strobe option (I do not have one yet) the only problem is setting shutter speed. The SD850 allows for ISO adjustment but shutter speed is set automatically and is not adjustable as the camera doesn't allow for full manual operation. This is one of the reasons why I'm considering getting a G9 or something equivalent that would allow for shutter control.

Thanks for the advice so far, looking forward to your replies.

 

[rjsimp]

What does the Camera 'M' mode allow you to do? Looks like that would be your manual mode and you could set your shutter speed and ISO setting. Additionally, if you used an external strobe, the camera's internal flash would fire and so the camera would account for the fact you had the flash on and adjust the shutter accordingly even if in auto mode.

Either way, there is no way you can shoot with 1/5 underwater and expect good results. See what the Camera "M" will do for you and let you set. Try messing around at the table with it and see if you can control it to make dark pictures without the "automatic adjustment" trying to fix it.

 

[cburdick1]

OK, per your suggestions I tried getting a low ISO in M (Manual mode) and a fast shutter speed. I got ISO 80 with a shutter speed of 1/60. I dialed down the exposure (one of the Manual settings) down to -2 and covered the flash with my finger. The resulting image is quite dark. So, now I have a low ISO and a high shutter speed.... I suppose I should go the external strobe route to provide a light source and then shoot in RAW so I can edit in PS Elements on my pc.

I think that makes sense. I was actually thinking about getting an external strobe to eliminate the "blueness" of my photos, but now it appears that I can use one to get faster shutter speeds.

 

[rjsimp]

OK, per your suggestions I tried getting a low ISO in M (Manual mode) and a fast shutter speed. I got ISO 80 with a shutter speed of 1/60. I dialed down the exposure (one of the Manual settings) down to -2 and covered the flash with my finger. The resulting image is quite dark. So, now I have a low ISO and a high shutter speed.... I suppose I should go the external strobe route to provide a light source and then shoot in RAW so I can edit in PS Elements on my pc.

I think that makes sense. I was actually thinking about getting an external strobe to eliminate the "blueness" of my photos, but now it appears that I can use one to get faster shutter speeds.

Yea. you wouldn't even need to dial the exposure down to -2 unless necessary. If you can, try changing your shutter speed up to 1/500 or so.. ISO 80.. and go to a higher F-Stop.. You should be able to shoot macro shots at that setting when you get a strobe but if you take a picture with the internal flash as a test shot, it should be pretty dark still except for where the flash hit the close subject. When doing wide angle shots, change the F-stop to a smaller number and slow the shutter to something like 1/100.

The blue in the picture is caused from having the settings off and not having a good light source (strobe). You can get the nice darker blues if you use those types of settings and play from there.

Hopefully the LCD screen has the option to view your framed picture without applying the changes. For example, some cameras try to show you how dark the picture would be with your current settings. If yours does that, you need to see if you can turn off that feature or the LCD will be too dark to see especially under water.

Hope that helps!

 

[cburdick1]

After reviewing the manual for my camera and playing around with the settings, I simply do not have the ability to adjust Fstop and shutter speed manually on the SD850, even in M-is-for-Manual mode. I used to have an A series that offered more manual options but sold it and purchased this camera as I wanted something to stick in a pocket while on vacation.

I suppose that I'll try picking up an external strobe and seeing what I can manage while on vacation in Maui at the end of January. I've heard good things about the Sea and Sea YS-27 triggered by a fiber optical cable. If that setup doesn't work all that well... then I'll think of something.

Thanks for all of your replies.

 

[bperrybap]

I'm pretty familiar with the SD850is as I bought one for my wife about a year ago
just prior to a live aboard trip to St Croix.
I was quite pleased with the results and bought one for myself to replace my
SeaLife DC-500 for a recent 3 week dive trip to Indonesia this year.

Here is a link to some photos my wife took on our St Croix trip:
(We are still reviewing our Indonesia photos) - will post them soon.
St Croix Live Aboard favorite photos
These photos were my wife's first experience using a camera.
All of these photos but 3-4 were taken with the SD850is. The others
(which have a bit of cyan in the corners were from a SeaLife DC-500).
None of these photos used an external flash and the only "manual" setting
used was custom white balance. Everything else was automatic
and image stabilization was enabled.


I've posted on SB a few times about the camera and some of the reasons
why I liked it and a few comments on white balance:

sd-850-vs-sd-870-which would-you-choose- and why

canon-ixus-750-white-balance.html

I will say that all my experience with the SD850 is *without* the use of an
additional external strobe.

One thing for sure, the only way to get decent colors with the SD850is is to
use manual/custom white balance. The built in underwater scene mode will
leave your photos with too much blue that is difficult if not impossible to correct.
As you can read in the other SB posts, manual/custom white balance is really
easy to do on the SD850, which was one of the reasons that led me to purchasing
this camera over many others.

I did shoot quite a bit of RAW photos using CHDK in Indonesia.
There is good news and bad news. Shooting RAW does allow you to perform
the WB correction later after the dives and you won't have to worry about
manual white balance during the actual dive, but it was my experience that the battery
life was shorter when shooting RAW. Also, lens port fogging seemed to be more
of an issue when shooting RAW.
If you think about it, it makes sense as a RAW image is 10MB vs 1.5-2.0MB for
a 8mp image. This is roughly 5 times the size, but more importantly it takes
5 times the energy to save the image, which reduces battery life and
creates more heat which contributes to fogging.

A few observations:
- The only way to get decent colors is through manual white balance.
Can be done using the custom white balance, or on RAW images created with CHDK.

- There is very little, if any noticeable difference between colors from a manually
adjust image using RAW format vs a properly manually adjusted white balance JPG
image.

- Using two hands when taking pictures tends to avoid many blurred shots.
I figured this one out when using my SeaLife. There is a natural tendency
to rotate the camera slightly when you take a photo if you use only one hand.
The camera will tend to be rotated down and back up as the shutter button is
pressed.
If two hands are used, the left hand can hold the camera while the right hand
pushes the shutter, this rotation movement is then avoided.
I struggled with this for quite some time. My wife as able to correct this early
on as I was able to watch her take pictures and noticed she sometimes
did the same thing.
I think it is just something that comes along with using a small compact camera.

- Image stabilization does help. While it doesn't correct for subject (fish) movement,
it does help create sharper/clearer images due to minor surges or minor buoyancy
movements. Image stabilization often cannot compensate for the rotation
phenomena described above.

- The internal strobe can be adequate for 1-6 feet. Closer than about 1 foot and
the lens port starts to block the light. Further away and its not enough light.

- Focusing even at macro is fairly crisp. Much better than the SeaLife.
Although you cannot use any Telephoto/zoom when macro is selected.
If you do, the image will not be focused.

- Many shots (more than I expected) need to be taken in "macro" mode.
Macro mode is from .5" out to almost 2 ft. so shots in the 12-18 inch
range should be shot in macro mode.

- It can be difficult to get a proper custom white balance when using a slate
and the built in flash. This is because if you don't hold the slate far enough from
the camera, the lens port will partially block the flash. Also the distance to
the slate needs to be approximately the same as the distance to the final subject.
White sand in the Caribbean works great.
It isn't a problem using a slate for white balance when the flash is not used.

- The depth of field for macro shots is really narrow. So you need to really
center you subject to get good focusing in macro.


Anyway, hope that helps.

--- bill