Green Pictures

[littlejohn]

The pictures I am taking are all green looking.
I was using the White Balance set to auto with no strobe at 60' with 40' vis
Would there be a better defult setting like normal or cloudy?

Camera is a 3.1 meg PixTreme

 

[gert7to3]

Cloudy might help. Also try a florescent light setting if you have one available. The best option is to use manual white balance and set it by using a white slate or something at depth. You would have to adjust the balance for different depths on a multi level dive.

 

[Doc Harry]

I get better results by leaving white balance on auto and then correcting the color in Adobe Photoshop via the Mandrake process.

When I tried to set the white balance at depth using a white slate, I still got green photos and the Mandrake process didn't work.

 

[PerroneFord]

The pictures I am taking are all green looking.
I was using the White Balance set to auto with no strobe at 60' with 40' vis
Would there be a better defult setting like normal or cloudy?

Auto white balance is the DEVIL! I believe the auto white balance assumes you have a full spectrum of color. You don't. You have nearly no red light. Do a histogram of your photo, and you'll see what I mean.

You're either going to have to filter, or manual white balance.

 

[ScubaBasics]

I agree, you will need to use a filter or use a dive slate to manually set your white balance. As your depth adjusts, you should reset the WB.

 

[mikerault]

This any better? You might consider getting a strobe.

 

[Doc Harry]

littlejohn,

I fooled around with your photo and got no better results that mikerault. You're always going to get green photos at depth without a strobe. You have the following choices:
-get a strobe
-get a red filter
-correct your white balance at depth
-leave white balance on auto and correct photos in Photoshop

I prefer the latter, using the Mandrake Process to add red back into the photo. I don't fully understand the process, but I think it substitutes another color channel for the red channel (which is missing all the data).

Here are some examples of my photos. The first photo is shot at 50 feet without a strobe using auto white balance. It is the original photo. The second photo is corrected using the Mandrake Process. This process won't work if you correct white balance at depth.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

The pictures I am taking are all green looking.
I was using the White Balance set to auto with no strobe at 60' with 40' vis
Would there be a better defult setting like normal or cloudy?

Camera is a 3.1 meg PixTreme

There are a number of nice for underwater 5 and up megapixel p&s that can be ebayed. Every now and then very nice housed cameras with large cards go for $300-$500. Good outfits can also be pieced together easily. Do yourself a favor; replace that camera. The recent cameras have made small improvements to image quality with the megapixel escalation (imho), but significant improvements were made from 3 to 5 megapixel

 

[jonix]

manual white balance. i second halemano on the new cam. tried playing with your photo in ps...no good.

 

[RAWalker]

There are new offererings from Intova (Pixtreme) with higher resolution and manual whitebalance. I know the 6mp model can be manually set. Also Pixtreme has slave strobes w/ housing available that come with a flex arm and tray model is PX-2100 and it can be found online for $100. You'll also need the optical trigger cable which runs about $15.
All the Intova line seem to be value priced and the newer cameras seem to be a great starter package.