Fuji F30 - First Underwater Shots

[jkling17]

Sorry about posting this here but there isn't a Fuji Forum and this one seems to be a little busier than Canon.

Anyway, I was turned onto this site by C Chris last month at CoCo View, and built a little Web site to display a few of my uw pics. Jeff's UW Photography Page

I hope that you all like these!

Jeff

 

[Arizona]

Great pics and tips! On your website you mention:

"The photo pros at my resort in August used Olympus compact digitals w/ Olympus uw case, and the Inon UWL-105AD Wide Conversion Lens. I have to say that their shots were among the best I have ever seen, and simply put mine to shame. Please note that the 105 can also be used on land - so your $250 is really well spent and you get a true WA lens that can be used year round, not merely on dive vacations. Needless to say the 105 is on my list for next year!"

Would this be your pick for a first underwater camera? Any other opinions?

Thanks for sharing,

AZ

 

[jkling17]

Great pics and tips! On your website you mention:

"The photo pros at my resort in August used Olympus compact digitals w/ Olympus uw case, and the Inon UWL-105AD Wide Conversion Lens. I have to say that their shots were among the best I have ever seen, and simply put mine to shame. Please note that the 105 can also be used on land - so your $250 is really well spent and you get a true WA lens that can be used year round, not merely on dive vacations. Needless to say the 105 is on my list for next year!"

Would this be your pick for a first underwater camera? Any other opinions?

Thanks for sharing,

AZ

Hi Arizona,

Good question. I'm particular to the better brands: Fuji, Canon, Nikon and Olympus.

Fuji has got a lock on the super CCD that allows a compact camera to have near-SLR quality. Check out the F30 review on dpreview.com - and see the last "compared to", where it is put up against a Nikon Digi-SLR at ISO 800 and 3X the cost. Yeah ... wow.

I do a fair amount of photography on land also - and absolutely love my Fuji. It is GREAT at low light and indoor photography without flash. The only thing that I'd like it to have is a 28mm lens. The F30 and 31 share the same 36-108 lens.

Granted the 30, 31fd are now considered discontinued. The 40 and 50 are their "replacements" but their shots will be a bit softer - they aren't quite the proper successor to the 30/31. But, they are still damn nice cameras.

To me - I'd rather try and find a F10, F30, or F31fd, all of which have fuji housings, can take Inon adapters/lenses, and can do manual white balance.

All that said ... if you can get a really good deal on a compact Olympus that does manual white balance and has manufacturer-made case - then that will work very well. Some of the Olympus cases have threads which allows for various options.

Good luck!

Jeff

 

[Arizona]

Jeff,

I bought the Olympus FE230 for 6900Baht at Fortune Town in Bangkok. Getting the housing was a different story. I had to look online as it seems Olympus is no longer stocking them. I ordered a new one from Ebay for 130 including shipping. The housing should be here in a few weeks.

Do you think 217 (6900baht) + 130 = 347 is okay. I have a liveaboard i will going on in October and want to get familiar with the camera before I leave.

Thanks,

Arizona

 

[jkling17]

Jeff,

I bought the Olympus FE230 for 6900Baht at Fortune Town in Bangkok. Getting the housing was a different story. I had to look online as it seems Olympus is no longer stocking them. I ordered a new one from Ebay for 130 including shipping. The housing should be here in a few weeks.

Do you think 217 (6900baht) + 130 = 347 is okay. I have a liveaboard i will going on in October and want to get familiar with the camera before I leave.

Thanks,

Arizona

Hi Arizona,

I did a bit of reading for you, on the FE-230. It seems like a nice basic P&S for snap-shots etc. However, it appears that the 230 lacks manual ISO. If If this is the case, then this will really hurt you, as you won't be able to tell it to use ISO 100 while diving.

It lacks flexibility for white balance - you CAN get around this via post processing in batch mode though. But I'm quite concerned that you won't be able to tell the camera to use ISO 100.

If the camera decides to do even ISO 200 shots won't be as nice, 400 or higher will be quite grainy.

I wish that I had better news to share with you. Is it possible to swap this out for another camera? Are you still in Bangkok?

I've emailed the dive pros at the resort in Honduras to see which Olympus model they use. My setup is a Fuji F30. You may still be able to get a Fuji F30 or F31fd if you're in Bangkok, and this would be a great choice also. Most of the compact Canon line can do manual ISO and manual wb - but you'd have a to do a little reading to double check. I usually start at dpreview.com and then branch out from there only if I need to.

Regards,

Jeff

 

[jkling17]

Arizona,

I heard back from the photo pros (boy that was fast) at the resort. Their equipment is a bit dated now but perhaps still available in Bangkok or eBay. They have the Olympus SP-350 with Olympus housing. Other cameras in this series are SP-320 (newest - announced Jan 06), and SP-310.

The newest in this line is the SP-320 and seems to be available on eBay really cheap. Like the 350 is can do raw, manual ISO, manual WB, etc. If you can pick one of these up super cheap w/ the housing then I would do it.

Jeff

 

[Arizona]

No worries! I will work it out. I can return it if I really want to. The wife is happy regardless as she wanted something good in low light on land, compact and relatively cheap.

I plan on using it this weekend while diving if the housing arrives. I'll post a follow up. The following link shows the controls for underwater use:

Lesson 3 Underwater Photography Tips - Olympus Imaging America Inc.

This may be less than ideal, but it will do to start. The only real extra cost for me was the housing as my wife plans on using this for her work.

AZ

 

[DesertEagle]

Very nice photos!

The F30 is a great camera. I'm so happy that I bought my F31 before they were discontinued. A few weeks ago I took 400 photos at a friend's wedding and still had plenty of battery power. During the ceremony I shot at ISO 1600, with the lens zoomed to get above 1/60th. The F31's photos looked much better at ISO1600 than a friend's Canon SD850 at ISO 400 with IS.

White balance is huge. I sometimes wear a white glove on my left hand, which makes WB so much easier. My other camera is an Olympus SP-310 w/ Sea&Sea wide angle lens. The Fuji is light years faster, but the Olympus does have a more intuitive layout. I've also learned to use lithium CR-V3 batteries on the SP-310. It's a camera that doesn't like NiMH.

 

[jkling17]

Arizona,

I'm glad that the camera will have other uses for you! In theory ... if you stick w/ the UW modes the camera has, Olympus SHOULD have hard coded these modes for ISO 100 - especially the UW macro mode. I hope that they thought ahead on this for you!

You also may wish to coordinate w/ the liveabord to see if they have any Inon lenses for rent. Your housing has threads on it so some of those inon lenses just fit right on w/o an extra adapter. Also, there are 3rd party companies that these can be rented from, for a reasonable cost.

Best of luck!

Jeff

 

[jkling17]

Very nice photos!

White balance is huge. I sometimes wear a white glove on my left hand, which makes WB so much easier.

Thanks DesertEagle! White glove ... clever! If only as a joke I'll have to get one for my next dive trip !!!

Yeah I just love my Fuji. I got one for my exwife for Xmas last year. It was so great that I got one for myself a month later. I'm disappointed that their new line - the 40 and 50 don't have quite the same clarity and sharpness. But at ISO 100 for UW pics I'm not sure that I'd notice the difference on any print smaller than 20-30".

I'm also constantly shocked at how well it does in low light at high ISO on land. ISO 800 is just so darn good for simple snapshots! I'll still try to avoid 1600 unless I really need it - but it definately has it's place too - again just for quick snap shots.

Tx again for the compliment!

Jeff