wanting to get into underwater photography, question.

[JackSpearo]

I have a Canon PowerShot SD600 (6 mega pixel)...

If I bought say, like an Ikelite strobe, would it be worth my while with such a cheap camera?

at this point, I don't want to seriously get into photography, but I would like some nice amateur pics.

should I buy a strobe for it? or save up for a better camera?

does anyone use this camera with a strobe? or a similar camera? have any sample pics?

thanks!

Jack

 

[Larry C]

A strobe will give you better underwater results with whatever camera you're using. If you do buy one, get one that will work with your current camera and the next camera you buy as well. I don't know much about your SD600, but looking at the specs, the only thing that would give me pause is the lack of manual shutter speed and aperture. You have a mode called "camera M" but I couldn't find anything out about it. Are you able to adjust shutter and aperture in that mode? If so, there's no reason you can't take good underwater pictures with the camera. 6 megapixels is plenty for anything you're not going to blow up to poster size. An Ikelite strobe is a good idea if you're going to use an Ikelite housing, as they're designed to work together. If you're using a Canon housing, any quality strobe with an optical firing system should work. There are some differences. Some strobes are not designed for use with the preflash on digital cameras and won't sync correctly with the built in flash. Make sure your camera and strobe are compatible.

 

[ce4jesus]

Jack,

I don't want to seriously get into photography, but I would like some nice amateur pics.

This is how the sickness starts. It's seductive nature eats your time and money like no other vixen can. It'll leave you broken hearted with only a well-lit fish butt to show for it. So if you're still game you've got several options. I'm sure you'll find plenty of folks using your camera and you'll get all kinds of advice. I recommend that you use the camera and housing alone first. Either in a pool or on a local dive. Get familiar with it then add a strobe you can grow with later. Ikelite, Inon or Sea&Sea are 3 styles that play with digital cameras.

 

[JackSpearo]

I have been using it already, just the pics are all blueish... here are some examples (the lobster pic is when I took the photo blindly, by putting my hand under the ledge and just taking the pic, I guess the cameras strobe worked well in such a close and closed situation)

 

[Larry C]

Yes, you can see the difference in color proper lighting makes. An alternative is to use custom white balance, set at depth. Some cameras have only preset white balances. If you can't use custom white balance, you can do some color improvement in photoshop after the fact. You can find a lot about this in the Digital Darkroom forum above. For distance shots, your strobe will only light the foreground so white balance is still important.

 

[ce4jesus]

Natural light underwater is pretty tough. The red light starts getting attenuated pretty quickly, hence the cyan look. Larry mentioned a manual white balance...if your camera has this capability you can use that. If not, you might look into a filter. Try keeping the sun at your back when taking a photo. The lobster photo teaches you that getting close is a good thing. The less water between you and your subject, the more color and less particulate you're going to get. A powerful external strobe would have lit up your sea fan just fine but even the strongest strobes are only good within about 10ft. A WA lens for your camera would allow you to get closer to a sea fan, while still having it framed completely by your lens. Anyway, Kristin (Alcina) has a pinned section at the top of this board which goes into lots of detail. It is a terrific read if you're just starting out.