Beginner Camera Question

[Douglas]

A few questions for those of you with the S80:

I see that the S80 has a slide cover. Is this used to turn the camera on, or is there another on/off switch to do this. I would prefer to set up the camera on dry land and then only turn it on when under water.

Are there under water filters that fit the Ikelite housing for the S80 or can they be fitted to the camera itself?

Canon has a 22.4mm Wide Angle Conversion Lens (WC-DC10) for the S80, but this needs an adaptor (LADC20) to allow it to be fitted. Does this all fit into the Ikelite housing?

 

[rfield54]

Why not the S70 over the S80??? It has RAW mode, and though it's been discontinued it's still available.

 

[Douglas]

I don't know why so many people are after RAW images. I have it on my 6-Meg digital SLR camera, but as I don't enlarge most of my images to massive sizes, I prefer to use JPEG compression on the camera and have more space available on the storage device.

 

[Warren_L]

I don't know why so many people are after RAW images. I have it on my 6-Meg digital SLR camera, but as I don't enlarge most of my images to massive sizes, I prefer to use JPEG compression on the camera and have more space available on the storage device.

For me, it's not about being able to enlarge images. It's more about having greater latitude in processing my images. I find JPG being quite a bit less flexible.

 

[alcina]

For me it's why throw perfectly good data away or why let the camera decide things.

I prefer RAW. Yes, the write times are longer and the files larger. Underwater I'm not often shooting speed frames - slow down, think about the shot, compose, adjust settings, wait patiently for the action and don't chase stuff. YMMV

BUT I wouldn't not buy a compact simply because it didn't have RAW. I can work with jpegs and sometimes that's just fine. Almost all my land shots on my compacts are done in jpeg.

BTW - it's a myth that you'll spend more time processing images in RAW. I do things far faster now than I did before. It's just a matter of learning the process (and getting the initial image more correct in the first place doesn't hurt!) I also have more range of what I can do and still produce a nice image. Just helps.

 

[Tortuga Roja]

I would toss out any of your list that do not provide full control of your aperture and shutter in manual.

I would toss out any that do not have the new DigiMarcII chip or whatever that is called...it's simply faster.
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I would then select the one with the best close focus distance/macro range.

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Whatever camera you go with will have positives and negatives. The trick to getting the most out of your system is to figure out how to work with the negatives (I don't miss fish faces with the "slow" A75) and how to maximise the positives.

Alcina makes very important points here. I would suggest heeding her advice and add that I would also toss any without RAW. Topside, it's nice but UW it would be a deal breaker. My personal order of importance.

#1 good housing available
#2 raw capable
#3 full and easily available manual controls


Everything else is subjective and you can learn to work with it as Kristen said.