Candlelight Mode with the Canon S95

[Uncle Pug]

Candlelight Mode drops the resolution to 2.5mp but coupled with high ISO it makes available light photography at least possible.

We dove the Possession Point Ferry today and I played with the Canon S95 for the second time. Visibility wasn't really as bad as it can be at this site so there was decent ambient light.

These were all without flash.

1/60 sec @ f/2.0 ISO 1600 Doug WB adjustments made in Lightroom3


1/60 sec @ f/2.0 ISO 2000 Peter WB adjustments made in Lightroom3


1/60 sec @ f/2.0 ISO 2500 nudi Lighting is from the edge of an HID below and left


1/40 sec @ f/2.0 ISO 3200 <- very low ambient light yerf HID pointed up is adding small amount of bounce to the ambient light in the upper half of picture - lower half is not WB correct because of this

 

[Uncle Pug]

Really? 100 thread views and zero comments? Not even a, "Dude... your pictures suck!"

 

[Gilligan]

Interesting experiment in the "candlelight" setting. It drops the megapixel count but so what if the pic is just for the web.
I assume you shot them all in RAW?
With those high ISO settings did you have to correct much "noise"?

I'm impressed with the results.

And no, they don't suck.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Thanks for the comment... I was beginning to wonder if I'd fallen into a crack in the internets.

No RAW with candlelight mode. But not much noise to deal with. First two pictures have slight luminance smoothing and the WB was set with the eyedropper tool on the steel tank.

That last picture of the juvenile yellow eye rock fish at ISO3200 is straight out of camera, with no exposure correction, sharpening, color correction, cropping, noise reduction, ect. Simply exported to a 800x600 jpg and uploaded.

 

[Nemrod]

Really? 100 thread views and zero comments? Not even a, "Dude... your pictures suck!"

Mr. Pug, your shots are very interesting, thank for sharing, I assume that was Peter with the Oly ELP-1, are y'all scuba diving or space walking there .

Nice work, interesting experiment with the Candlelight setting.

N

 

[Gilligan]

I'm not a cold water diver but I can appreciate the quality you got with those shots in those conditions.

Since I shoot RAW all the time now I was wondering what kind of a gadget (since I am Captain Gadget) I can devise so as to have something white in a non-strobe open water shot where there is nothing white or gray to use the eyedropper on for the white balance?

I tried a small section of a white cable tie protruding out in the upper left external corner of the housing port since I could crop it out. Unfortunately it just created a shadow as was not white in the lens and photo. It has to stick out from the lens about 3" so as to not have a shadow. Any thoughts?

 

[Uncle Pug]

I assume that was Peter with the Oly ELP-1

Yes, that was Peter with the Oly. We were diving off of his boat. He mentioned that he had gotten advice from you. Thanks for the response.
UP

 

[Uncle Pug]

I'm not a cold water diver but I can appreciate the quality you got with those shots in those conditions.

Thanks. Some times it is so dark and there is so much stuff in the water that a picture of my hand using the onboard flash would look like I was in a blizzard of snow.

I bought this specifically because you had recommended it here.

Since I shoot RAW all the time now I was wondering what kind of a gadget ... white or gray to use the eyedropper on for the white balance ... Any thoughts?

We use steel tanks (neutral gray) so as long as I include a diver in the shot I have something for the eyedropper. With LR it is easy to just copy that WB to any other pictures taken at the same depth/lighting.

I've been meaning to make a gray plastic target to take along for setting WB and now with this camera I will probably go ahead and do it.

 

[Nemrod]

We were diving off of his boat. He mentioned that he had gotten advice from you.

Did the boat sink .


The candlelight mode is interesting, I will try it out with some surface shots since all my diving is done/canceled for me until spring or later thanks to my bone malfunction.

N

 

[Gilligan]

all my diving is done/canceled for me until spring or later thanks to my bone malfunction.
N

Sorry to hear that. I hope it all works out well for you.