sabbath999
Contributor
Sealife swapped out my DC800 (after 3 of them were defective... story of this available elsewhere on this site) for a DC1000.
PREFACE: I bought the DC800 Maxx kit, and basically everything fits the DC1000 except the camera case (which I returned to Sealife) and the actual camera. The DC1000 Maxx kit has the wide angle wet lens and keeper in it, and is more expensive than the DC800 (which can't use the wide angle wet lens). The Maxx kit case has a cut out for the wet lens, so I will eventually buy it seperately.
I have not had the opportunity to use the camera (which I got a week ago or so) in open water but I have had two pool sessions with it (one with dual strobes, one without) and I can give some initial observations and show you a few pictures. They are quite boring, but they will give you an idea of the quality of the camera.
I am a NOOB at underwater photography, but have shot extensively (to say the least) above water.
I plan to do a FULL review of this camera at a later date, and am thinking about starting a point&shoot underwater camera review website eventually.
Right now, here are my first impressions and a few thoughts about the DC1000.
First: It is what it is. It is a point & shoot camera, with all of the pros and cons of a point & shoot. It isn't a DSLR, nor does it pretend to be. That is neither good nor bad, nor is it unexpected.
ALL IMAGES ARE UNCROPPED, UNEDITED AND UNSHARPENED (except as noted).
Image Quality, land: The image quality on land is OK. Not good, not bad, simply OK.
Here are a couple of pictures to show you land image quality:
EXIF: 1/629 at f/5.3, auto exposure and white balance, ISO 64, lens zoomed out.
EXIF: 1/272 at f/6.2, EXIF: 1/629 at f/5.3, auto exposure and white balance, ISO 64, lens zoomed in to about 2X
The colors are not quite accurate (especially the sky), the whites are blown out on the white house (could have been fixed with exposure compensation), but the shots are reasonably sharp and purple fringing in the trees is not an apparent problem.
The only real problem I saw with the camera is that it is soft on the edges when fully zoomed in to 5X. Notice how the right side of the frame is rather blurred:
EXIF: 1/226 at f/8, EXIF: 1/629 at f/5.3, auto exposure and white balance, ISO 64, lens zoomed in to 5X.
The same scene taken at 3X is completely sharp along the right edge:
BTW that's not a lens defect, the peak of the roof of my favorite test house is bent.
How much of an issue of importance is this to your underwater photography? Honestly, to mine it will be a complete non-issue since I have no intention of using a 5X zoom underwater. Most of my stuff will either be wide angle or macro where I am getting as close as possible.
Every lens has its sweet spots and the areas that it struggles... the lenses on the DC1000 are not particularly good, but they aren't horrible... they are, in fact, good enough to take sharp pictures underwater when not fully extended, and that's about all one can expect in a Point & Shoot. The DC800's I had tried all had either defective lenses on the particular camers I owned or a defective design, I have never figured out which. The DC1000 is a significant upgrade in lens quality, it is a different design entirely.
There is some vignetting when the lens is wide open, I have yet to measure it but it is there. Again, not something that is a big concern underwater, but I thought I would mention it.
Underwater Image Quality:
NOTE... these images were taken with Sealife Dual External Strobes, this is not indicative of what your camera will do with the built-in flash... I did this to show how sharp I could get pictures underwater. These pictures were taken in a pool with moderately clear pool water, at 8-10 feet in depth, my first try ever using multiple strobes under water. The pool bottom was white. I started out shooting on fully auto but the camera was overexposing everything so I then switched over to manual and dialed down the flashes until it looked good. In situations where the bottom isn't either all white or metal, I expect I would dial the power back up on the strobes a bit.
The Nut: This is my test nut (a 5/8ths nut). It holds the drain at the bottom of the pool:
All are shot in macro mode, with the lens at its widest focal length with me getting "pretty close" to it. The differences in lighting are because I moved the flash head angles and was hovering.
The reason I am showing you 6 copies of the bolt, nut and washer is to show that the camera consistantly made the same exposure and puts out a consistantly decent image quality.
OK... now for a couple non-nut pictures
The cone is about 8 inches tall or so. I rotated the picture. Here is another one unrotated.
The wife blowing bubble rings:
(I did lighten this one up a bit and turned it 180 degrees).
The wife's hand at the bottom of the pool:
The wife (slightly overexposed... the colors are not as good as I would like but they certainly could be fixed in post)
More to come later, check back on this post for things like ISO performance, exposure, etc.
PREFACE: I bought the DC800 Maxx kit, and basically everything fits the DC1000 except the camera case (which I returned to Sealife) and the actual camera. The DC1000 Maxx kit has the wide angle wet lens and keeper in it, and is more expensive than the DC800 (which can't use the wide angle wet lens). The Maxx kit case has a cut out for the wet lens, so I will eventually buy it seperately.
I have not had the opportunity to use the camera (which I got a week ago or so) in open water but I have had two pool sessions with it (one with dual strobes, one without) and I can give some initial observations and show you a few pictures. They are quite boring, but they will give you an idea of the quality of the camera.
I am a NOOB at underwater photography, but have shot extensively (to say the least) above water.
I plan to do a FULL review of this camera at a later date, and am thinking about starting a point&shoot underwater camera review website eventually.
Right now, here are my first impressions and a few thoughts about the DC1000.
First: It is what it is. It is a point & shoot camera, with all of the pros and cons of a point & shoot. It isn't a DSLR, nor does it pretend to be. That is neither good nor bad, nor is it unexpected.
ALL IMAGES ARE UNCROPPED, UNEDITED AND UNSHARPENED (except as noted).
Image Quality, land: The image quality on land is OK. Not good, not bad, simply OK.
Here are a couple of pictures to show you land image quality:
EXIF: 1/629 at f/5.3, auto exposure and white balance, ISO 64, lens zoomed out.
EXIF: 1/272 at f/6.2, EXIF: 1/629 at f/5.3, auto exposure and white balance, ISO 64, lens zoomed in to about 2X
The colors are not quite accurate (especially the sky), the whites are blown out on the white house (could have been fixed with exposure compensation), but the shots are reasonably sharp and purple fringing in the trees is not an apparent problem.
The only real problem I saw with the camera is that it is soft on the edges when fully zoomed in to 5X. Notice how the right side of the frame is rather blurred:
EXIF: 1/226 at f/8, EXIF: 1/629 at f/5.3, auto exposure and white balance, ISO 64, lens zoomed in to 5X.
The same scene taken at 3X is completely sharp along the right edge:
BTW that's not a lens defect, the peak of the roof of my favorite test house is bent.
How much of an issue of importance is this to your underwater photography? Honestly, to mine it will be a complete non-issue since I have no intention of using a 5X zoom underwater. Most of my stuff will either be wide angle or macro where I am getting as close as possible.
Every lens has its sweet spots and the areas that it struggles... the lenses on the DC1000 are not particularly good, but they aren't horrible... they are, in fact, good enough to take sharp pictures underwater when not fully extended, and that's about all one can expect in a Point & Shoot. The DC800's I had tried all had either defective lenses on the particular camers I owned or a defective design, I have never figured out which. The DC1000 is a significant upgrade in lens quality, it is a different design entirely.
There is some vignetting when the lens is wide open, I have yet to measure it but it is there. Again, not something that is a big concern underwater, but I thought I would mention it.
Underwater Image Quality:
NOTE... these images were taken with Sealife Dual External Strobes, this is not indicative of what your camera will do with the built-in flash... I did this to show how sharp I could get pictures underwater. These pictures were taken in a pool with moderately clear pool water, at 8-10 feet in depth, my first try ever using multiple strobes under water. The pool bottom was white. I started out shooting on fully auto but the camera was overexposing everything so I then switched over to manual and dialed down the flashes until it looked good. In situations where the bottom isn't either all white or metal, I expect I would dial the power back up on the strobes a bit.
The Nut: This is my test nut (a 5/8ths nut). It holds the drain at the bottom of the pool:
All are shot in macro mode, with the lens at its widest focal length with me getting "pretty close" to it. The differences in lighting are because I moved the flash head angles and was hovering.
The reason I am showing you 6 copies of the bolt, nut and washer is to show that the camera consistantly made the same exposure and puts out a consistantly decent image quality.
OK... now for a couple non-nut pictures
The cone is about 8 inches tall or so. I rotated the picture. Here is another one unrotated.
The wife blowing bubble rings:
(I did lighten this one up a bit and turned it 180 degrees).
The wife's hand at the bottom of the pool:
The wife (slightly overexposed... the colors are not as good as I would like but they certainly could be fixed in post)
More to come later, check back on this post for things like ISO performance, exposure, etc.
Last edited:
