Manual white balance

[Interceptor121]

Or just shoot RAW and fix it later

You can use lots of things to calibrate white balance if you dont have a card. Lots of places have white sand for example. Here and other places we use the awful alminium tanks whose only saving feature is they're a neutral gray in color.
You CAN use the palm of your hand to get it approximate too.

As said though to calibrate properly you need to have the card about the same distance from you as the intended suject and at the same angle. And redo this whenever you change depth. Remember to ensure the white card is properly exposed. A camera will tend to underexposure a white card (as its trying to make the scene grey) if you don't intervene.

Camera UW modes are problematic in that they're calibrate for certain waters at a certain depth only (typically blue water 10m or so) so once you deviate from that its not accurate. Manual is better.

Me? I shoot RAW on compact and DSLR

That works if he has RAW...and for macro you shoot with a light anyway

 

[String]

Im not buying any camera for UW again that doesnt have raw (either native like some olympus or hacked like any canon with CHDK). Its too useful.

 

[Interceptor121]

The canon CHDK RAW shooting includes such a lag when you shoot RAW that is not actually worth it.
For an SLR yes for a prosumer naish

 

[turnpikemike]

I used to use a slate that I carry in a pocket, but it didn't work that well because it was never really as far away as some of the things I was taking pictures of. Now I use the dive flag spool my dive buddy carries. And of course I also use some editing software after the fact (Windows Photo Gallery and Picnik on flickr are the easiest and free-est, but sometimes I use photoshop), but I think manually adjusting the levels beforehand makes it better in the long run

 

[John_B]

Im not buying any camera for UW again that doesnt have raw (either native like some olympus or hacked like any canon with CHDK). Its too useful.

Nice to see Canon adding raw support to the S90, like with the G11 (they seem to be using the same sensor). That means raw support from DPP and, eventually, Lr 2.6... My biggest issue with CHDK was lack of support in my standard workflow tools; I simply wasn't interested in adding an additional unnecessary step.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Althoug Jonix is technically correct the reality is that with internal flash you can only shoot macro and for macro it is actually better to use the camera UW setting unless you have complete control of aperture and shutter speed

This because when you shoot macro your light is the dominant source and you are not interested in the background colors besides if you have a Nudi with white spots those will tend to be over exposed

Internal flash is not what I would use for macro photography. I suggest you do a yahoo or google search for definitions of macro photography. For the most part I think macro is so close to the lens that the flash is partially blocked by the lens.

File:Nokia Nst-4 macro photo mode.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you click on the above link you can easily see that the upper right of the image is over exposed and the lower left is in the lens shadow. An external strobe(s) or ring strobe is necessary to get proper lighting on what I consider macro photography.

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Does a photo where an entire 5' long eel is framed qualify as macro? The following link is a photo album with only stock flash photography, and the only shots that look like macro were cropped.

GreaterUluaFlash - halemano's Photos- powered by SmugMug

The photo below is taken with the stock internal flash, and the background colors are important IMHO.

​

 

[John_B]

Who was the senator that said he couldn't describe macro photography, but he knew it when he saw it?

 

[jonix]

Althoug Jonix is technically correct the reality is that with internal flash you can only shoot macro and for macro it is actually better to use the camera UW setting unless you have complete control of aperture and shutter speed

This because when you shoot macro your light is the dominant source and you are not interested in the background colors besides if you have a Nudi with white spots those will tend to be over exposed

very true, with the internal flash is in reality only good for macro. with wide angle without a strobe i turn off flash and set wb manually at depth. i also shoot in manual exposure mode all the time playing with aperture and shutter speed. why manual as interceptor mentioned? because in my case i use a canon a570 which doesn't shoot raw and setting wb lessens time in post processing by getting close to the right colors every time. for some the background isn't as important as the foreground, me i prefer having a background for my macro photos. btw, past 2 years i've been shooting with a strobe so my wb woes are gone hehehe

but of course if you can shoot raw then wb won't be an issue, go shoot raw.

cheers!

 

[jonix]

Who was the senator that said he couldn't describe macro photography, but he knew it when he saw it?

 

[bvanant]

Who was the senator that said he couldn't describe macro photography, but he knew it when he saw it?

Not a senator but Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart back in 1963 or 1964. As for a description of macro photography to me it means taking pics at 1:2 to 1:1 magnification although I can stretch that probably 1:4, and super macro is anything more magnified than 1:1. I understand that for most P&S systems this might mean the internal strobe is partially blocked as Halemano says but for SLR systems you strobe setup all depends on the lens you choose to use. I would argue that neither the eel nor the occy are "macro" pics unless of course it was a really really tiny occy.
Cheers
Bill