Finally gave u/w photography a try...

[Blue Moon]

While we were packing for our trip to Grand Cayman in October, I realized that my camera was broken so we ended up not taking a camera with us... We were fortunate to dive with several underwater photographers on that trip as well as have a chance to check out Cathy Church's shop at Sunset House.... All very inspirationally...

Anyway, I decided to replace my camera with a digital one that I could use for u/w photography... While I wanted a dSLR, I decided that it would be more practical to learn with a point and shoot....

Time got away from me but finally, the day before we left for Cozumel in February, I was able to pick up the following locally in Dallas....

Camera: Canon S80 - I'm using Canon's new point & shoot. It has an 8 Megapixel CCD, 2.5 inch wide viewing angle LCD and the menu is easy for me to use... I wanted a Canon 5D to take advantage of some Canon L glass that I have but decided that I would be better off learning u/w photography with a Point and Shoot... This one is small and easy to travel with. If I flood it learning, no big deal.. Good review at: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons80/

Housing: Canon WP-DC1 - This is the standard Canon housing made for this camera. Good to 130 feet (40M), good design for a newbie like me, plus it was very reasonable. I only paid $170ish for it locally in Dallas at Competitive Camera. Best of all, they had it in stock the day before my trip...

Strobe: Sea & Sea YS-90 - Picked it up locally in Dallas the day before I left to Cozumel from my friends Larry & Joe at www.ScubaToys.com.

I went in and told Joe and Larry my plan to try u/w photography... Since I was on the next flight to Cozumel, they gave me the abridged version of how to get started in U/W photography in the 5 minutes that I had to spare.... Joe said to remember "...F8, get close, if you think you are close enough, then get closer, and don't forget to shoot up...." Joe told me this several times over the course of a couple of minutes and then brought in Larry to reinforce the message.... Turned out to be good advice. Christi of Blue XT Sea diving also gave me additional advice that was helpful when we were diving with her team.

I had hoped to take a private lesson with Armando & Holly Alentado of Island Photo & Video of Cozumel as they came highly recommended; however, while they were more than happy to accommodate our crazy schedule, we just could not fit it in... I really hope to be able do this on our next trip....

Since Joe, and my nitrox instructor Larry, assumed that I'd do as instructed and get close, they suggested the YS25. These guys never try to up sell me so I suspect the YS25 would have been fine, especially since this was my first try at U/W photography.

As soon as I got home with my new toys, I did some quick research and found several posts that suggested the YS90 might be a better long term solution for me.... I called Joe back and he graciously stays late to keep the store open so I can come back and trade up for the YS90.... Even though he keeps the store open late, I get there and he offers to let me take the YS25 to try out and tells me that I can trade up when I get back... I decide to get the YS90 anyway but really appreciate his offer as well as keeping the store open for me late on a week night... They are really amazing when it comes to customer service...

Anyway, I had a lot of fun with my first attempt... I've been too busy since I returned to spend any time yet playing with my images, however, I did manage to finally post the first 15 or so to my Scuba Board gallery.... Here they are:http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=52566

If I ever get the time, I'll post some more.

 

[alcina]

Great report and great images! Love the hawksbill

Looking forward to more!

BTW - I think you made the right call on the strobe...more is better

 

[Dee]

Very nice! I agree....nice strobe choice. The YS90 will move with you if you ever upgrade to something bigger.

 

[SharkLover]

Nice Pics Blue Moon. I too have read the reviews on the S80 and wil be buying one soon. In general, can you share any issues/best practices with using the camera both above and below the water?

Thanks

While we were packing for our trip to Grand Cayman in October, I realized that my camera was broken so we ended up not taking a camera with us... We were fortunate to dive with several underwater photographers on that trip as well as have a chance to check out Cathy Church's shop at Sunset House.... All very inspirationally...

Anyway, I decided to replace my camera with a digital one that I could use for u/w photography... While I wanted a dSLR, I decided that it would be more practical to learn with a point and shoot....

Time got away from me but finally, the day before we left for Cozumel in February, I was able to pick up the following locally in Dallas....

Camera: Canon S80 - I'm using Canon's new point & shoot. It has an 8 Megapixel CCD, 2.5 inch wide viewing angle LCD and the menu is easy for me to use... I wanted a Canon 5D to take advantage of some Canon L glass that I have but decided that I would be better off learning u/w photography with a Point and Shoot... This one is small and easy to travel with. If I flood it learning, no big deal.. Good review at: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canons80/

Housing: Canon WP-DC1 - This is the standard Canon housing made for this camera. Good to 130 feet (40M), good design for a newbie like me, plus it was very reasonable. I only paid $170ish for it locally in Dallas at Competitive Camera. Best of all, they had it in stock the day before my trip...

Strobe: Sea & Sea YS-90 - Picked it up locally in Dallas the day before I left to Cozumel from my friends Larry & Joe at www.ScubaToys.com.

I went in and told Joe and Larry my plan to try u/w photography... Since I was on the next flight to Cozumel, they gave me the abridged version of how to get started in U/W photography in the 5 minutes that I had to spare.... Joe said to remember "...F8, get close, if you think you are close enough, then get closer, and don't forget to shoot up...." Joe told me this several times over the course of a couple of minutes and then brought in Larry to reinforce the message.... Turned out to be good advice. Christi of Blue XT Sea diving also gave me additional advice that was helpful when we were diving with her team.

I had hoped to take a private lesson with Armando & Holly Alentado of Island Photo & Video of Cozumel as they came highly recommended; however, while they were more than happy to accommodate our crazy schedule, we just could not fit it in... I really hope to be able do this on our next trip....

Since Joe, and my nitrox instructor Larry, assumed that I'd do as instructed and get close, they suggested the YS25. These guys never try to up sell me so I suspect the YS25 would have been fine, especially since this was my first try at U/W photography.

As soon as I got home with my new toys, I did some quick research and found several posts that suggested the YS90 might be a better long term solution for me.... I called Joe back and he graciously stays late to keep the store open so I can come back and trade up for the YS90.... Even though he keeps the store open late, I get there and he offers to let me take the YS25 to try out and tells me that I can trade up when I get back... I decide to get the YS90 anyway but really appreciate his offer as well as keeping the store open for me late on a week night... They are really amazing when it comes to customer service...

Anyway, I had a lot of fun with my first attempt... I've been too busy since I returned to spend any time yet playing with my images, however, I did manage to finally post the first 15 or so to my Scuba Board gallery.... Here they are:http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=52566

If I ever get the time, I'll post some more.

 

[Blue Moon]

Alcina & Dee,

Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback. I've been lurking for awhile and I'm really impressed with each of your image galleries! Looking forward to continuing the journey.

Best regards,

Geryl (Blue Moon)

 

[Blue Moon]

Nice Pics Blue Moon. I too have read the reviews on the S80 and wil be buying one soon. In general, can you share any issues/best practices with using the camera both above and below the water?

Thanks

SharkLover,

Thanks for the nice note and hope you like your S80. Regarding your question, I've only used my S80 for about a short time so I'm certainly not an authority at all on the subject and I'm sure that many others on this list are far more qualified to answer your questions.

From my standpoint as a novice, I can say that so far I've been very impressed with the camera for a point and shoot, especially the quality of the images that I shot in super-size mode. As for diving, I only had six days to dive with it so far and have not had a chance to really experiment with it but here are my initial thoughts....

I wish that I would have experimented more with the white balance and other manual settings while in Cozumel. I shot most of the images with the camera's U/W mode selected and F8 based on my 5 minute U/W education. While I had decent results for my first try, I'm also sure that someone shooting in manual, that knows what they are doing, would get much better results.

Besides the basic package that I described above, including the camera, strobe, and Canon housing, I also purchased a SanDisk Extreme III 1.0 GB SD card and one extra battery for the camera.

Here is how I used mine during the trip:

For starters, I tried to keep one of the batteries charged at all times. So as soon as I'd take one out, it would go on the charger. I found the battery to last without problems for two boat dives of what I thought was pretty aggressive shooting. I replaced the battery between the second boat dive of the day and my night dive just to be safe...

I downloaded my images to my notebook PC as soon as I returned from the second boat dive every day. Then I backed up the images to my iPod just to be safe before I deleted the images off my camera. Having them on my iPod allowed us to view them with friends over dinner. It added to the digital experience and made it even more fun...

I found that I could easily store 250 plus images shot in super-size mode on the 1 Gb card and that was about all I could manage to shot during two morning boat dives and still pay some attention to my girlfriend who was enjoying the reefs of Cozumel for the first time as a new diver... I think I shot 288 images one day but that was really pushing it for me...The card still had room as did the battery...

Of course the external strobe batteries were a different story.... I replaced 4 AA's after each dive and would have replaced them sooner if I could have found a dry place at 80 feet I'm sure if I was shooting with a dSLR that this would be an issue as it seems that you could easily run out of strobe power...

I ended up leaving nearly 100 AA's with half life as a small part of my tip to the maid at Casa Mexicana. While I would have normally just trashed these, she seemed to really appreciate it... I plan to look into rechargeable options but for my next trip.

Overall, I'm happy with the camera but then again, I'm a novice with realistic expectations.... For me it was easy to use and I managed not to flood it, even with very little instruction.... The first day I shot without the external strobe and I was surprised at how well the images came out only using the internal strobe. That said, the images were clearly superior the next day when I added the external strobe to the set up.

Hope you enjoy your S80. Looking forward to staying in touch and seeing your images.

Best regards,

Geryl

 

[alcina]

I hope you were using rechargeables for the strobe!

I use 2100 - 2300's in my strobe and can shoot six or more dives easily without worrying about it. I don't usually shoot 250+ photos in two dives, but I would guess that I could shoot 500 - 600 frames with the strobe before my batteries died. I change them daily, but never on the boat - even on long dive days. Seems to work!

 

[Jim Ernst]

blue moon, look out you will become addicted to photography before you know it, your pictures are great from what i saw and i will have too look at the rest as soon as i have a moment, as i am swamped,just got back from the phillipines, the photography starts out cheap and goes way up from there , and id say you now have the bug, photog junkie bug that is, good luck with the knew toy and keep up the GREAT work!!!!

 

[SharkLover]

Thanks very much Blue Moon, I learn more everyday

I neglected to ask another question. Did you shoot any videos? I am thinking that I want to go straight to a 2gb card as that would work well with just about anything that I throw at it.

SharkLover,

Thanks for the nice note and hope you like your S80. Regarding your question, I've only used my S80 for about a short time so I'm certainly not an authority at all on the subject and I'm sure that many others on this list are far more qualified to answer your questions.

From my standpoint as a novice, I can say that so far I've been very impressed with the camera for a point and shoot, especially the quality of the images that I shot in super-size mode. As for diving, I only had six days to dive with it so far and have not had a chance to really experiment with it but here are my initial thoughts....

I wish that I would have experimented more with the white balance and other manual settings while in Cozumel. I shot most of the images with the camera's U/W mode selected and F8 based on my 5 minute U/W education. While I had decent results for my first try, I'm also sure that someone shooting in manual, that knows what they are doing, would get much better results.

Besides the basic package that I described above, including the camera, strobe, and Canon housing, I also purchased a SanDisk Extreme III 1.0 GB SD card and one extra battery for the camera.

Here is how I used mine during the trip:

For starters, I tried to keep one of the batteries charged at all times. So as soon as I'd take one out, it would go on the charger. I found the battery to last without problems for two boat dives of what I thought was pretty aggressive shooting. I replaced the battery between the second boat dive of the day and my night dive just to be safe...

I downloaded my images to my notebook PC as soon as I returned from the second boat dive every day. Then I backed up the images to my iPod just to be safe before I deleted the images off my camera. Having them on my iPod allowed us to view them with friends over dinner. It added to the digital experience and made it even more fun...

I found that I could easily store 250 plus images shot in super-size mode on the 1 Gb card and that was about all I could manage to shot during two morning boat dives and still pay some attention to my girlfriend who was enjoying the reefs of Cozumel for the first time as a new diver... I think I shot 288 images one day but that was really pushing it for me...The card still had room as did the battery...

Of course the external strobe batteries were a different story.... I replaced 4 AA's after each dive and would have replaced them sooner if I could have found a dry place at 80 feet I'm sure if I was shooting with a dSLR that this would be an issue as it seems that you could easily run out of strobe power...

I ended up leaving nearly 100 AA's with half life as a small part of my tip to the maid at Casa Mexicana. While I would have normally just trashed these, she seemed to really appreciate it... I plan to look into rechargeable options but for my next trip.

Overall, I'm happy with the camera but then again, I'm a novice with realistic expectations.... For me it was easy to use and I managed not to flood it, even with very little instruction.... The first day I shot without the external strobe and I was surprised at how well the images came out only using the internal strobe. That said, the images were clearly superior the next day when I added the external strobe to the set up.

Hope you enjoy your S80. Looking forward to staying in touch and seeing your images.

Best regards,

Geryl

 

[Blue Moon]

I hope you were using rechargeables for the strobe!

I use 2100 - 2300's in my strobe and can shoot six or more dives easily without worrying about it..QUOTE]

Alcina,

Again, thanks for the tip. Since I purchased my camera the day before I left, I did not have a chance to experiment with it to make sure that rechargeables would work well but I certainly plan to use them on my next trip. Thanks again for the tip!

Blue Moon