JTB:
After LOTs of review of information here (thank you very much) I purchaced my A620. In preparation for my trip to Bonaire in September I am taking this step by step. One common suggestion throughout most posts say to "become familiar with the camers features on land". My question is what features should I focus on? I am familiar with phtography in general (Cannon SLR for land), but new to UW photography.
Next step will be to decide on case and strobe (or not). Any thoughts? Thank you.
Modes (A, Tv, S, M, whatever)
ISO settings
Aperture control in different modes
Shutter control in different modes
Custom WB
Flash On/Off
Metering mode
Preview or image review mode (if your camera has a historgram USE IT!)
LCD brightness/contrast
In general you need to be familiar with all the controls that you might use UW.
Something else that people often forget about these little wonders is that if you are shooting in S mode, and you have bright light, you may get cosistantly overexposed results. You stare in disbelief as the camera shoots one overexposed image after another. You shake your fist at the sky (or EEL) and curse, I mean what could go wrong, it's in an auto mode right? Then you realize, with such limited apertures (f8 on most) it's not all that hard to choose a shutter that is low enough so the minium aperture is not enough to prevent overexposure... doh.. :11doh:
I second the idea behind using the camera in the housing, maybe in the pool, before diving with it.
As for a flash, sure if you have room in your bag, and an extra $200-800 to spend on the thing. It will however add some task management to the whole process, and overexposure is a definate factor until you learn what works best. My cuz with here Sealife flash found that she had to keep it dialed down a good bit. So Maybe start low, and work up rather than her first attempt which was to start high and dial down. She missed some shots of some Nurse sharks in the process.
Have Fun!
