New to UW Photography - Questions

[James connell]

http://www.rosco.com

a major supplier of gel filters to the movie industry. their 4" square sample pak is ideal. if you need you can get the gels in a sheet of ~ 18"x24" for ~$7.

get the sample swatches ( 1"x2") too.
they can be used to decide what you want too use.

bhphoto.com for the hard filter - mail order .
it has always amazed me how well video cameras correct color at depth - they seem much better at it than stills! it may not have been the red filter just the camera of your freind.

 

[ssra30]

Red filters seem to work very well for video but definitely not as well for camera. I am not sure how to explain this exactly. A friend who uses it for his video camera tried to explain something about different type of lens, adjustment etc on the video vs camera. For camera, I still think you will get better result with no filters and use photoshop to adjust color balance, level etc.

 

[Dee]

Lighting also is another big difference between video and stills. The way it was explained to me....the video lights are on all the time and aren't as bright and a red filter works with the light to replenish lost reds. In stills...the strobe is much stronger in that split second it's on, sort of like sunlight. The strobe provides the full spectrum light light so you don't need the filter.

The only time I've seen a red filter make a good difference was on a wide angle shot of a shipwreck in about 40ft of water.

 

[James connell]

ssra30 once bubbled...
For camera, I still think you will get better result with no filters and use photoshop to adjust color balance, level etc.

And here is the basic difference between the digital world and the photographer.

some hold that "photography" is "making light do what you want" Not using a computer to change numbers.
as a "purist" (read oldfashioned), i hold that any change made in the computer is NOT photography. is it art? yes, is it photography no.

there are some photographers who think that filters should never be used at all - for a more extreme version of the above.

 

[sailor025]

until you try white balancing. I took my photos at 60 and 40 feet with no flash and simply white balanced as I went down. Look at the grouper on the "wife, white balance, solo" thread and see how I did. That was at about 60 ft.

I'm not that great a photographer but I'm beginning to understand digital because it is simply a computer. At the surface your digital camera is no different than a film camera in that it is set up to operate similarly. At the surface, white is white. The HUGE difference between digital and film is that at 60 ft or in green water, you can show the camera what white looks like and it correctly "recalculates" color so that it gets it right. That means that at 60 ft white looks like blue and blue looks like really blue and red....well red has a blue tint. But each are different, even at that depth. So what you do is you hit menu (ok), right scroll once, down once, right again, down once again, right again, down to the little square, right, then point the camera at a white object and press ok. That will tell the camera what white looks like at that depth or in that color water. Since all other colors are simply a mathematical formula (to the camera) different, then the camera adjusts the formula accordingly and whites are white and reds are red etc.

I use one of the little boards we are supposed to write on under water as my white board. It works great.

I've only been able to try it on one dive but I think I understand how it works but just not sure if the camera is in extreme differences it will continue to work. At worst, you get less green, at best you get the right colors.

Rodney

 

[SM Diver]

sailor025 once bubbled...
Look at the grouper on the "wife, white balance, solo" thread and see how I did. That was at about 60 ft.

Uh, that's a snapper.

Wow, great shots! I will give that a whirl and see how it works. Thanks!

BTW, took some quicktime video with the 5050. Very cool. Audio sucks, but for a digitial camera, very nice video.