Newbie frustrated with Sea Life

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Joy,

For easy snapshot-quality photos, I love the GoPro Hero4. With no lights and with only one button to push underwater, I'm super happy with it. The trade off is that you need to set it up correctly and you need to use a computer after your dive.

Details of how I use it are here: Easy One-Button Scuba Photos with GoPro Hero4.

Below are some pictures I look last week at around Playa del Carman. The first two are in about 50ft of salt water and the second two are in about 30 ft of fresh water.

- Carl

Turtle.jpg
corel.jpg
light.jpg
cavern.jpg
 
Thank you!

---------- Post added February 4th, 2015 at 11:46 PM ----------

What do you suggest if I think I am more the happy snaps fish ID type? Right now I'd like to get larger scenes, fellow divers, fish, etc.
 
Thank you!

---------- Post added February 4th, 2015 at 11:46 PM ----------

What do you suggest if I think I am more the happy snaps fish ID type? Right now I'd like to get larger scenes, fellow divers, fish, etc.
The reefmaster meets my definition of a happy snap camera. It should do a good (to great) job of taking certain kinds of pictures. It will do a poor (to terrible) job of all others. You may be pushing it beyond it's happy place by trying to take those "other" types of pictures?

Can you provide samples or descriptions of pictures you are disappointed in? This will help others identify potential root causes. You have hinted at "dark" and "blurry" being issues.

Based upon "my interpretation" (which could be wrong) of the reefmaster specs I believe it would be good at the following very limited types of shots:
1) mid distance scenery (8 to 10 feet away) shots above 20 feet in clear caribbean waters
2) slow moving smallish fish (6-12 in) about 2 1/2 feet away from the camera below 30 feet in clear caribbean waters
3) slow moving smallish fish (6-12 in) about 2 1/2 feet away from the camera if in poor light and/or viz conditions

Are you getting okay pictures within these restrictions and bad ones outside of them? Then it is the camera. You will be able to buy better "happy snap" cameras, but not a whole lot better. It mainly comes down to the amount of light the camera can capture.

From a technical perspective the reefmaster lens does not capture much light (aperture is fixed F3.0) which means you need to stay shallow and rely on sunlight or be real close to your subject and rely on the built-in flash. Anything else will give a dark picture.

Lack of light will also lead to blurry pictures on automatic mod since the camera will take longer to grab a picture and hence will cause motion to blur the pictures.

The reefmaster also uses a fixed focus lens that can not focus any closer than 2 feet. Anything closer than 2 feet will be blurry. You need to move back.

But if you move back to far, then the onboard flash will not be able to provide enough light. I am guessing that anything further away than about 3 or 4 feet will be beyond the range of the flash. And hence will be dark, unless you are very near the surface and can rely on sunlight.

It may also be useful to have a good understanding of what types of pictures your camera "is bad at" so you can avoid those situations, or at least be willing to blame the camera and not yourself.

Some keys things to think about:
- onboard camera flash has very limited range underwater
- the more light the camera lens can capture the better - this is indicated by the maximum aperture, smaller value is better!
- for close up shots of big things you need a lens that can do "wide angle"
 
Thank you so much. This is very helpful and I think explains a lot if my frustration. I do get good shots under those conditions you describe but I am rarely diving them. I do a lot of local low vis diving and if I'm in the ocean, I'm deeper. Like 60 ft usually. Thank you for taking time to share your expertise! This helps!
 
I will just add that my first strobe was the standard sealife strobe. (yellow one). Then after losing the camera at sea I got the new digital pro strobe. It made a huge difference. It can adjust the light intensity either manually or using its own range finder. This greatly reduced my over exposures. That and using a diffuser.
 

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