Wind surfing with the Paddlefish at Haigh today

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Mlody, care to share the settings? I use a coolpix 4600 and have been playing around for about a year although I only have used the underwater settings.
 
Laser, I'm Butch...... I was the other guy in doubles. :p
 
Sure, ill share the settings.

1st thing... these settings are quite draining on the battery but since the dives arent that long anyway it shouldnt matter.

1. Turn off the Auto-off
2. Set the Auto focusing mode from single (focuses when button is pressed) to continous
3. Turn on Noise Reduction
4. Set the shooting mode from single to continuous. This turns off the flash but allows you to take multiple pictures much quicker. The flash gives me lots of particles anyway
5. Metering to matrix (I guess it depends what your taking a picture of... center weight is good if your subjects are almost always in the center)
6. AF-area mode to off
7. (havent tried it) Some people say that under exposing by -.03 to -.05 improves color... This can be done with photoshop later as well...
8. Se the ISO to the highest possible number. Slightly less quality but less light is needed.

Finally, last but more important...
Pre-white balance when you changes depths in excess of 3 feet. A white slate will do. If the day is cloudy, you probably need to do this before almost every shot because when the sun goes behind a cloud the entire white balance changes. I also speculate that in places like haigh, when you move to a diffrent area of the quarry it off sets the white balance (water diffrence maybe?). I beleive you can attempt to white balance with photoshop later but this definetly helps so the pictures dont come out green.

These settings are more geared toward taking a quick picture when something catches your eye before it runs away. Kinda like the elusive paddlefish.

Edit: Below is the diffrence between white balancing and not doing it.

DSCN0383.JPG


DSCN0381.JPG
 
The love I get, you know! I may have to find another enthusiastic to wear down....
 
Mlody11,
You're absolutely right, the manual white balance makes all the difference. I shoot in aperture mode and also manually set the white balance but last weekend, set the white balance to the underwater mode. However, following taking my shots I noticed my camera was in the auto mode. I must have accidentally been rotating the selector dial with those darn 7mm gloves. My distance to subject was approximately 15 feet in the photo I posted and had the strobe fired (was set to no pre-flash), it really wouldn't have mattered.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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