advice for newbie to U/W photography pls

[DiverDebbie]

I know I sounded like I'm bashing Canon, but I'm not really, as I certainly have seen tons of great photos from experienced photographers using different models. I figured my bad experience was from using an old model. The camera's owner took some pretty lousy pictures too. So in fact when I read the first paragraph of this post...

I'd have to hop on the Canon A series bandwagon. I haven't used the A40 but I have results from the ancient A20 that we've used for advertising and postcards
And my A70 and A75 were workhorses providing some lovely images.

I thought.. oh great... success on an old camera... there goes that theory... but this person is experienced, so perhaps it's just not good for beginners. then I read...

I now have the A520 in our hire fleet and it's doing a good job for all experience levels.

As I have said many times here, there's something about the Canon A's (and the S's) that just seems to click with many divers and good results are had usually from the first dive with them. As I see a ton of cameras come through each week, these still show the most consistently good results.

...and I just felt frustrated. Are the new ones that much better, or am I that lame? it didn't click with me at all. I can take a decent picture above water... I think? My confidence level plummeted... so I decided against a Canon. You unknowingly largely sold me against a Canon in a backwards sorta way?! haha. So, since my fiance took decent shots with little experience, I followed his footsteps and to feel safe bought a Sony. Make sense?

60feet - thanks for your comments. It was some time ago that I used that camera, so I don't recall all that I tried, but I do recall setting the white balance as suggested. I looked at the photos again <shudder> and they were all overly green/blue too. I realise that avoiding back scatter is a challenge without a strobe, but achievable. That's the thing about Photoshop. It can fix the colour quite nicely, but removing back scatter is another animal. I won't just shoot on auto. No harm in playing around with everything. I'll be here at home, so it's pretty much the same subjects day in and out. I have even more of a challenge ahead of me as here I'll have low light, and low viz. and will be taking primarily macro shots (not much big around here) ....with gloves on... hahahaha ....Ok then... wish me luck!

 

[Mustangmermaid]

sony makes a cam caklled the W5 and the housing to go with it is good to 40M. both together will be well under 500.00 try a search for them on amazon.com and good luck and good shooting

 

[Larry C]

That's the thing about Photoshop. It can fix the colour quite nicely, but removing back scatter is another animal.

Actually, I do quite well at removing minor to moderate backscatter in photoshop. The healing brush and the clone stamp take out most of the smaller spots, and on a dark background, you can isolate an area with the magnetic lasso and turn down the brightness to eliminate almost anything that isn't on the subject or critical background elements. Best to avoid the backscatter though by shooting available light or close subjects with close backgrounds.

 

[alcina]

If you really want to get the most from your photos, I would highly recommend springing for the Underwater Photoworkshop DVD. I have it but haven't had a chance to work with it yet, but the friends who have are totally impressed. They say the backscatter techniques are worth the entire cost alone!

www.Oceanmagicproductions.com

I'm looking forward to work getting a little less nuts so I can actually start playing!

As for the camera being the deciding factor on producing good images, that's only part of the story. You must also be a good diver and you must be comfortable with your rig. If you feel like you are fighting the camera or are too worried about using it right, your images will suffer. I'd say you did the right thing by heading for something you are comfortable with - anything you can do to reduce your task loading underwater will translate into better images!

Looking forward to seeing your images!

 

[Mayor]

Any update and pictures???