S90 Newbie

[rad21]

I recently purchased a refurbished S90 and the WP- DC35 housing to replace my Canon SD700IS.I realize all the advantages of having RAW capability and the ability to adjust the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc. Having said that, I was surprised to find out that the shutter lag and write time to the memory card when using RAW and manual settings takes so much longer that the SD700 in "underwater" mode. For anything that moves faster than a turtle, it is quite difficult to get a photo. I gave my wife the SD700 and we went snorkeling with Dolphins. She kept snapping great photos of the dolphins and by the time the S90 took a shot, I got a lot of tailfin shots and blue water. I also used the S90 on a few dives without my Sea & Sea strobe and had the same issues- I used to get great shots with the SD700 of all kinds of sea life but the S90 seems suited for frogfish, eels, seahorses, lobsters or anything that stays relatively stationary. I guess I will have to use the S90 in scene mode to capture turtles, octopus and anything that swims.

 

[Nemrod]

You just don't know how to use the camera.

N

 

[Altamira]

Check out Nemrod's excellent guide to UW photography at his website Guide to Underwater Photography | Underwater Photography Guide and I think you will find a wealth of information that will help you with the S-90. I don't know Nemrod personally, but his responses are generally a lot more helpful, so you may have just caught him on an off-day.

 

[Nemrod]

Check out Nemrod's excellent guide to UW photography at his website Guide to Underwater Photography | Underwater Photography Guide and I think you will find a wealth of information that will help you with the S-90. I don't know Nemrod personally, but his responses are generally a lot more helpful, so you may have just caught him on an off-day.

While I do post on that site and I am a moderator there (believe it or not) the excellent website is Scott's, not mine.

N

 

[rad21]

Check out Nemrod's excellent guide to UW photography at his website Guide to Underwater Photography | Underwater Photography Guide and I think you will find a wealth of information that will help you with the S-90. I don't know Nemrod personally, but his responses are generally a lot more helpful, so you may have just caught him on an off-day.

Thanks for positive reply Altamira. I did refer to www.uwphotographyguide.com and to Gilligans settings for the S90 and they were very helpful, that is not the issue. Exposure was fine, it just takes too long for the camera to respond(lag) when you press the shutter and then to write to the memory card. While I got a few good shoots, there were a lot more deleted than keepers compared to my fully auto P&S cameras that I used in the past.

 

[Nemrod]

I have given my setups multiple times in the multitude of "S" threads. I am not going to do it all over again, especially since nobody listens. But, while about it, the RAW has nothing to do with shutter lag, it does effect time to next shot while the card is writing and not all SD cards are equal and that can have an effect. Use of a wide angle lens and preset manual focus significantly reduces shutter lag as does shutting off all of the various safety functions, focus assist lights and all of that. An external focus light (such as on the Inon D2000 or dedicated focus light) can speed up the autofocus in dim conditions if you refuse to use manual focus, a wide angle lens also speeds up auto focus in my experience. A properly set up S series camera should be as responsive as any P&S. Thankfully, shutter lag is going to soon be a thing of the past even for P&S cameras in another generation or two. N

 

[rad21]

Thanks Nemrod,

Now I have some good answers to my questions. Preset manual focus is a great suggestion as is using the focus light on my YS-01. I shut off all the safety functions, focus assist light but failed to consider the manual focus or using a focus light. Now that I think about it, the delay did seem to be caused by the camera not being able to lock focus, thus the delay. Thanks again for setting a newbie straight Once I master this, I can add a wide angle lens. Here a a few photos from my first attempt using the S90 without the strobe.

 

[mantababe]

ive certainly found a different since using my focus light, otherwise the camera struggles to focus well in the dearly british waters

 

[gee13]

@ RAD21, just keep persisting with your adjustments - shoot in manual mode, adjust your fstops and aperture accordingly. Shoot when the green focus lock comes on. Have a look at some of my galleries- all of them are shot with the S90 and there are a lot of fast moving subjects in there as well- my first gallery in PI was the first time I was using the camera. (I was experimenting with f2.8 to try to blur the edges on some of the wide angles with fast moving sardine school, Im not sure what the purists think but some of those photos came out looking interesting). Good Luck and have fun

 

[rad21]

Gee13,

Thanks for the comments, you took some amazing photos