Sealife Reefmaster Digital and red stripes?

[alaity47]

Does anyone else use the Sealife ReefMaster digital camera? We bought it about a year ago, and we've been pretty happy with it as a starter camera (though we're looking forward to shelling out for something nicer eventually).

Our only complaint in terms of the quality of the pictures is that we get this red-stripe effect a lot... it's not always obvious, but if you fiddle with the levels enough (which I often do if the flash didn't go off properly), you always see them sooner or later:

pic with red stripes

It looks like some sort of digital artifact... just wondering if anyone else had noticed this, and had any advice for avoiding it!

 

[marpacifica]

At first I couldn't see the red stripes you were talking about, but when I compared the 1st sea bass photo with the other photos I saw what you were referring to -- subtle horizontal lines in many rows in the entire frame. I've never had this happen with photos from my Sealife Reefmaster digital. It looks like you're using internal flash, rather than an external strobe, so I wonder if the lack of light, especially if your subject is more than 3' away like the sea bass, has something to do with the lines. Was the original photo, as downloaded to your computer, quite dark and you used an editing program to brighten the shot? Could be the camera is automatically using a higher ISO in the low light situations.

My Sealife digital has an external strobe and I've never used the internal one for primary lighting. I used to use internal flash on my Olympus C-3000, though, and found that it provided enough light up to 1', with marginal lighting up to 3', but beyond that it was useless. Water absorbs/refracts the light more than air so the flash has less effect on photos than on land.

I just don't know! Maybe give the Sealife folks a call or email.

Oh, and yes, upgrades are fun. Good luck to you.

 

[alaity47]

Actually, we do use an external strobe... just not always successfully. <g> Sometimes after aiming the strobe at the subject of the picture, the sensor is no longer pointed in exactly the right direction to detect the internal flash.

In this particular case, I did see the strobe go off - however, the fish was about 7-10 feet away.

You're right; I did edit up the contrast a bit in this photo. However, we do occasionally see the lines on the unedited photos as well (usually in poorly lit shots).

I'd probably consider adding a second strobe, but since we're hoping to upgrade to a better camera this year anyway, we'd probably be better off waiting.

 

[marpacifica]

Just make sure that when you're buying the upgrades, you take a responsible adult (i.e., non diver, frugal with money) with you to protect bank account. I've been tempted sometimes to pawn my car, loved ones and barnyard animals to fund my addiction. Hehehehehe.

Yeah, sounds like a low light/distance from camera situation. I guess the best way to fix it is to perfect your stealth capabilities to get closer to your subject without scaring them.

 

[Gilligan]

alaity47 I think what is on your pic is "Digital Noise". I found this website that states "If you shoot in low-light situations, you're bound to encounter digital noise. It is large red, green, and blue dots that appear all over your photo".
The website demonstrates some steps in Photoshop to correct it.