White Balance / Dive Slate

[10X]

This is probably a dumb question to most of you, but I could use a little advice.

I would like to try manually setting the white balance on my C5050 while underwater. Gilligan has stated he uses a dive slate for doing this. However, what I don't know is what size to buy.

As a newbie, I don't yet own a dive slate, so I started looking at what to buy. What I found is there are about as many dive slates available as there are BCDs. I'm assuming that a flat white dive slate is best and they seem to come in 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10.

What's too big or too small, or does it matter? I was thinking of the 5x7, since it's middle of the road, but I don't want to buy something too small and have it not work.

 

[MonkSeal]

This is probably a dumb question to most of you, but I could use a little advice.

I would like to try manually setting the white balance on my C5050 while underwater. Gilligan has stated he uses a dive slate for doing this. However, what I don't know is what size to buy.

As a newbie, I don't yet own a dive slate, so I started looking at what to buy. What I found is there are about as many dive slates available as there are BCDs. I'm assuming that a flat white dive slate is best and they seem to come in 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10.

What's too big or too small, or does it matter? I was thinking of the 5x7, since it's middle of the road, but I don't want to buy something too small and have it not work.

The slate should be big enough to cover complete view when positioned at average distance that you plan to take fictures from.

 

[10X]

Thanks, that gives me something to work with. I didn't know if the slate should be placed 2" from the lens or 3 feet. I'll do some experimenting to get the right size.

 

[Mo2vation]

I would like to try manually setting the white balance on my C5050 while underwater.

The advice from some who have done this is thus:

As long as you'll be shooting at the same depth as where the WB was taken, (like on a static wreck) rock on.

You move up or down in the column (even a little, as per the people in the discussion group) and the colors in your shots are, well, shot.

It'd be interesting to see how mych latitude (red latitude, especially) you really get. And surely the actual red penetration is variable by total depth - si 5 feet one way or another could have a much more dramatic swing at some shallower depths than at some deeper...or vice versa.

But if you're doing a square profile, its probably not an issue - that was the consensus of the group.

K