SeaLife DC1400 vs. Canon S110??

[khsjsilver]

I have been diving for a number of years with the Canon S80 with the Canon housing. Last week, I got a leak in the Canon case and the camera died.

I have to admit, I am purely a point & shoot guy. I set the camera on underwater mode and click away. I have never gotten into changing the settings or adding strobes. I like to take pictures and I like the low profile of a small camera setup. I have always gone with a camera that has a lot of flexibility to change settings, etc., but I never seem to do it. I don't see myself adding the strobes and shooting on manual any time soon.

I have been looking at different camera's to replace my old set up and I came accross the SeaLife DC1400. I really like the simplicity of the buttons, but I have heard the shutter lag is not very good. Also, don't know much about the quality of the pictures.

When using the Canon loyalty program to replace the S80 with the S110, both the SeaLife and the Canon set ups will be around the same amount of money.

I'm trying to find the best point & shoot for the price.

Your thoughts and opinions are welcome!!

Ken​

 

[seanmeboy]

I have or had (it flooded technically my fault) the DC 1200. Pictures came out great but videos were kind of red. The best pictures involved the strobe. If the strobe is adjusted right you can have some great shots.

 

[Superlyte27]

The videos came out red because you had the settings wrong. There's a setting to adjust that turns off the red filter for video.

We're pretty happy with the dc1200 and 1400, but admittedly, its the only point and shoots I've every tried. So I can't compare it to anything.

 

[00wabbit]

Sealife doesn't shoot raw. Wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft pole.

Even if you don't know what RAW format is, you will want it once you get back to land and realize the pics are too dark or light and the white balance is off. Using a program like lightroom makes it super easy to work with RAW files and gives you lots of room to enhance them back on the surface.


IF you are serious about making good images get something that saves in RAW format. The canon does. I had a Canon S90 and was very happy with it. Now I have a Sony RX100 and am also very happy with it, but I would not recommend it to a beginner. It is a little tougher to get the right image with if you aren't very familiar with manual controls.

---------- Post added November 18th, 2013 at 11:42 AM ----------

Forgot to add that the Canon's underwater mode on my S90 always gave me pretty good results without strobes and it was a simple point and shoot mode so you didn't have to mess with the controls.

If you really want good shots underwater you will need to with the controls a little though or the camera may put you at too high an iso or too large an aperture to capture what you want. The nice thing with the Canon is you can use it as a basic point and shoot, but if you want to advance a little it still has all the manual controls you need to start advancing.

 

[rob1967]

I would echo what 00Whabbit said. I started with a SeaLife 1000, had lots of problems with sticky shutter button on the housing, after about 4 replacement housings, they eventually swapped it for a 1200. Once I started shooting manual, got somewhat decent pics. Couldn't get video that was at all decent until I figured out how to white balance underwater, which is a bit of pain.

Once I went to the Canon S100, started getting significantly better pics. Sharper macro, shoots in RAW, and very easy to control in manual mode. I was also stunned by how good the video was. Very clear, and Canon has invented some sort of smart automatic white balance for video that actually works very well underwater. So you can go to video with the push of one button, and the videos look great, with no need to white balance underwater.

I am shooting with a Canon EOS M now, but I would echo what OOwabbit says, I would not recommend mirrorless or SLR for beginners. Image quality is a bit better, yes, but more difficult to use, less versatile, and video on the Canon S 100 (and 110 and 120 I suppose) cannot be beat by any mirrorless or SLR (and never mind those silly Go Pros!).