Roatan with Canon G9 and natural light

[Blueskys4ever]

I would like to share the photos I shot with a G9 inside the Canon DC-21 housing.

Blueskys4ever : photos : Roatan Honduras- powered by SmugMug


What do you think of this point and shoot camera with a total investment of $615.

Camera $450
Housing $165

 

[JDelage]

Pretty good pics but there is an obvious color cast. You might be able to correct that in post production on your PC if you took RAW pictures.

 

[under water]

I see from your notes that you did not use flash. Unless you are using a filter or have white balanced at the depth, you really do need to use the flash (with diffuser) for the closer shots. (Grouper).
Great composition in the shots!
One thing that I have learned is that you can get an even better shot if you shoot from the bottom up a bit rather than looking down. Not always easy to do though.

 

[scottg541]

I would like to share the photos I shot with a G9 inside the Canon DC-21 housing.

Blueskys4ever : photos : Roatan Honduras- powered by SmugMug


What do you think of this point and shoot camera with a total investment of $615.

Camera $450
Housing $165

Nice shots, as previously mentioned, well composed.

Natural light is easier in some respects (do not have to figure out strobe), but much harder in others (everything else).

Hopefully you shot them in RAW and can draw some color back, here's a couple quick hack jobs to show the difference in doing some manual color alterations to compensate.

I shoot ~80% without a flash. Have to stay above ~45' just to retain enough red to keep color natural... Adding a flash adds alot of hassle and extra things to think about, which usually diminishes thoughts of composition, which IMHO is terribly under emphasized to those starting out...

Nice shots,
Scott

 

[Luv2dive4pics]

Were you shooting in manual mode? if so did you use the underwater white balance setting? I found I was shooting mostly natural ligh the first time I took my setup down, will probably continue to till I get comfortable and then use my external strobe.

 

[under water]

I would like to share the photos I shot with a G9 inside the Canon DC-21 housing.
What do you think of this point and shoot camera with a total investment of $615.

BTW. Forgot to mention that I have the exact same setup.. (G9 + DC-21 ) with an external Sea & Sea YS-27 DX Strobe and a focus light. Still waiting for an opportunity to try it U/W.

 

[Dave C]

Great, classic shot of the black grouper. I am a snorkeler and shoot almost all my shots with available light at depths <15 ft. They can sometimes turn out pretty good. However, if I go down to 20 ft., I start to notice some color loss in my photos that post-processing cannot totally correct. By the way, I went to Roatan a couple of years ago and loved it.

 

[Blueskys4ever]

Thanks for all the helpful comments. This my first dive into underwater photography and I have found all the comments useful.

I turned on the gridlines option on the display menu and took most all shots using the rule of thirds. This helps me compose the frame. The rest comes from my eye.

I really liked the color correction, done in the above post. I will have to explore the Canon software and see if I can do this on my own.

In the future, I plan of upgrading to a better housing that supports the ETTL circuitry.

 

[Blueskys4ever]

Were you shooting in manual mode? if so did you use the underwater white balance setting? I found I was shooting mostly natural ligh the first time I took my setup down, will probably continue to till I get comfortable and then use my external strobe.

I shot all pics in the scene -underwater mode. This is as automatic as it gets. Yes, it has automatic white balance correction.

 

[bperrybap]

Not sure about the G9 but on the SD850is the underwater SCN mode doesn't work very
well. There is way too much blue still in the photo not much different from auto.
However, when I shoot with a custom white balance, the photos have great natural
looking color - without having to do any post editing.
In the Caribbean there is often white sand and that makes it really easy to white balance.
Simply point the camera at the sand, do the custom white balance and shoot your shots.

What makes it really easy is to assign the "print" button to the custom white balance
function.
Then you get single button white balance.
Anytime you need to adjust your white balance,
(which needs to be done quite often on normal dives) simply point the camera
at something white and push the print button. Can't get much simpler.

If no white sand, then you need a white slate.

--- bill