Canon G10

[scubajoli]

Has anybody managed to get their hands on a Canon G10 with either the Ikelite or Canon housing and more importantly tried it out underwater yet? I have been using the Sea & Sea 8000G for a couple of years and have never been happy so I am looking at other possibilities.

 

[ce4jesus]

From what I've been reading about the G10 you're probably better off with a G9. I've heard the housing will not accept any wet conversion lenses which limit your abilities with the camera. Why are you unhappy with the Sea&Sea?

 

[scubajoli]

Thanks for answering so quickly. Basically, I'm unhappy with the S&S because of the unacceptable noise levels. I have a few photos (out of the 1000's I've taken) that I'm happy with, but not enough. Above water I use a Nikon D200, D70 and a Canon S3IS so the S&S has a lot to compete with! Saying that, I think that the housing is great, with all the controls being easy to use. The manual white balance works well also. It's just that I like to blow up my photos and this camera's noise levels does not allow it.

 

[rjsimp]

Thanks for answering so quickly. Basically, I'm unhappy with the S&S because of the unacceptable noise levels. I have a few photos (out of the 1000's I've taken) that I'm happy with, but not enough. Above water I use a Nikon D200, D70 and a Canon S3IS so the S&S has a lot to compete with! Saying that, I think that the housing is great, with all the controls being easy to use. The manual white balance works well also. It's just that I like to blow up my photos and this camera's noise levels does not allow it.

The noise levels is one of the major complaints I and several others had with the camera. Even at ISO 100 the noise was pretty bad in the blues.

Sea & Sea uses one of the cheapest cameras it can to put in its housings and then charges a premium for it. I hope someday people will realize this before they make the expensive mistake and build a good camera system starting with a good camera to begin with instead of buying Sea & Sea's (Ricoh) cameras.

 

[hammerhead man]

I had the DX-8000G and was very happy with it. I never printed pics beyond the 4X6 size but I believe that they would come out alright. If you click on photos link you can see several pics that I took with the 8000G in fiji. I have read reports about noise above to ISO 200 level but I take all photos at ISO 100 and have not seen the noise mentioned.

I now own the DX-1G and am very happy with that camera. It is a great above water camera as well as an underwater camera. I love the built-in wide angle lens.

Just my thoughts

Regards,

Bill

 

[rjsimp]

I had the DX-8000G and was very happy with it. I never printed pics beyond the 4X6 size but I believe that they would come out alright. If you click on photos link you can see several pics that I took with the 8000G in fiji. I have read reports about noise above to ISO 200 level but I take all photos at ISO 100 and have not seen the noise mentioned.

I now own the DX-1G and am very happy with that camera. It is a great above water camera as well as an underwater camera. I love the built-in wide angle lens.

Just my thoughts

Regards,

Bill

Even in your photo gallery (nice shots btw) for Fiji I can see noise a lot of noise. Take your original photos, and zoom into 100%, you will see the noise as off color specs all over in the photo.

That's a huge complaint I had and others have had because the same shot with a cheaper setup would look so much better. Better clarity, noise levels, and colors.

 

[Eskasi]

Noise Ninja in Photoshop will help loads

 

[rjsimp]

Noise Ninja in Photoshop will help loads

Yes, at the expense of detail.. I have used it and even tried cleaning up photos from the 8000G with noise ninja.. All depends on your level of expectations on the final result.

My tasts are that I love pulling the raw photo from the camera with really no need for cleanup or modification to make it look good. Starting from that, I can always enhance it a little here and there.

 

[hammerhead man]

To be honest, I printed those pics out as 4X6 photos and cannot see any defects with my eyes (and I have had lasik ). when does the noise become evident to the naked eye? Is there a problem when you enlarge to 8X10 or larger? I am just wondering if the average person would even notice the difference?

Regards,

Bill

 

[rjsimp]

To be honest, I printed those pics out as 4X6 photos and cannot see any defects with my eyes (and I have had lasik ). when does the noise become evident to the naked eye? Is there a problem when you enlarge to 8X10 or larger? I am just wondering if the average person would even notice the difference?

Regards,

Bill

I guess it depends on if you are sensitive to it or not.. it is there, looks almost like film grain in your pictures. I was able to see it on many of your uploaded pictures, but again, unless you are sensitive to it, you can easily look past it.

As for printing it out. at 4x6, you may not notice it because again, the printers are only capable of so much and it blends together. I noticed it and didn't like it at all. Using photoshop it became very apparent and when I compared them to pictures out of other cameras it was even worse. When the noise level is down, everything in the picture looks much crisper and clean. Its hard to show you without an original file and ideally a similar picture taken by another camera. But just in the blue area which many underwater pictures contain, I could show you a blow up of what I am talking about. I'll go digging for some pics I have from the 8000G and post them up.

I print many of mine at 13x17 and use them for wall pictures and you would never do that with 8000g pictures and be happy.