White balance on LX 10

[ponomo1]

No worries Vic I’m still learning myself.
I have found that the camera takes good photos pretty consistently in the auto modes without playing with much more than the zoom and occasionally a white balance.
The video has been pretty good so far
but I also need much more time in the water with the camera and housing before I can even say I’m getting good at it.
My biggest frustration and aggravation has been the experience with finding a wet lens that works well with the setup. I have my fingers crossed that I have a good experience with the one I have now. Can’t wait to get in the water

 

[Scubanoobi]

I’ve been using an LX10 for about a year now (video only), I can get really good ambient colours down to about 60 feet. The out of camera video with the custom white balance is very green, however, i can push it quite a bit in post to get really natural colours.

I tried with a red filter but the results weren’t as good.

I used it in Galapagos this summer actually, the conditions were very challenging for video (deep, bad viz, lots of current, distance to subjects) the video turned out OK, perhaps a red filter in those conditions would have helped. In clearer waters I prefer no filter.

I’m using an INON uwl-h100 for wide angle which gives about 80 degrees in 4K and does a good job.

Here are a few videos:
Galapagos (only 4 dives): Costa Rica: White balance test:

 

[ponomo1]

Scubanoobi thanks for sharing.
I’ll be in Galapagos in May so hopefully I have water conditions as nice
I can’t wait to check out the area and check out the dives.
Any recommendations for getting three and staying there?
I’ll have my LX-10 in hand and ready to start taking photos as soon as I get there.

 

[Scubanoobi]

Hi Ponomo, I'm sure you'll have a great time. I assume you're doing land based? We stayed in Porto Ayora for 11 nights at a place called Galapagos Cottages. It was an excellent location, 5 min walk to the pier, shops, restaurants and right at the entrance to the hike to Tortuga Bay. The town itself was super safe and a liked staying there. We pre-booked all of our day trips and diving before we got there, but by the looks of things we probably could have booked it once we arrived. There were many tour operators in town (almost every other building).

2-Tank dives were an all day event. You meet at the shop @ 7:00 I think, take a 45 minute taxi to the port, do the 2 dives and then back by 3:00. I did the Gordon Rocks dive twice (4 dives) because I really wanted to see hammerheads, and I did on each dive. I wouldn't say that dive is a particularly enjoyable dive in the sense that you drop in near an island and then you swim away to see the hammerheads. Most of the dive is spent in blue water where you can't see the bottom or anything around you and you're waiting for something big to come out of the blue (in low viz, moderate current). It was worth it for the hammerheads for me. Also say lots of eagle rays, mola mola and Galapagos sharks.I'm not sure how the other dives are in comparison.

Here is another video I put together that includes mostly topside stuff, the description in the video outlines the locations: https://youtu.be/44Itq4oyXt0

You will have a great time!

 

[brajan]

I don't have a slate for this but i have white fins which works like a charm ;-)
Other things you can use for WB is white(ish) sand or your buddies tanks - in fact i found shades of grey (e.g. tanks) works better than plain white which is not working sometimes when there is too much light.

What is important to know and remember while re-balancing your WB is that distance matters.
For example, if you white balance on someones tank 3 meters away, your balance will be set to exactly this distance and anything closer than that will be too "warm".
Do your WB at the same distance as you take photos.

 

[Interceptor121]

White balance should not be performed on white but on a grey subject this is because white tends to saturate highlights and as consequence the white balance read fails especially in water
I have written a whole post on white balance on my blog for the GH5 but the LX10 is the same. White balance without filter works best below 10 meters or 35 feet if the water is really clear and blue maybe to 12m 40 feet below it can't make it on the Panasonic camera is all explained in the post
The importance of Underwater white balance with the Panasonic gh5