Canon 20D Photo's - Belize

[montychandler]

Hi Monty,

Just out of curiosity, what sort of depth did you do most of the diving in? I'm looking for a filter solution, and one that seems particularly inexpensive and easy to use with good results is limited to about 50-60 feet...

Thanks!
Bryan

Hi Bryan - When shooting wide angle without a strobe I always try to shoot with good lighting and as you've implied 50-60 feet is about the limit if the photo is going to have any depth. But since the reality of diving is that you go where the shot is I have long ago given up trying to make white balance adjustments while diving. I do that in post production. Of course digital technology made that possible. While diving I concentrate on apeture, focus, and shutter speed to get a "just slightly" under exposed shot. Of course to do this I shoot in Raw format so I can make white balance adjustments in post production. The JPEGS in the camera always look horrible..

Cheers,

 

[bliew]

Hi Monty, thanks for the quick reply!

Yeah, these are all tough factors, especially when going the P&S route. The A620 has a hack that allows capturing RAW, while the new A720IS doesn't (yet). And this Magic Filter I read about seems to allow for a really easy, relaxed way to shoot both stills and video without having to manually white balance at various depths. Downside is that it has a sweet spot between 10-50 feet or so, which is understandable since it's basically a fixed red filter. Plus it's dirt cheap, so if it doesn't work, no big loss!

My wife suggested I ask the resort what depth the majority of the dives stay within, since most of them are within 5-10 minutes of our stay. For the Blue Hole and night dives, we'd avoid any sort of filters and just use our flash.

Cheers!
Bryan

p.s. were you able to do any land excursions on your off day/s?

Hi Bryan - When shooting wide angle without a strobe I always try to shoot with good lighting and as you've implied 50-60 feet is about the limit if the photo is going to have any depth. But since the reality of diving is that you go where the shot is I have long ago given up trying to make white balance adjustments while diving. I do that in post production. Of course digital technology made that possible. While diving I concentrate on apeture, focus, and shutter speed to get a "just slightly" under exposed shot. Of course to do this I shoot in Raw format so I can make white balance adjustments in post production. The JPEGS in the camera always look horrible..

Cheers,

 

[montychandler]

p.s. were you able to do any land excursions on your off day/s?

Unfortunately there really wasn't time for that. Trip report is here..

 

[HAOWDIVER]

awesome pics! really vibrant colors on that cam, very nice.

i'll be diving Turneffe Atoll in January hope to see as many good stuff as you've shot!

 

[montychandler]

As requested, here's the link to the smugmug gallery of these photos.