What the heck am I doing wrong? Olympus Tough 5 red filter

[Catito]

I have an Olympus Tough 5. I have the correct housing. I bought a red filter. When I put it on the outside of the housing...all I get is solid red—at all depths. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

 

[Dubious]

Solid red as in all you see is red or that your pictures all have a reddish tone? If reddish tone, what did you set your white balance to?

 

[Catito]

Solid red as in all you see is red or that your pictures all have a reddish tone? If reddish tone, what did you set your white balance to?

Solid red.

 

[Dubious]

Interesting. Why not just drop the filter and use the custom white balance the TG5 offers? You can use your slate or bring down a grey card. I found backscatters video series on the TG5 very helpful.

 

[Skeptic14]

Hey @Catito what mode are you shooting in with the filter on? Are you using strobes too, internal flash off?

I had a tg4, never used filters, always had pretty good success with just the UW modes only for snorkeling/shallow and strobes for depth.

 

[tursiops]

Even with ambient light, the TG-5 does really well without any filters.
With artificial light, you do NOT want a filter.

 

[jayceebutler]

I would recommend a red filter for ambient light (no flash, strobes or video lights) photography/videography at depths greater than 30'.

For internal flash, strobes or video lights, remove the red filter at any depth.

 

[al248005]

I have the TG4 and I manually set my white balance because it's so easy to do. You can use the back of someone's tank if it's a gray tank even instead of taking a slate with you.

 

[divinh]

There are red filters and there are underwater red filters. Usually the underwater ones are more orange than red. I took a gamble by ordering one on eBay that showed an orange filter with the word Dive on the side. When it arrived, it was a plain red filter, which I've had experience with before. It just makes everything red, not solid red, but very tinted red.

Although I don't have a TG, an underwater mode is your best bet. I use a Canon G12 and with its underwater mode, I get pretty good colors. Obviously, after 15m or so, the amount of red light will be so diminished that underwater mode won't be enough.

 

[Yawana-Dive]

I use the TG5 every day, it’s a a fantastic camera for point and shoot underwater photos. I’ve never used a filter, just the underwater setting. I sometimes put the photos through the app ‘Diver+’ for “colour correction”
I always use the housing even on shallow dives.
I get good results on the macro setting too. Check out Instagram #yawanadive for my photos.
I really like the simplicity of this camera. Even an amateur like me can get at least one good pic on every dive.