UW photo for dummies. Now also on Digigreen

[Norseman]

Hi guys. Just thought I'd post this wee writeup here on Digigreen as well. Since it after all is a photo forum. Feedback is appreciated.
This is what I posted on Yorkshire Divers:

Disclaimer: I wouldn't call this a tutorial. I don't claim to be an expert. Because I'm not. But here is a writeup on how you could up your learning curve a bit. At least this is how I get by.

I will be technical and try to give you the exact ways to set your camera up but there are so many different cameras that it's virtually impossible to cater for all. My camera's an Olympus C-5060 but having used a Canon S50 earlier I know there aren't that many differences.

There are limitiations to digital underwater cameras with no strapons (read extra light or lens) and thus you end up basically with three types of pictures that will work:

1. Macro with built in flash. Good chance of success.
2. Macro with torch from the side. A bit difficult. But doable with practise.
3. Scenic picture. Hit and miss. Especially in bad vis.

Let's go through them in that order. Oh, and before we start: Please take your pictures on as high quality as possible (SuperJPEG or RAW if possible) in order to have as much image as possible to play with later.

Oh oh by the by: Take LOADS of pictures. Because most will be crap.

1. Macro with built in flash.
-
- Set your camera to Aperture setting ("A" on the wheel) and turn knobs until you get as high F-stop as possible. That means F8.0 on C-5060 and Canons, while the C7070's going up to F11. What you get is a very narrow hole to let light through onto the picture sensor which will then "swallow" the background and make it black while the subject you're trying to photograph will be left standing alone.
- The second thing to do in order to make the flash less prominent is to use as low ISO setting as possible. 50-100 is optimal. Once again more light will be swallowed by the chip and at the same time you are getting a better quality picture.
- Third thing to do is to set the flash at a lower output. Many cameras have that option. On the Oly C-series there are two knobs on the left that should be pressed simultaneously. Turn the flash down by 0,3 or 0,7. Possibly even 1.0. This will make less light come out and onto the subject, and definitely help get less backscatter and muck in the background.
- Make sure the camera's on "closeup" or whatever it's called. That flower should appear anyway.

Okay. What you have done so far is to make less light come out of your camera. If you're within 20 cm of your subject you should be able to get it fairly in focus, not overexposed, and the background should be left very dark. If the subject you're going for is ending up dark, then you should turn up one of the points above, either flash, Aperture or ISO-setting.

Here's what I'm talking about:


2. Macro with torch as lightsource.
Getting a bit more advanced I have found that the best way to do this is to ensure that your camera due to insufficient light doesn't end up going so slow that you're not able to keep it still. Which makes your pics end up blurry. Same settings for quality and ISO applies as above.
- Turn the wheelie knob to either S/T or M. S(Oly) and T(Canon) means you can set the time and the camera will pick the Aperture (amount of light allowed to enter through to the image sensor). If you pick M for Manual you can set both Time and Aperture setting yourself. Let's stick to the S/T for now.
- Set the camera to Macro or Supermacro
- Turn the flash OFF.
- If possible find somewhere to turn the focus to "spotfocus". You'll see a frame with a dot in the middle. That's the one.
- Set time of exposure to 1/50 or 1/60. Which means the pic will be taken in 1/60th of a second. The slowest one normally safely can go on Macro would be to about 1/40. Slower than that and you're on your own mate/matess.
- Place torch on desired subject and shoot. See what happens. Change distance from subject and angle of attack to see if you get less shadow.

Ideally you will still be able to isolate the subject from the background, which is even easier if you've got all blue/green background, and if not if there's a considerable distance to background clutter. Below is an example, though not perfect lightwise. The torch used was a relatively cheap Beaver 20W (£170?)so you can actually get by with a not-so-expensive-one but of course if you're approaching 50W you've obviously got a lot more to play with.


3. Scenic/Wide Angle picture

Ah... easy just below the surface. Approaching 10 meters you're starting to struggle. Because in most cases you have to rely on ambient light. Which can be tough, especially in murky British waters. Solution: Come to Norway! :teeth:
Seriously, here's what, for pictures taken below 10 meters:
- Iso setting Auto or 200/400 in order to let in as much light as possible. We're going for mood rather than picture quality here.
- If you're not into Manual mode yet please set the camera to S/T once again, since you should try to control the exposure time in a way. Too slow and you're not getting good pictures no matter how cool the wreck looked.
- Set exposure as low as you dare. Remember that water slows your movement so you can actually go down to about 1/25-30 of a second without getting to much blurry movements, but in the worst cases you can try going down to 1/15 of a second. But that means your posing camera hoes need to keep perfectly still. AND NO FINNING ABOUT!
- If you feel bold try setting the white balance under water. If you're saving pics as JPEG it is crucial for a fairly un-green picture. In RAW you get a bit more to play with but if you're deep enough, say 30 meters, you need to do the work down below rather than in Photoshop.
- For wreck pictures: Get a mono-/tripod. It'll do wonders. If you're cheap or can't be bothered, make sure you support your camera in one way or another. With a tripod you can venture into seconds exposurewise. Which means you get loooots of light and nice depth (literally) to your pictures.
Once again, a sample:



Addendum 1:
A bit on the camera functions in general:

There's a wheel on top of the camera that shows what photoshoot mode you're in. The Settings will normally at least be: P (or Auto), T (or S), A, M, Video and the green Play triangle.
- P for Program (I suspect). Used for your normal shooting. Not always too many options available.
- A for Aperture. You choose the depth og field while the camera decides what length of exposure it needs. Basically you're deciding how much light is allowed to enter the camera. This is measured in F-stops. A very large opening which allows a lot of light to enter has a small F-stop, perhaps 2.8. A higher number , like F8.0, is allowing less light but gives you more depth, ie a longer (deeper) area will stay in focus if you have sufficient light. Changing the F-stop is normally done with a second wheel somewhere, alternatively with arrowed buttons.
- T or S. Timed exposure. You decide the time of exposure, the camera decides the Aperture. 1/60 and higher (up to 1/2000 perhaps) is very quick and you will have no problems keeping the camera still. 1/30 of a second and slower there's a good chance the camera will move during exposure and you will get a blurry effect unless you support the camera in a way. Same as with Aperture, the timing is set with a wheel or a multifunction arrowed button on the camera.
- M. Manual. You set both timing and F-stop. You're deffo getting advanced here.
- Macro or Supermacro is normally set with a button or multifunction wheel/button. Macro means you get close, normally inside 1 meter down to about 10 cm, while Supermacro on your Olympus will allow you to go down to 3 cm.

Right. You're on your own now.

Well maybe not, but as this is my first attempt I might have to re-do the text as we go along. Please give me feedback on how you found this, and if I should be more elaborate (elaborate, a very long word, could in this case mean "more specific", which could mean that you want me to write it really really really simple :teeth: ) in certain areas. Guess white balance should be covered as well...

Kyrre

[Jules]

hey thanks... just what i need for my camera's first outing this weekend to the Farnes....

Will let you know how I get on... but now off to sort dive kit!

jules
x

[Jules]

" - If you feel bold try setting the white balance under water. If you're saving pics as JPEG it is crucial for a fairly un-green picture. In RAW you get a bit more to play with but if you're deep enough, say 30 meters, you need to do the work down below rather than in Photoshop. "

So Kyrre, are you saying that even though you can manipulate stuff more in RAW it is still worth doing the custom white balance before you take the shot ?

Thanks for your help, please do keep adding to this as I think it's going to help a lot

jules

[Jules]

So you asked wht else we would like help with...

Well everyone keeps stressing to me that I need to shoot in RAW, ok I hear you loud and clear. So some more stuff about what to do with your RAW images once you have them, preferebly using a cheap package. I have Paint shop Pro 5 on my work laptop and photshop on one of the home PCs and this thing I downloaded for free from Tinterweb "Raw shooter Essentials 2005". where do I start? what tweaks, in what order? I know, just play , but give us a clue what adjustments are going to make a big difference..

I havent even looked at the mymode settings on 7070 yet, sitting at the bottom of a really steep learning curve. need to take a month off work to play with my new camera ..

[Jules]

Kyrre
I tried the method used above to take some flash pictures last night. The problem I find is that the housing creata a shadow from the flash over the bottom half of the picture. Do you have any thoughts on this? My solution to date is to use a light from the side to fill in. but do you think the flash setting would have much bearing on it? I guess I need the subject further away.

Jules

[Norseman]

Originally Posted by Pixie

Kyrre
I tried the method used above to take some flash pictures last night. The problem I find is that the housing creata a shadow from the flash over the bottom half of the picture. Do you have any thoughts on this? My solution to date is to use a light from the side to fill in. but do you think the flash setting would have much bearing on it? I guess I need the subject further away.

Jules

Ah.. the flash thing. Well it would help to zoom in but you'll be struggling with focus then. I have tried two ways of dealing with this.
- Fill in with additional light
or
- make sure your subject ends up in the left half of the picture. That way you can actually use this to your advantage, especially if you've got a diver in the same picture.

In photoshop you can sometime remedy the shadow with something called a dodge/burn tool. The dodging lightens things up, burn makes'em dark. Careful application might actually help out a lot

As for RAW I have a few things that I do but I am in no way an expert. Nevertheless I guess I can contribute by telling what I do so others can tell me what to do better and more efficient.

K

[Norseman]

Originally Posted by Pixie

" - If you feel bold try setting the white balance under water. If you're saving pics as JPEG it is crucial for a fairly un-green picture. In RAW you get a bit more to play with but if you're deep enough, say 30 meters, you need to do the work down below rather than in Photoshop. "

So Kyrre, are you saying that even though you can manipulate stuff more in RAW it is still worth doing the custom white balance before you take the shot ?

Thanks for your help, please do keep adding to this as I think it's going to help a lot

jules

Yes there is an advantage to shooting with extra red in the pics. My impression is that down to 10 meters or so you get by with normal tweaking, but once it gets dark some colours disappear never to be seen again. What you're literally doing is to add a red filter that maintains some of the colours that get filtered out on the way down.
Since we're talking digital I am sure there is a way you could add a reddish layer in post processing instead, but how you'd do that is beyond me.
Once you get MyMode up and running I'm sure you'll be fine having one setting for deeper stuff and then one setting for shallow waters.

K