C-8080-Manual Mode settings, White balance, RAW write speed

[djanni]

First week in Dec. will be my first dives with the C-8080 & PT-023 housing. No strobe yet. Headed for Coz.

Is it safe to assume "manual mode is recommended?" If so can you offer some generalized settings; i.e. apeture and shutter speed, flash setting, etc. Do you know of a site that would address settings for various situations?

Do you really take a slate with you and set white balance every 3 feet or so? I know it's important but is it that important?

I can shoot RAW but can you adjust out all the cyan doing that?

As an aside... I can't speak for other cameras but the C-8080 seems to be notoriously slow writing RAW files. Dpreview said 12 seconds, another reviewer said 20 plus sec's which is closer to what I'd been getting until today. I ordered a Sandisk Extreme III rated at 133x. RAW file write time on my camera went from about 20 sec to 9 seconds. Pretty amazing huh!!?!

Don

 

[Dee]

First week in Dec. will be my first dives with the C-8080 & PT-023 housing. No strobe yet. Headed for Coz.

Is it safe to assume "manual mode is recommended?" If so can you offer some generalized settings; i.e. apeture and shutter speed, flash setting, etc. Do you know of a site that would address settings for various situations?

Do you really take a slate with you and set white balance every 3 feet or so? I know it's important but is it that important?

I can shoot RAW but can you adjust out all the cyan doing that?

As an aside... I can't speak for other cameras but the C-8080 seems to be notoriously slow writing RAW files. Dpreview said 12 seconds, another reviewer said 20 plus sec's which is closer to what I'd been getting until today. I ordered a Sandisk Extreme III rated at 133x. RAW file write time on my camera went from about 20 sec to 9 seconds. Pretty amazing huh!!?!

Don

I don't have an 8080 so I can't give you any model specific info. Peter has some great info on settings on other Oly models so I assume they would still apply.
http://splashdowndivers.com/photo_gallery/underwater_photography/index.html

Yes, I really do take a slate with me for WB. But I don't reset it every 3 feet, more like 10 or when the lighting conditions change, like when a cloud goes over. If I'm on the bottom, I'll use a patch of white sand.

You can change the WB in your RAW adjustments, it's easy. But I try to get it right the first time and not depend on the RAW adjustments if I don't have to.

20 sec. write speed! egads! My 5050 writes at about 6-7 with a Viking Pro 1g card.

 

[kapula]

First you really do need to adjust the white balance very often. Second you won't get any help from buying an extremely fast card since 8080 can't write more than something like x6. I have a link to a site that tells you more about that but I seem to have lost it. Need to find it again so that I can post it to you. I have dived only a few times with my 8080 but I've only used p-program and manual white balance. Mostly I don't use flash at all but you can use 8080's internal flash if water is clear and the subject is less than one metre from you. Check my croatian photos to see the results.

 

[djanni]

Dee:

I looked at Splashdown's site and I guess it's a good place to start. Thanks for the lead. Regarding the RAW write speed my raw files are about 11.5mb.

Don

 

[djanni]

Your Croatia pictures are very good. I hope I can come close to that. I'm glad to know you were not using an external strobe for those shots. That makes me feel a little more confident. Question: How deep were you for those shots?

Thailand: I'll be in Bangkok Sunday 10/30 thru Wed 11/2 - flying in from Singapore. It's a Biz trip with no time for diving I'm afraid. To the point... were those taken with a Canon A70?

Write speed... 11.5mb file - I timed it using a generic high speed CF card and got 18 sec's 3 times in a row. With the Extreme III @ 133x I timed it 3 times and got 9 sec's each.

I don't know what's going on inside the camera but that new card is fast!

Don

First you really do need to adjust the white balance very often. Second you won't get any help from buying an extremely fast card since 8080 can't write more than something like x6. I have a link to a site that tells you more about that but I seem to have lost it. Need to find it again so that I can post it to you. I have dived only a few times with my 8080 but I've only used p-program and manual white balance. Mostly I don't use flash at all but you can use 8080's internal flash if water is clear and the subject is less than one metre from you. Check my croatian photos to see the results.

 

[kapula]

Thanks Don! Croatia pics were taken in various depths from 5 metres to 32 metres. Lobster and spider crab were down in 30 metres or so. Those were taken with no white balance adjustment and internal flash.

Thailand pics are infact taken with a70. Can't wait to get there with my new set. So many things to shoot there and if you go to Similans (maybe not this time but go there ) water is clear and well liveaboard diving for my money is the best way to dive.

The site I referred to is this: http://www.molon.de/8080/ Hope it helps you.