Is Flash Important

[Ingolf]

I'm looking at getting a new point and shoot camera, probably canon. and an u/w case for it.

Im not a photo nut, just so i can take nice pictures with minimal adjustments and whatnot. Mainly i'd be using the camera in pool sessions, Freshwater lakes in canada, and more than likely tropical climates like mexico etc. No cave diving, no night diving.. that i can forsee.

Is it all that important to have one of those separate flashes. Or can i get good shots without one.

And does anyone use newer canons and what are your thoughts

thanks

 

[divedadepths]

I have a fairly new sony (like maybe 1 1/2 years old). Its a point and shoot DSC-W7. I am looking into getting a strobe, but you could probably get away with just using the red filter. Its on the www.sonystyle.com for $100.

 

[miketsp]

It really depends on your objective in taking photos.

I enjoy the diving and just carry a small compact in my BC pocket to be able to register memories. I only take it out occasionally.
Taking photos is not the prime objective of my diving.
An external strobe would mean having the camera in my hand constantly although I admit that picture quality would improve significantly.

 

[friscuba]

You can take a lot of good photos without an external flash, but it may take some practice. Get started by getting to know your camera. With the Canons, you'll probably find the onboard flash is quite adequate for macro stuff. Once you figure out manual/custom white balance you'll be amazed at what you can do as far as wide angle and portrait type of shots in relatively clear water.

You'll probably also want to pick up some kind of photo editing program, the Canon's come with their own (my wife has it but hasn't loaded it on her computer, as we already had a photo editor, so I've no idea of it's capabilities) and there are plenty of others available that won't break the bank. Between practice on the camera and practice with the photo editor you'll end up getting some shots that might surprise you.

Almost every picture on my blog (linked below in my signature) was done on various Olympus cameras, with similar functions and abilities to the Canons, with nothing more than the onboard flash or no flash at all. I wasted a lot of shots getting photos I liked, but that's part of the fun. You can always add an external flash later on, getting to know your camera will help even then.

Have fun,

 

[Ingolf]

im not so keen on the closeup shots, more of the actual scuba divers themselves. And would i be able to apply a red filter later? I have the newest version of photoshop so it wouldnt be trouble.

 

[friscuba]

I'm thinking your red filter would be an actual red filter you attach in front of the port on your housing. For pool stuff you might not need it much, but for diving in tropical waters below 10 feet or so you'll probably want it.

I have had some luck cleaning up the blues with photoshop mucking around with the channel mixer and some of the color balance, but if you don't have enough light to catch the other colors then even that doesn't help for me. There's probably some photoshop whizzes who can fix lots of stuff I can't do anything with.

The white balance settings is something you'll really want to learn. It's great for when you have no filter or flash and you want to take the type of photos you are talking about. Take a look for "Gilligan" in the forums. He's a regular poster who does wondrous things with manual white balance. I think he has links to his page in his signature and it wouldn't surprise me if you can find an explanation of manual white balance on there. If not, he's explained it several times in past posts. What it all boils down to is you set the camera white balance to a manual setting, then show it something white or close to white (slate, sand, shop rag, etc.) and it'll recalibrate how it sees colors. It's a lighting condition specific setting, so you'd need to change it at different depths, but when you get it right, the color's dead on.