Some S Coast UK Fuji F30 samples

[David P]

Again, I'm forgetting my manners... Posted this on YD for a particular reason but I should summarise this here too!

Having been sporadically praising the little Fuji F30 and wittering on about the benefits of manual white balance for quite some time, I've done what I've meant to do for quite a while, and sorted out some examples.

Picasa Web Albums - David P - UW-UKTests includes a number of not very scientific demonstrations of auto and manual white balance in 10-15m depths in Dorset; "as shot" and with quick'n'dirty corrections both with my favourite (the "I'm feeling lucky" button in Picasa, which does a great job very simply) and using the underwater action in Photoshop. I tried but generally failed to get back-to-back comparisons under the same conditions. All are un-cropped. The "more info" button will show a bit more about ISO settings etc.

Picasa Web Albums - David P - UW-F30-UKBest includes my favourites from 2007 - including some in just a couple of feet of water! Many are simply taken freediving. Corrections are simply using Picasa (I'm feeling lazy) - for illustrative purposes rather than 'cos that's the best I could do. I'm particularly impressed (the cuckoo wrasse) that in 12-5m of daylit English Channel the camera can do such a good job with just manual white balance.

Oh - Picasa Web Albums - David P - Barbados Unde... includes a selection from Barbados last autumn. There's a direct back-to-back comparison on manual and auto white balance included. Most are again in 10-15m.

Hope these may demonstrate why I and others think the little Fuji is a bit of a cracker!

David P.

[Cussy]

David,
I took a look at these when you posted then on YD, an interesting set of test photos.

From my own experience, I've found that "auto" routines, be they Picasa or PS, tend to make images overly red and look slightly bleached. The PS UW routine does a nice enough job on blue water photos, but I found it pretty hopeless on green water shots. The PS action makes beautiful emerald green water blue! I'm sure there have been threads on here about them.

After trying most things, I found Raw Shooter Essentials to be the best way of getting the best out of underwater images. This isn't any good for you as you can't shoot RAW, but the technology has been incorporated into Adobe Lightroom, which can handle RAW. I processed a load of photos from a mates trip to Cyprus (Fuji 31fd) and got more realistic results than he could using Picasa with an average time of about 30 seconds processing per photo. Mark didn't know how to set WB underwater, so I had to manually WB every shot, but if they've been set WB at the time processing would be even quicker.
Rob

[David P]

Thanks. As I think I said, my original goal wasn't to look at how well different enhancements work - yeah, they all have problems and the UW action, in green water, is particularly suspect - or indeed to get the best out of these pics (I have so little time...), more to show what can be quickly achieved through manual white balance: I agree that the key goal is to get the balance about right in the first place. After which the "auto" functions in PS or indeed Picasa tend to polish rather than fix the pix.

I have to say I tend to focus more on video than stills - and often, freediving rather than scuba - so the little Fuji does me very well. And better (for limited effort) than my previous Oly 4040. If I was more serious, or more focused on strobe/macro stuff rather than available light fishes, I might think otherwise!

My faves from 2007 were actually the little shoal of baby fishes (or the mullet - "secret spot" near Lulworth), all taken in about 3 feet of water!

I must get a copy of Lightroom (I've seen some decent prices of late). I tried the beta - and for much of what I do (ie 5,000 sports event pics in a week, all shot in RAW as well as JPG) the workflow and sorting/cataloguing aspects are very attractive, even before you start any processing.

[Cussy]

I know levels was not David P's main focus, but I've just re-found something useful. I'm actually doing a little housekeeping on my work PC and came across a load of pdfs by Sabine Noack on levels. She now has these as web pages SNOACK taucht ab - go to UW Photography - there is a damn good explanation and a couple of worked through examples. I think these are good examples of how differently you can make the same photos look using different work flows.
Rob

[David P]

Nice site - well found. (Shouldn't all this be under "processing"?!)

My faves - simple stuff even I could understand - were at Digital Photography - Saving an Underexposed JPEG - Page 20 and Digital Photography - Fixing Photos 1 - Page 15.

David P.