Underwater Mode on Canon SD550

[av8er23]

Thought some of you may be interested in seeing the difference it makes to put your camera in underwater mode if it has it. I have done no altering to these photos. They have only been compressed quite a bit to place on the net so they are not near as sharp as they were before but the colors are the point here.

 

[Jim Ernst]

Thought some of you may be interested in seeing the difference it makes to put your camera in underwater mode if it has it. I have done no altering to these photos. They have only been compressed quite a bit to place on the net so they are not near as sharp as they were before but the colors are the point here.

wow , big differance, um..... i take for granted that the first picture is the one on the uw setting correct? it sure is a nice picture!!

 

[av8er23]

yea, much more vibrant colors.

 

[Jim Ernst]

i use the canon ps-pro-1, i dont have an uw setting , i use only manual controls, i am not sure that i understand your uw setting, do you or are you still using a manual control, or shall i say manual settings, (sorry for the ignorance), with the uw setting ,or does that set it all up for you? as i said what a huge differance in the pictures!! and real good demonstration

 

[alcina]

The UW mode basically lets the camera "put in" reds. Kinda like manual white balance, but with no control. It works very well in some instances and not so very well in others. Worth experimenting with to see which suits where you are diving on a particular day better.

UW mode does not replace aperture and shutter control. It's a white balance thing.

 

[D_B]

Note: the SD550 does not have manual control for shutter speed or aperture, which is why It's so nice to see that the UW setting actually does something useful

Can't wait to try mine out, even if the viz here wont look anything like that

 

[Jim Ernst]

thanks everyone i understand a bit better now, and thank you for your patients of my ignorance!!!!! jim

 

[alcina]

D_B: good note...I should have mentioned that in my post, I was too broad!

It is also good to keep in mind that the UW setting on any camera will not work in all situations so it's good to know how to change settings underwater so you can choose the best possible solution for your system for a given shot.

Remember the mantra: Shoot, Review, Adjust, Shoot, Review, Adjust

 

[av8er23]

I took those shots at a shallow depth like 25' The shots i took around 90' did not turn out near as vibrant. I do not totally understand white balance & sutter speed very well. Can someone briefly explain it or post a link or two where I can read more about it. thanks

 

[CompuDude]

I took those shots at a shallow depth like 25' The shots i took around 90' did not turn out near as vibrant. I do not totally understand white balance & sutter speed very well. Can someone briefly explain it or post a link or two where I can read more about it. thanks

There isn't as much ambient light that makes it down to 90', so it really doesn't make as much of a difference down there. It can't really hurt, however... and since there are no manual controls whatsoever on our camera, I pretty much leave it in UW mode all the time when I'm underwater. You could experiment with some of the other modes to mess with shutter speed, but once you're into the preset scene modes, you can't set a custom white balance, so I'm not sure how much good it would do. The only setting you can adjust on the program modes is exposure.

You could set a custom white balance in the "manual mode", but then you lose whatever other benefits the UW setting brings. To be honest, aside from the built in custom white balance, I'm not 100% certain what else that mode sets. But it seems to work pretty well.