Canon S40 underwater results

[Rud-gr 0]

Just did some underwater shooting with the Canon S40 and must say the thing works remarkebly well as long as you don't forget to adjust your whitebalance every now and then.

Problem then is adjusting it back when using flash or lights... or does anyone have a quick solution for that?

 

Photo's: http://www.rud-gr.com/temp3.htm

 

 

Rutger

Rud-gr.com Photojournalist

www.rud-gr.com

[Rud-gr 0]

Oops, the link is:

 

http://www.rud-gr.com/temp3.htm

[Arnon_Ayal 1]

In the canon S30/40 if you save your pictures in raw format, you can adjust the white balance after you downloaded the pictures from the camera.

You can also set the saturation, contrast, & sharpen like that.

[Rud-gr 0]

I'll keep that in mind, I only had a 128mb card but I'm waiting for my D60 with 1gig flashcard, than it will be definitely be worthwhile.

 

Does this way work better than adjusting the whitebalance under water? If so, it will make it a lot easier as now I had to toggle every time between WB manual on and off.

[Arnon_Ayal 1]

As I understood, its work the same, the only thing you cannot do is the manual WB.

I didn't use it much until now, the samples I sow (also in this forum) of pictures that were used WB looked not natural.

What seting did you used? Your shot's color looked ok.

[Rud-gr 0]

With the cave dives I had preset the ISO at 400, the other dives were on auto.

 

I mostly shot (as I also do most often in my work) based on the aperture. Mostly variying it between 2.8 and 4.5 to maximize the shuttertime in order to prevent unsharpness due to motion.

 

Setting the WB manually again every 5 meters of depth worked very well as long as I didn't use flash or lamps. Using flash or lamps resulted (of course) in a beautfully red picture (duh!). So, for those cirumstances I put the WB back to auto (which is pretty easy anyway with this camera) and they shots came out fine. Although I must say the built in flash is not working too well above water, let alone under water!

 

Now if I shoot in RAW and use lamps or flash will these not become too red when I adjust the WB later on?

[Arnon_Ayal 1]

According the manual of the camera it’s suppose to work, as I said I almost didn't used the WB under water.

How exactly you set the manual WB? Do you aim the camera to something white or to the blue water?

[Rud-gr 0]

It helps having white fins!

[Don in Colorado 2]

I am thinking about getting into digital photography.

 

I am ONLY interested in wide angle pictures. Mostly interested in pictures of other divers in scenic shots.

 

I can't afford a super expensive housing, so I am interested in the Canon housings and Olympus housing, and their performance with wide angle subjects.

 

I have looked at the various galleries, but most of the samples are not of wide angle subjects.

 

Your Canon shots looked good, and I was wondering if they would be improved with a slave strobe. I have a Sea and Sea SB-300 strobe that I have practiced with above water with my Olympus UZ2100.

 

The strobe fires on the flash, and not the preflash in slave mode.

 

Has anyone tried a slave strobe with the Canon cameras with wide angle?

 

Any advice on wide angle shooting with Olympus or Canon housing would be appreciated. I am not interested in the Tetra housings or Ikelite housings due to cost considerations.

[Rud-gr 0]

Don,

 

I actually didn't quite use wide-angle, I just went max. on the camera without using a adapter. I saw somebody using an adapter with a Sony (P9 I think?) and must say that helps a lot.

The zoom range for the S40 is 7.1 to 21.3 mm but I have no clue what that converts to in non-digital zoom. I guess it's somewhere between 35 and 40 mm.

The problem I encountered is that you have to stand back from your subject quite a bit, thus enlarging the amount of water between you and the subject which gives the saturation problem that I compensated using manual WB. A converter lets you get much closer while still giving you the overall shot you're looking for. As far as I know the converters are not that expensive.

I'm absolutely not even close to being a pro underwater but I defintely prefer lights over strobes because of particles in the water and I kind of like the warm color that lamps seem to have. But, as I have never used a strobe though I could be seriously wrong....

[Don in Colorado 2]

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

I appreciated the view with the normal lens.

 

The quality was quite good, considering the distance you were from the subjects.

 

I was interested in your comments of underwater lights vs strobe. I always assumed that strobe quality pictures would be better than lights, but maybe that isn't true.

 

Strobes are hard to aim and quite expensive. Underwater lights are easy to aim, after all, they are on when aiming them, and although not cheap, they are less expensive than strobes.

 

If you ever get a wide angle adapter for your camera, I'd love to see them. Also, I'd love to see pictures taken with strobe, vs underwater lights.

 

I have an underwater strobe, but I am not sure how it will behave as a slave with the preflash.

 

I seems to work ok (above water) at 1/4 power setting, but doesn't work well as a slave at 1/2 or full power settings. On 1/4 power it works fine, maybe the flash lasts longer if going off with the preflash at 1/4 power. I don't have an underwater case for this camera, and probaly will have to buy a new camera.

 

I enjoy seeing photos that people have taken with consumer priced products.

 

If it costs several thousand dollars to take an adequate underwater photo, then I am getting into the wrong hobby. It seems you should be able to get great pictures for less than $1500 if you know what you are doing, and have some decent equipment. Maybe not good enough for the cover of a magazine, but enough to have personal pride in. (Actually, the pictures in magazines are often not so great. Maybe great wide angle underwater photography is simply impossible.)

 

This lighting issue remains mysterious to me. If anybody wants to add to this question of wide angle lighting with consumer priced products, I'd love your input. I'd especially enjoy input regarding slave strobes and preflash. I have read all the various posts, but haven't really seen an answer to the issue.

[Rud-gr 0]

These are the guys that make those converters I was talking about: http://www.seaandsea.com

 

or try this direct link:

http://www.seaandsea.com/dig_conv_lens.html

 

From what I've seen the quality is pretty darn good... here are some pictures that my buddy Linda made with the Digital Wide Conversion Lens 0.56x (in combination with a Sony digital camera):

http://www.rud-gr.com/temp4.htm

[Rud-gr 0]

I hate it when those links go wrong... :mad:

 

These are the guys that make those converters I was talking about: http://www.seaandsea.com

 

or try this direct link:

http://www.seaandsea.com/dig_conv_lens.html

 

From what I've seen the quality is pretty darn good... here are some pictures that my buddy Linda made with the Digital Wide Conversion Lens 0.56x (in combination with a Sony digital camera):

http://www.rud-gr.com/temp4.htm

[Rud-gr 0]

grrrrr..... :mad:

[Grig 0]

what housing guys you are using for s40?

[Arnon_Ayal 1]

I use the Canon WP-DC 300.

According to my knowledge it's the only housing for the S30/40.