Let's chat about DSLR vs Point and Shoot - looking for some wisdom / experience

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Nah. You are wrong. You might want a better laptop for travel. I am fine with just about anything for travel. The technical requirements are quite low for first cut and moving files. That's all I'm going to do while traveling.

The majority of mobile devices (phones, tablets, laptops, etc) do not have color calibrated displays. I don't see the value in editing on a non-color calibrated device.
Once again, you are over-applying your land experience to u/w photos. Color u/w is a personal choice, not a quest for exactness. Color values change with range due to absorption of red by the water; this is true in the horizonal as well as in the vertical...the light doesn't care what direction it is traveling as it gets absorbed. So objects in the foreground are seen through less water than objects in the background...even with ambient light. With a strobe, you have the confounding effect of inverse-square light loss with distance...AND the absorption effect of the water. So the strobe light that reaches out to something X meters away is traveling through 2X meters of water, and losing red from the strobe as it goes. Even if you put a color card exactly at your subject, and color-balance to that card, anything at other ranges from your camera will be unbalanced.
 
Yeah, right. That pretty much makes you different from many other traveling photographers.
Shrug. It's probably something I learned when I was shooting film eons ago. You didn't get to review your images until they were developed. Unless you developed them yourself there was always a lag.

Editing really needs to be done on a monitor that is color calibrated. At a minimum you should have a known color temperature of the monitor set. Some of the Apple laptops are good enough to edit on. Apple really specializes in this. The bulk of the rest are not calibrated and most can't have the color settings adjusted very much.

You can get a device called a spyder that will simplify calibration on your monitor if you want to get good. The spyder reads the colors and can be used to calibrate the monitor to be accurate. Anyone earning a living from their work is editing on color calibrated equipment in a controlled lighting environment. This lets you get the most accurate view of the image and prevents "color shift" when you output the image on media.

I had a printing company for 10 years when I grew tired of IT consulting. Printing is slightly different in that you are usually working with pantone colors. However it's nice to print something and have it look like you saw it and how it appeared on the computer. How you saw it can and often is manipulated to create a more attractive image, but nonetheless. Nothing is worse than printing an image and having the colors shift from what you saw on the computer.

To get accurate color reproduction you need a color calibrated display for editing and a decent printer that has the right ICC profile loaded for the inkset in use. Every inkset has slightly different behavior.
 
Shrug. It's probably something I learned when I was shooting film eons ago. You didn't get to review your images until they were developed. Unless you developed them yourself there was always a lag.

Editing really needs to be done on a monitor that is color calibrated. At a minimum you should have a known color temperature of the monitor set. Some of the Apple laptops are good enough to edit on. Apple really specializes in this. The bulk of the rest are not calibrated and most can't have the color settings adjusted very much.

You can get a device called a spyder that will simplify calibration on your monitor if you want to get good. The spyder reads the colors and can be used to calibrate the monitor to be accurate. Anyone earning a living from their work is editing on color calibrated equipment in a controlled lighting environment. This lets you get the most accurate view of the image and prevents "color shift" when you output the image on media.

I had a printing company for 10 years when I grew tired of IT consulting. Printing is slightly different in that you are usually working with pantone colors. However it's nice to print something and have it look like you saw it and how it appeared on the computer. How you saw it can and often is manipulated to create a more attractive image, but nonetheless. Nothing is worse than printing an image and having the colors shift from what you saw on the computer.

To get accurate color reproduction you need a color calibrated display for editing and a decent printer that has the right ICC profile loaded for the inkset in use. Every inkset has slightly different behavior.
It is certainly nice that you know everything, but it makes me wonder why you ask questions...other than as an opportunity to expound on tangents.
 
It is certainly nice that you know everything, but it makes me wonder why you ask questions...other than as an opportunity to expound on tangents.
I didn't ask about computers or editing. You jumped in with snarky remarks about my choice of computer equipment. Then you had more snarky remarks about my editing process. Shrug. It works for me and I've made a decent amount of money from my photography activities.
 
I didn't ask about computers or editing. You jumped in with snarky remarks about my choice of computer equipment. Then you had more snarky remarks about my editing process. Shrug. It works for me and I've made a decent amount of money from my photography activities.
Good luck underwater. You are not looking for wisdom or experience, you are looking for affirmation.
 
Good luck underwater. You are not looking for wisdom or experience, you are looking for affirmation.
It's always nice when a complete stranger tells me what I'm thinking.
 
Yikes! Come on guys.......Everyone has an opinion from various levels of experiences and expertise.

I thought this was supposed to be about choosing a camera set up? At least I did when I added a few comments pages back.........

I'll bet if we were all together on a dive trip we'd have fun discussions over a beer or whatever :)

I know I would as life is short and arguing is a waste.

Just one old guy's opinion!

DH

Emma1.jpgEmma3.jpg
 
This has been a fun thread and I do appreciate the positive contributions made by many folks. The ship has sailed and I've started throwing darts at the pieces I will use to build my next UW photo rig. I appreciate folks making the argument for the other camera brands. I wouldn't have looked at them before this thread.
My big realizations from this thread and the research it inspired:
1) DSLR is dying and being replaced by mirrorless.
2) Olympus makes a pretty decent camera that is affordable. A nice spot for my personal photography interests.
3) There are some very impressive compact cameras out there, even though I opted for an inter-changeable lens system. The TG-6 would have been my other choice if I had not been able to swing the E-M1.
4) Instead of diving with a do-all camera I need to learn to plan the photos I'm going to shoot on each dive and rig the camera for that. That's really no different then land photography as I swap lenses or gear for different situations and objectives.

I opted to go with an OM-D E-M1 Mk ii. As a few folks pointed out the Mk iii didn't bring anything to the table I would use. I went with an Ikelite housing and port system for the lenses I want to use. Ikelite has been a solid performer for me and Nauticam was really out of my budget. I did opt for the vacuum system for it as well.

Lens wise, I'm going with a Panasonic Lumix 7-14 for ultra-wide and wide-ish coverage (general dives) and a Olympus 60mm macro. That's a good starting point and Ikelite has good M4/3 port support for the available lens options.

I went with a used camera and lenses. That's always a little roll of the dice, but it's worked out okay for me in the past.
 

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