Best standard settings for underwater??

[river_sand_bar]

Heading to Cozumel next week and taking my camera.... a Canon A620 and housing. Normally I shoot with everything on Auto and pictures come out pretty good. I would like to try and get a bit more color and a bit more depth to the pictures...... so...without knowing much...

Gonna try shooting in manual mode... what are the Most common and typically the best settings for aperture, shutter speed and iso speed for say sunny clear Cozumel?

 

[alcina]

Head to the Pink Link coz there's a whole section just for this very question!

The keys to colour are getting close and then getting closer. If you aren't close enough for your internal flash to light the scene, you won't get the best colour. Know your minimum focus distance and get that close, but no closer or you'll get the blurries.

Have fun!

 

[river_sand_bar]

Thanks Alcina.... went all through it last night... wow, got lots to think about while I am under water... I think what I am going to try is different settings on each dive and see which works the best.

I am only going to Cozmel for 2 days, so I am hoping to get in about 5 dives in those 2 days. AT least I will get 5 chances to change things up a bit.

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

I agree that it's get close and then get closer to get the best images from your camera. "Auto" doesn't usually work so well underwater so I'd recommend either going manual as you are talking about or at least shooting aperture or shutter speed priority so you have some control and the camera then will do the rest. I would consider aperture priorty for life that is not moving quickly. If you happen to get a chance to dive with something fast, like dolphins, shutter priority works better (IMHO).

To answer your first question, in Cozumel I usually jump into the water with ISO 200, f/8, and 1/125. I'll then take a couple of shots of the water and adjust my shutter speed to get the background I want (faster shutter speed = darker background). I then shoot a rock or something to see how the aperture looks and consider strobe to subject distance. It sounds a little complicated but it's really not once you shoot for awhile.

 

[alcina]

Note: I think debersole is diving a dslr rig that handles high ISO much much much better than any compact.

For the compact camera set, I'd still recommend setting it to your lowest ISO possible as they do not handle noise from higher ISOs well. I try to never go over 100, if possible, on the compacts.

Edit coz I'm a gumby and had debersole in the wrong camp!

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

Sorry, I should have mentioned I shoot a Canon 40D DSLR that handles higher ISOs much better than your point & shoot. I agree that you should keep your ISO as low as possible to avoid the "noise".

Sorry about that!

 

[diverrex]

I use the Canon A620. I was in Coz 3 weeks ago. I've had best luck with ISO 100, f5.6 and 1/125. Then shoot and adjust accordingly to the light that day. One thing to remember is that it really helps with small things up close to use macro mode. Here is a macro shot I made in Coz back in May.