Jeff,
Good pictures. It sounds like you didnt have any SeaLife camera at all before trying the DC1200. How experienced are you in underwater photography and in photography in general? It is hard to expect pictures that good from someone who had no experience before.
I wonder how deep you were while taking pictures. I guess that you couldnt dive much deeper than 30 with your son.
I am impressed with the difference between the DC1200 and the Reefmaster. External strobe and wide angle do matter.
Hey plok!
I had never used a SeaLife camera before this trip. In the past, I took a fair number of pictures with a Canon S500 and underwater housing, and learned about some of the basics of underwater photography. On dry land, I'm a very amateur photographer, that only takes general family type photos. I am an engineer (image science), but that's more about image reproduction, not artisitc photography.
I'm glad you liked the photos. Considering the hundreds that didn't turn out very well, maybe it was just dumb luck.
I can't recall my exact depth when taking the photos, but I was diving as deep as 100ft. Most of them are probably 50 feet or less. I force myself to do closeup work, unless shallow enough to get good sunlight. I really really want to get a turtle photo shallow or up close, but chances are slim.
All the diving with my son was in 15' of water. He and the other kids tended to kick up a lot of silt, so it was hard to get good photos after the first few minutes.
I'm not sure if it is fair to compare the reefmaster and DC1200 using my photos. The DC1200 was setup right, and I used it all week. The reefmaster only had internal flash, and was mostly used by my son or by me at shallow depths. If I had the reefmaster all week, I'm sure I could have gotten better pictures, but maybe not as good as the 1200.
