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In ye olde film days, a set of color correction filters was de rigeur for any serious photographer, unless s/he shot only b&w. Enter the digital camera and the disappearence of color correction filters, because, hey, white balance can be adjusted digitally either before or after the shot. Tungsten lamps? Blue shade? Don't worry, just shoot raw and adjust WB during PP.
At least, that was what I believed until I started taking my digital camera underwater. G*d d*mn, that red channel was weak. 10 meters below the surface, and I had to abandon Lightroom and bring my photos into Photoshop to be able to wring enough signal from my red channel to avoid completely green pictures. And after using blunt force on my red channel, it was so noisy I had to resort to heavy noise reduction and suffered loss of detail. So, I started thinking of ye olde color correction filters. Slapping a magenta or 85B filter on the camera should dampen the green and blue channel quite a bit, making the red channel less underexposed. Nice theory, but is it done? I can't find much on the 'net about this.
So, are there anybody here who are using CC filters underwater? I'm seriously considering to buy a Wratten 85 and an FL balancing filter for the blue and the green water respectively, for WA scenery shots. Good idea or stupid idea? And what about flash gels? Topside, I almost always prefer to balance flash and ambient, often using a gel to color balance my flash with the ambient light. Is it possible to get flash gels for those WA shots to dampen the harsh difference between the daylight-balanced flash foreground and the blue/green background?
At least, that was what I believed until I started taking my digital camera underwater. G*d d*mn, that red channel was weak. 10 meters below the surface, and I had to abandon Lightroom and bring my photos into Photoshop to be able to wring enough signal from my red channel to avoid completely green pictures. And after using blunt force on my red channel, it was so noisy I had to resort to heavy noise reduction and suffered loss of detail. So, I started thinking of ye olde color correction filters. Slapping a magenta or 85B filter on the camera should dampen the green and blue channel quite a bit, making the red channel less underexposed. Nice theory, but is it done? I can't find much on the 'net about this.
So, are there anybody here who are using CC filters underwater? I'm seriously considering to buy a Wratten 85 and an FL balancing filter for the blue and the green water respectively, for WA scenery shots. Good idea or stupid idea? And what about flash gels? Topside, I almost always prefer to balance flash and ambient, often using a gel to color balance my flash with the ambient light. Is it possible to get flash gels for those WA shots to dampen the harsh difference between the daylight-balanced flash foreground and the blue/green background?
