Set to auto and go or manually adjust? SONY CYBERSHOT

[Kaliber35]

I have a Sony Cybershot DSC P100. Questions:

1) set to auto and go or are there certain settings I should pay attention to.

2) filter or no. I know this is hard to say but people say use one "at depth". Is this 20', 40'??

3) I will be shooting mainly during midday with fairly good vis (50' or so), do I really need a strobe? Will my flash work through its housing?

4) Is Vaseline ok on the o ring?

Thank you for your time guys!

My camera and its housing:

 

[Capt_Jeff]

your prob going to have a dark shadow in your pictures from the flash, the lens housing blocks part of the flash, so a strobe is a good idea unless your diving in clear water during daylight hours pritty shallow and no flash is needed . With a strobe I would get the flash defuser it helps rid your pictures of forground scatter. Check the owners manual on the housing some manufactures say not to use anything just make sure that there is no cuts cracks and clear of debris some say to use a light silicon coating dont glob it on just a real light coating just enough to make the o ring shine.

 

[herman]

1. If the camera has a manual mode, learn to use it and forget auto settings....my guess is it doesn't.
2.IMO filters are a waste. They are only good in a certain limited depth range and they reduce the amount of available light, besides you can accomplish a much better result using manual white balance...also assuming your camera will support it.
3. Yes. Internal flashes are pretty much worthless for UW use except in a few macro situations.
4. NO! Vaseline is petroleum based grease and is likely to destroy your Orings. Use the grease your housing manuf recommends and it that is not available, food grade silicone, Dow 111 or Cristolube would be your next best choices but never a petro based lube.

 

[DevonDiver]

I use my Cybershot on auto, but tweak the settings for optimum.

1. Vivid (rich) color.
2. EP -7.0


Filters work by reducing blue light. They don't create more red light. So therefore, the end result is that they simply reduce the overall light used to create your photograph.

As this is a digital camera, you can easily and effectively achieve a far better balance of color by post-processing your shots on suitable photo editing software. i.e. Photoshop. There are threads describing that process on the forum, so have a seach. Feel free to PM me if you want some basic Photoshop color correction tips.

Vaseline is not approprtiate for the O-Rings. You will need to buy some silicon grease from your LDS.

An external strobe is definitely beneficial for your shots, but by no means necessary. However, you must realize that the flash range underwater is extremely short. I don't use a built-in flash for any subjects more than 6" from the camera lens. Also, in turbid water the built-in flash will just reflect back off particals in the water (called backscatter). An external strobe minimizes backscatter because the illumination can be arranged to come in from a side angle, thus reflections from particals are not directed at the camera lens.

The best technique (without an external strobe) is to stick to clear, well-lit (shallow, sunny) water, turn the flash off completely...and just process the photos afterwards (as I already mentioned).

The built-in flash is useful (ok) for close-ups shots of medium-small subjects, such as crabs, nudibranch etc. For very close super-macro shots, you might find that the underwater housing effectively blocks the flash from the subject.