G10- Manual settings and memory card

[divedadepths]

Hello everybody-
I have a G10 with the ikelite housing. For now i am just using my sealife slave strobe until i get my summer job back :depressed: (im 17) I going to St. Maarten with my family in a couple weeks and im going to Saba for a few days so i hope to get some good shots. My major question is about the Manual modes on the G10. before this camera i had a less impressive sony p and s and so i have never really used manual mode before. I have read in books but i still dont completely understand the different settings like ISO and fstop (i get shutter speed). idk how to use these above water, nevermined underwater. I was hoping somebody could help explain these settings to me and also say what they normally use. Also, some sample picts with the settings would be great!

My second question is the mem card. I will be shooting raw and so i was looking at best buy at the larger ones (8 or 16 gig). i was wondering what would be a sufficient writting speed? I have seen them range from 10 somethings to about 40 somethings, with the 40 somethings costing in excess of 3 benjamins--im really not looking to spend that kind of money. Thanks so much for all your help with these issues.

Max

 

[Nemrod]

One f stop equals doubling or halving the shutter speed and vice versa, for example, an exposure shot at f8 and 1/125 second shutter speed is the same as f5.6 at 1/250 second. However, you have to choose what is important, fast shutter to freeze action or lens opening (aperture--f sop) to emphasize depth of field.

Each increase in a full stop, 2.8 to 4.0 to 5.6 to 8.0 etc is halving the amount of light or increasing by a factor of two going the other way. Each halving or doubling of the shutter speed does the same thing, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500 etc.

As the opening in a lens becomes larger, a smaller f stop number, light transmission increases and depth of field decreases.

The "settings" you use in full manual are those your light meter suggests and then interpreted by your gray matter to achieve the results you seek. Go to the library and check out a book on general photography.

BTW, if you set the same "settings" in Manual that the camera's meter suggests then you will have the same exposure result as if you had left the camera in Auto. The purpose of Manual is to do something other than what the camera thinks is right, to achieve your mind's eye view, to cause an effect, to emphasize some feature you find interesting etc.

What the world needs is a digital camera with simple Auto and full Manual and knobs in a range finder format with a full size sensor, just like the good old days when all cameras had the same sensor size, 35mm film.

N

 

[Warmwater Wank]

Transcend 16GB sdhc/Class 6 cards run around $35. or less on Amazon, NewEgg etc. A 16mb card will hold about 640 RAW + JPEG Fine files (at least a dives worth, eh?) Not sure about the "somethings" you mentioned but a Class 6 sdhc works just swell in a G-10 and will easily keep up w/ the camera's write buffer. PQI cards also seem to work ok, may even be a bit less expensive. If you do some online digging you'll find reviewers that have no trouble recommending Transcend cards, even over the high-priced ones.

ISO? Well, f/stops adjust the amount of light and shutter speeds control how long the light hits the sensor and the built in light meter reads how much light there is in front of the camera. But how does the meter know how sensitive the sensor is to this light? ISO. It's a system left over from film days that tells the camera how sensitive the sensor is to this light.

If you go from ISO 100 to 200 the effect is the sensor will be twice as sensitive to light (sorta). The benefit is you could bump up the f/stop or shutter speed one "notch" or stop (double it) and the shot would not look lighter or darker. Quite handy as the light dims. The problem is, just like with film, as you raise the ISO the image quality can suffer. With film we called it graininess, w/ digital we call it noise. Some cameras deal w/ an ISO increase better then others.

Complicated? Not really but until you really understand it it will seem that way. If reading doesn't cut it there are videos, online courses, stickys on this forum etc. Once you understand exposure control better it actually gets much easier to know what to do to get the exposure effects you want. It's no longer accidental or just plain luck. You go from taking a snapshot to making a photograph... // ww