What camera do you use?

[PatW]

A lot of issues going on.

You can not fix color with post processing if you are shooting at depth. The longer wave lengths of light are absorbed in the water column faster than the shorter wave lengths. Virtually all of the red light is gone after you go below 15'. Once you are down at 70', you are in a blue and green world. To replace the full color spectrum you have to have a strobe, better yet 2, and get close to your subject. I have taken shots of subjects up against drab looking backgrounds. The background is often revealed in the photo with strobe as being a garish red and orange.

White balance is tricky underwater. You can set the white balance whilst shooting jpegs manually. I just shoot Raw so I don't have to mess with it. It is complex enough.

Focusing can be frustrating. Lenses like to focus on contrast. A lens wants to focus on the gravel rather then a smooth bodied fish. It is just a fact that you have to deal with. Pearly jaw fish with their pearly surface tend to evade focusing very well. Of course, lenses love to focus on scorpion fish.

For anyone even considering under water photography, I would suggest reading Martin Edge's Underwater Photography first. Also check out some of the excellent web sites on the subject: Wet Pixel, Backscatter and Reef Photo and Video among others.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Got a Sealife DC1000 for stills,Intova SP1 for Video,Tray and lights for both and red filter for the Intova ( the Sealife's Auto-WB seems to be quite proficient for the most part )

I recently saw some pics taken with a SeaLife DC1400 and was really surprised by the out-of-box quality of the images without any post. Way better than other SeaLife examples I've seen in the past.

I mostly shoot video and have been looking at the GoPro systems, waiting for them to evolve a little. It wasn't all that long ago that they were still somewhat DIY for diving applications. Love the compactness for capturing unobstructed action.

 

[Tigerman]

You can not fix color with post processing if you are shooting at depth. The longer wave lengths of light are absorbed in the water column faster than the shorter wave lengths. Virtually all of the red light is gone after you go below 15'. Once you are down at 70', you are in a blue and green world. To replace the full color spectrum you have to have a strobe, better yet 2, and get close to your subject. I have taken shots of subjects up against drab looking backgrounds. The background is often revealed in the photo with strobe as being a garish red and orange.
...

Actually you can add individual colors (or remove them) in any picture if you have the skills and software can be assed to do it (not that I can)

On the topic of cameras and glasses, one of these shots is shot with a P&S and the other with a fairly high end DSLR with a $1000 lens. I think it should be fairly obvious that there is a difference and which one is taken with what despite this not being the full quality pictures...

 

[endurodog]

That's true. And for underwater photography, your equipment (within fairly broad limits) is the least important part of making good pictures.

Mike that is a given above water too. You can have the most expensive wizzzbang, got to have camera of all time and it take crap pictures your gonna have crap pictures.

On the other hand you have a scene in front of you that you want to capture in all it's glory and it's amazing. A point and shoot camera will capture and so will a high end camera. The high end camera will add more to the scene because the sensor is bigger, it will capture more light. If your shooting in RAW you will capture 3 times the color info in RAW to help you get the most out of your photo.

Now you take everything in between horrible and amazing and that is where most of us shoot photos and to get the most out of those photos good equipment and RAW format will get the most.

To make that choice there are lots of factors that needs to be considered. Do you want large or small package, what do you want to do with your pictures, what are you shooting (diving specific macro, large animals, sea scape, ect)

It's a give an take with everything, RAW v JPEG for example. If someone wants to shoot either it's there choice but it's good to understand what your giving up and what your getting going either way.

 

[koozemani]

I use a fairly cheap p&s Nikon in an ikelite housing with a single strobe. All told, I spent less than $1000. Due to the slow lag time and my ever improving skills I miss many shots, however, I still get some gems.

Do I wish I had a better lag and quicker focus, absolutely, but to paraphrase Wookie (I believe it was him) "that sounds like a gear solution to a skills problem". Until I improve my skills and my photography I see no reason to spend the money on a better setup.

 

[doctormike]

On the topic of cameras and glasses, one of these shots is shot with a P&S and the other with a fairly high end DSLR with a $1000 lens. I think it should be fairly obvious that there is a difference and which one is taken with what despite this not being the full quality pictures...

Absolutely! The top one was shot with a strobe and fairly good placement of that strobe. Also, much better composition. The bottom one was shot with ambient light (or maybe a small and/or misplaced strobe), from too far away and from behind the animal's face.

As far as which camera took which photo, I guess I'll take your word for it, the other differences are so huge that I can't say much about the lens and sensor.

 

[Tigerman]

Having somewhat advocated that there IS infact significant benefits in the way of equipment, I'll say that the reason why and time when I changed my p&s for a better and WAY more expensive setup was when I felt I couldnt get much more from the setup I already had and I was 100% certain that uw photography is something I really like. The success rate with my new setup fortunately proved me right or atleast right enough to be happy with the switch.

Shots like these I would not have been able to get with the old setup. More specifically i would have been able to get the shots, but not with the same ammount of detail and in case of the little swimming goby (I think, as it obviously have 2 dorsal fins rather than the 1 continous dorsal fin of the blennies) the shutter lag might have made me miss the shot completely - but I also wouldnt have been able to get them if I chose a different lens, like my wideangle, on those dives..
Tinies - a set on Flickr

When it comes to UW photgrahpy I definetly DO NOT recommend people to fork out thousands of dollars for their first setup, especially if they have limited diving experience for several reasons. First off you DO need decent bouyancy to get good shots unless youre one of the <insert geographical sterotype> divers who thing flapping around on top of the reef or in the sand is ok to get a picture. You also need MORE skill rather than less to use a large DSLR setup to its potential than a P&S as the DSLR bodies tend to have less automation/scene modes and you also need to take into account that one lense will NOT fit all (or close to all) with a DSLR, while the P&S will.
If you chose your 17-40mm wideangle or even wider you wont get a good shot of the blenny hiding in the tiny hole in the coral and if you chose your 100mm macro you might need to get creative to get good shots of that big turtle.
And of course theres the fact that you might just not like taking pictures under water in the first place or even give up diving completely and although cameras and lenses work perfectly well above water where they where designed to be used, the additional cost of taking a DSLR under water is just too big to cover if youre not 100% certain that uw photography is a hobby thats worth investing a LOT of money in. Just the underwater housing easilly run at $1500 or more and thats before youve even started housing the lenses let alone get the strobes, which btw is a brilliant addition to a P&S and in many cases can be used for both so you can go from your p&s without strobes, to the p&s with strobes and keep the strobes IF you decide to go DSLR as long as you put some research into what strobes to get.

[/rant]

---------- Post added August 2nd, 2013 at 12:29 AM ----------

Absolutely! The top one was shot with a strobe and fairly good placement of that strobe. Also, much better composition. The bottom one was shot with ambient light (or maybe a small and/or misplaced strobe), from too far away and from behind the animal's face.

As far as which camera took which photo, I guess I'll take your word for it, the other differences are so huge that I can't say much about the lens and sensor.

Both shots where actually taken from about the same distance and if you look at the clarity of the pictures you really should see a difference..

EDIT: On closer inspection of the metadata, the lower one is taken at MUCH less distance than the top one. The lower one is taken from 35cm while the top one is taken from 88cm - so more than twice the distance in the favour of the bottomn one..

 

[Darol]

As with a lot of SB, the original question has gotten lost in the drivel. I use an old Sealife DC 500 or a Canon G-11.
Both have their pluses and minuses. The Sealife DC 500, with the strobe, will take decent pictures. The G-11 is my
go to for video.....

 

[Tigerman]

...
As with a lot of SB, the original question has gotten lost in the drivel.
...

Youre free to think its drivel but the original question was put forth in such a way that it can be deducted hes looking for what to buy and the kind of "drivel" thats being given in this thread is the kind of things you might want to consider before buying a new underwater camera, ESPECIALLY if youre looking into expensive ones..

 

[doctormike]

Mike that is a given above water too. You can have the most expensive wizzzbang, got to have camera of all time and it take crap pictures your gonna have crap pictures.

Hi, endurodog...!

I was responding to your statement that lens quality was the most important part of your equipment. But while above water, spending $1500 on an L series, very fast lens with great bokeh will really show up in the photos, all other things being equal. Underwater, I stand by my statement that the vast majority of what makes a photo great are things unrelated to the equipment, within reasonable limits.

While nothing that you are saying is technically wrong, I think that you, and many other posters on this thread, are missing the larger point. If this was a diving discussion, you know what someone would say, right?

Kozemani already said it - you shouldn't look for a gear solution to a skills problem.
You are an instructor, right? If you had an OW student who couldn't nail buoyancy, panicked at depth, made uncontrolled ascents and just didn't look comfortable in the water, what would you say if someone advised him to buy a high end, environmentally sealed regulator? It's true, a good regulator would have less work of breathing and deliver air better in poor conditions, right?

Yes, I know that an accomplished UW photographer can salvage a lot of technically imperfect shots with the data in a RAW image. I'm not arguing that RAW is useless (although I don't find it necessary myself). But I am saying that we might want to take a step back and understand the real challenges of UW photography, and what we can do to help new divers make photos that they will enjoy! And reading the OP's question, it looks like this is someone who is shooting low contrast, unsatisfying shots with a disposable camera. I just think that RAW capability is the last thing that he should be worried about at this point.​

---------- Post added August 1st, 2013 at 08:50 PM ----------

Both shots where actually taken from about the same distance and if you look at the clarity of the pictures you really should see a difference..

EDIT: On closer inspection of the metadata, the lower one is taken at MUCH less distance than the top one. The lower one is taken from 35cm while the top one is taken from 88cm - so more than twice the distance in the favour of the bottomn one..

Right, but without the metadata, I can't tell how far you were from the subject without knowing the focal length (sorry, I'm not enough of an ichthyologist to have my stingray parallax down cold!). But the main reason that the second shot is no good is because of the framing, the angle and most important, the reliance of ambient light.