newbie here!!

[divergal]

Hi everyone- just found your site so thought I would say hello!!! Am new to u/w photography (well any kind to be honest!). I have just bougth a fuji f32 and am eagerly awaiting the housing so in the meantime am playing with the camera at home.

[DDT uk]

Hello and welcome.

[triplefin]

Hi and welcome to DG
Spend plenty of time getting to 'know' your camera cos its 20x more difficult in a housing under water Look forward to seeing some pics

[TimIngmire]

Hi Divergal,

Welcome to Digigreen.

As Jane said take the opportunity to get to know your camera - then when you get the housing - put the camera in it and play play play. It can be very frustrating getting under water and then finding you can't remember which button does what.

Tim

[simonmort]

welcome ,as tim and triplefin have said keep on playing. It can feel very strange diving and using your camera .
not sure how much preasure to use on the camera buttons, for focusing the camera or to take that shot . And even more so with gloves(unless you only dive warm water).
simon.

[divergal]

I am still waiting for the housing so was playing about last night taking photos of plants and things in the garden. I must have a short memory span as I can remember about one button/scenr type then 10 minutes later I have to look it up again ! memory of a gnat that's me!!

I am also waiting for my book to come and hopefully that will explain things a bit better but now I have a memory card I can just play about with different settings and se what the difference is.
Hopefully I will get in the water with it over the next couple of months and see it in action

[Cussy]

Once you've got used to the camera in the garden your best bet is to then try it in a darkened room. All digital cameras seem to be optimised for brilliant sunshine days at about noon, so the trick with underwater photography is learning how they behave in the much darker environment underwater. Even on a sunny day, the levels of light rapidly drop off with depth in the green; this means slower shutter speeds (easy to get blurred shots from camera shake), a reduction of the depth of field (the bit in focus, meaning an extra reason to get blurred shots), increase in digital noise from higher ISO settings etc.

The more time you spend learning these things topside the quicker you will get good results underwater. Books help, but if you are like me, trial and error is equally as revealing - use the best of both, try things out with the camera that the book explains to see exactly what it does.
Rob

PS "auto" functions on cameras, like scene modes, aren't great underwater

[divergal]

thanks for the advice!!! I am going to try to play as much as I can until my housing comes then its only down the quarry anyway. On a good day its 2 metres viz!!!