A little advice on my new G10

[rajohn]

I just purchased a new Canon G10 (mostly because of the glowing reviews here) and pick up the underwater housing for it tomorrow. I'm leaving for Cozumel Saturday so don't have much time to learn the ins and outs of the setup. I'm looking for any help in setting up a favorite setting which would be ideal for the dives I'll be doing in Cozumel. I'll probably be mostly taking pictures on the shallower dives as those are the ones I enjoy most. I've used my trusty Olympus C4000zoom for years and pretty much had it mastered but this G10 is something else. I can't seem to make the Macro focus work more than about half the time. Sometimes it will focus properly and sometimes it won't. I took it back to the camera shop where I bought it and the salesman couldn't do any better. We took another new one out of the display and tried it too with the same results. He teaches a class in macro photography so I don't think it's lack of knowledge in general that's our problem but rather lack of knowledte of the particular camera. My Olympus had an easily selectable flash setting for soft, red eye, delayed, etc. I'm sure this G10 has something similar but it looks like it has to be set in the menus. Any info here? As to the settings, should I use the built in "underwater" setting or something else? Should I set the ISO manually or let the camera take care of all settings and if so, what shooting mode should I select? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I know it's sort of like asking "what car should I buy" but I'm just hoping for some general help here.
Thanks

 

[FrankPro1]

I would start using manual control as soon as possible. Also shooting in RAW really opens up post-processing. I always set my ISO "usually between 80-200, any higher on the G10 and you start to notice a lot of noise".

As far as the macro problems go, I haven't had any. Setting the camera to show your allowable zoom range on the LCD will let you know how close you can get. If your focus box is green, your target should be in focus.

 

[rajohn]

Thanks for the info, especially about the ISO settings. I have never shot in RAW before so have no program on my computer for it nor knowledge of it. If I understand correctly you have to have a computer and appropriate program to even view the files. I like to transfer the photos to my laptop and look at them on the tv every night in the hotel room. Can I do that with RAW images or should I shoot both RAW and JPEG and use the JPEG files for the immediate viewing?
Thanks

 

[Tigerman]

You can save JPEGs with teh RAW files and have both.
A program like adobe lightrom is very nice to edit the raw files with and theres some really good tutorials on the net for it, amongst other places at lynda.com

 

[rajohn]

I tried watching the video because I'm seriously interested in the subject matter as I have trouble equalizing. I thought I was back in college. I found myself wanting to nod off. I never did get to the part where he acutally told the secrets he's supposed to have about equalizing as I just couldn't listen to him drone on any longer. It's totally me, I'm sure it's a great video, but I just don't have the patience to watch him. I'm wondering if I can watch it with another viewer and just advance the video about half way through and maybe get to what I want to learn.

 

[M_Bipartitus]

On windows computers you need an application to view RAW, on Macs it is included in the system software. Lightroom (and Apple's Aperture) are both available as one month trials if you want to see how they work.

I would suggest that you take some time to get used to the camera in the case but above water. The UW case will limit your view of the icons printed on the camera; unless you have memorized what each button does it takes a lot more time to change settings.

I agree with FrankPro, avoid any of the auto settings and stick with a manual setting (I consider Av, Tv, manual) I don't know about the G10, but some canons will not record RAW in the full auto modes, you need to check if you think you might use them.

 

[diver 85]

Don't have a G10---shoot a 570, but I would put the camera in the case as soon as you get it & learn all the buttons on the camera that way------In the heat of battle UW, you will not be able to(ie have the time) to look down & see what button is for what------MEMORIZE them as best you can & be able to change some on the fly---ie without looking @ the unit(UW case)......good luck, let us know how it turns out....