ITS ALL GREEN!! Yikes!

[Hairyshark]

Hey all,

So I am new to UW photography. I bought a Sealife DC1400 and the housing. Since I dive the Gulf of Mexico, we tend to have a lot of green in the water, hence I choose the setting of greater than 25 feet and green water. The manual implies that the camera will address the green, well see pic below, got wayyyyyy more green than I wanted. What setting (s) did I get wrong? FYI - there was an algae bloom in progress.

 

[SeaLife Cameras]

Morning Hairyshark
Is it possible that the flash setting was set to ON or AUTO? If the flash fires, it will cancel the underwater white balance setting so the image does not get a double-dose red color correction (i.e. one from the flash and the other from the underwater color correction). Keep the flash turn OFF, unless you are shooting macro shots (within 12&#8221.
You can also contact us at techservice@sealife-cameras.com.

 

[Hairyshark]

Thank you for the response. I had basically set everything to auto, including the flash. Thank you for the information, Ihope to dive th is weekend and will change the flash setting and give it a go. Great camera, btw. So easy to use. I upgraded from an Intova, because your housing is so much easier to use and better quality pics and video as well.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Hairyshark, are you using any software to process the photos after you shoot them? There are a lot of them which will really help make your photos look more like what you saw when you were underwater. Lightroom is a little pricey, but worth the money if you want to take the time to do a decent amount of editing. Photoshop is a little much for many photographers, it lets you do amazing work but it's not designed for people who just want to do some simple global editing and maybe a little backscatter removal. VividFix VividPix software is not cheap, but it's less than half of what Lightroom costs, and it's super simple to use, with some pretty good global color change work but without any ability to do spot editing.

Adding a flash, or a stronger flash, will do more to keep the basic image like you wanted, but if you have $50 to $150 free, photo editing software makes a huge difference, and it will show in your albums and such.

 

[Hairyshark]

JahJahwarrior - thanks for the suggestion. I have been using photoshop for years, as I am an IT guy and need it for graphics work and some minor photo touch ups. I figured I might need to edit some of the photos, but wanted to start by getting as good an original as I could. I certainly need more practice, but always approeciate the good advice. Thanks.

 

[Marcp]

Hey Hairy Shark, I've discovered a program called: "FastStone", it lets you play with all the colours, so far its free......

 

[Hairyshark]

Sweeet! will check it out. thanks.

 

[Rayallyn]

I just purchased the DC1400 and made the same mistake of leaving the flash on. Unfortunately if the image is green and underexposed there is not much you can do to save image quality as the camera shoots Jpeg and every time you work the image and save it it will lose image quality. The camera would be great if it also shot images in RAW format. When I worked a photojournalist I mostly used RAW or TIFF and Jpeg for when I needed quick action shots or shot for a newspaper.
If you get I good image in Jpeg I feel it is best to convert it to a TIFF image before working on it.
Ray

 

[Hairyshark]

Thanks for the advice Ray. I switched my settings back to auto for now and need to get in some clear water and play with the settings. heading back to the keys in September, so hopefully will be better than up here off of Clearwater/St. Pete. We seem to always have algae blooms and snot in the water and that is making it hard to figure out my settings.

 

[Steve_C]

It was not clear to me if you were talking about the built in flash on the camera or the separate flash.