Canon S230 Underwater Setting

[pablor]

Hello,

I'm going on my honeymoon in a few weeks and have a Canon S230 along with the underwater case. We plan to do some snorkeling and diving (no deeper than 40 ft or so). Any tips on shooting underwater? If so, any particular settings to use / avoid on the camera?

Thanks,
Pablo

[neil_r]

If you are not already an advanced diver you won't be going anywhere near 40 metres :o .

Not sure if your camera supports RAW but if it does that is the way to go. The deeper you go you start to lose your colours first red, then orange, yellow etc all the way violet.

Flash tends to show up all the suspended particles. A good torch will help.

N

[pablor]

Neil,

Sorry about being such a novice at this, but RAW=?

Also, no not 40 meters, 40 feet roughly about 12 or so meters.

Thanks,

[neil_r]

That’s fine. I just looked up your camera on dpreview.com and it does not support RAW. (RAW is native file format that retains all the data captured by the sensor, this allows you a lot more scope for post processing)

Your biggest problem is that the deeper you go the darker it gets and colour is absorbed (this follows the spectrum with red being the first to go, in fact fish use this phenomenon to aid camouflage and there are many red fish)

It is not all bad news the water will give you some magnification.

A good torch or external light will help and will restore the colours as will your flash. Flash is more successful underwater if it is defused and your housing may well have a frosted piece in front of the flash.

Tips - Get close to what you want to photograph, and then get closer. Use as fast a shutter speed as you can get away with, And be prepared to spend some time post processing to bring the colours back and clone out the white dots which is the light reflecting off all the things that you can’t see that are suspended in the water.

If you are photographing with scuba make sure you buddy knows what you are doing and keeps their eye on you.

Good luck and safe diving and don’t forget to post your results when you return.


N

[JohnnyE]

Here are a few tips from the Canon USA site in case you haven't seen them:

http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=StandardDisplayAct&fcategoryid=113&keycode=underwater_photo#tips

[pablor]

Thank you. Yes, I did see them, but the instructions are fairly general.

I am more interested in the shutter speed, white balance etc. and other settings that people have used which have worked well underwater for the Canon S230. Should I manually adjust each one or set them to Auto?

Thanks again,
Pablo

:lol: