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Scuba Forum / General / October 2003What do you do in order to take underwater pictures with true colors?
Hi! My wife and I did our first dives in the French Polynesia. Although the dives fully lived up to our expectation, the pictures we took underwater with our Sony DSC-P10 (5.1 megapixels) digital cameral did not. We were well aware that cameras do not pick up red color, so used flash each time. Nonetheless, the pictures looked still very dull. What do you have to do in order to take underwater pictures with true colors? (provided that we dive at around 60 feet deep with good to excellent visibility) We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. > What do you have to do in order to take underwater pictures with true > colors? Take your subjects out of the water, and then take the pictures.  Signature"We're going to rush the hijackers." -Jeremy Glick, aboard United Airlines flight 93, September 11, 2001 Jammer Six <jammer@invalid.oz.net> wrote in news:bnkvpo$dv5$1@ 216.39.146.232 : > Take your subjects out of the water, and then take the pictures. Unfortunately some wrecks are a bit heavy for that... ;-) SignatureDavid Scarlett dscarlett@_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ optusnet.com.au > Jammer Six <jammer@invalid.oz.net> wrote in news:bnkvpo$dv5$1@ > 216.39.146.232 : > > > Take your subjects out of the water, and then take the pictures. > > Unfortunately some wrecks are a bit heavy for that... ;-) Didn't stop them with the Titanic. rhys > What do you have to do in order to take > underwater pictures with true colors? > (provided that we dive at around 60 feet > deep with good to excellent visibility) > We used ample flash but I guess the built-in > flash was not enough. Well, during the Bikini Atoll experiments, I understand that they got very good color definition, but of course, they would have been using Kodachrome 25 with that sort of 'flash' unit... > Hi! > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. Its hard to say "what went wrong" without being able to see any of the photo's you're talking about. Generally, the most common problem is a predominantly monochromatic blue image. This means that the scene is being lit by ambient light (which due to the depth, has had its red filtered out) instead of by your strobe (flash). The short answer is that you need more strobe visible in the picture. This means some combination of: - get closer to your subject - get a bigger strobe Keep in mind that if you're too far away, the biggest strobe in the world won't be any good. This is because the strobe's light is being filtered by water as it travels from the strobe to the subject, and then after its bounced off the subject, all the way back to the camera. Thus, if its 5ft from you to your subject, your strobe's light had to travel 10ft. As a rule of thumb, get closer to your subject...3ft is a good value to shoot for, and definitely no more than 6ft (even 5ft is pushing it). Also, find out what the minimum focus distance is of your camera. If for example its 1.0ft, try shooting at 1.5ft. -hh > My wife and I did our first dives in the French Polynesia. > Although the dives fully lived up to our expectation, the pictures we [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > excellent visibility) > We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. It takes a powerful flash and you have to be within 5 feet of the subject, preferably closer. Water filters red light out in 10 feet. Next comes yellow and finally blue. The more powerful the flash, the more light will get through. Your built in flash will work only if you're very close. The reason you have to be no more than 5 feet from the subject is that the light leaves te flash, travels to the subject and returns. Light from a flash that's 5 feet from the subject, travels 10 feet before entering the lens of a camera. Lee > What do you have to do in order to take underwater pictures with true > colors? (provided that we dive at around 60 feet deep with good to > excellent visibility) > We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. try http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/uwphoto/page/01-e.html >replace spamblock with my family name to e-mail me DJ Kim left this mess on 27 Oct 2003 21:24:39 -0800 for The Way to clean up: >Hi! > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >excellent visibility) >We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. First, you have to give the colors a lie detector test to be sure in fact they are truthful... Then you go out and buy a strobe. Tao te Carl "It takes a village to have an idiot." - Carl (c) 2003 > Hi! > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > excellent visibility) > We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. underwater the internal flash is only good out to about 2' on most cameras. you need to add an external stobe Inon, sea&sea,ikelite make good ones for your camera - make sure to get one that is compatable with a digital camera's "preflash" - standard strobes for nikonoses and SLRs will not work with many digitals. the #1 rule for UW shooting is "get close, when you think you're close enough - get closer still". if you take a "white" card ( a small writing slate works well) down with you and set the wight balance useing the card you can get pretty good color in the pix, but then you can't use the flash - it doesn't have the corected color and will give you very red high lites. here's a photoshop fix for the loss of red in a shot - it works best if there is little or no red in the original. http://share.studio.adobe.com/axAssetDetailSubmit.asp?aID=8419&back=http%3A%2F%2 Fshare%2Estudio%2Eadobe%2Ecom%2FaxBrowseProductType%2Easp%3Ft%3D5 > > Hi! > > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > the #1 rule for UW shooting is "get close, when you think you're close > enough - get closer still". Rule #1+/-0.1 : Take lots of pictures. Some might be good. i have used the sony P-7 on my last couple of dives. i bought the underwater (red) filter for it. that restores some color, but if you are taking scene shots then even a strobe won't give you enough light and you will have to edit you pics. i used photoshop elements 2 and got what i think are great results. you can see my pics at http://www.public.asu.edu/~elliotg/ elliott > > > Hi! > > > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Rule #1+/-0.1 : Take lots of pictures. Some might be good. -- Elliott S. Goldstein School of Life Science Cellular, Molecular and Bioscience Program Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-4501 phone: 480-965-7176 fax: 480-965-6899 e.goldstein@asu.edu >i have used the sony P-7 on my last couple of dives. i bought the underwater >(red) filter for it. that restores some color, but if you are taking scene >shots then even a strobe won't give you enough light and you will have to >edit you pics. i used photoshop elements 2 and got what i think are great Red filters need to change density with ambient light levels and depth in order to provide good colour correction. You need to dive with a grey or white reference card and correct the colour balance in order to compensate for loss of red. Pete S. i am really new at this and i have seen some discussion on color balance and a white reference card but i assumed that it was for macro, not for distance shots which will vary. am i wrong about the white balance for different distances? i bought the sony because it is a simple point and shoot and i didn't want to have to change settings under water. thanks elliott > >i have used the sony P-7 on my last couple of dives. i bought the underwater > >(red) filter for it. that restores some color, but if you are taking scene [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Pete S. -- Elliott S. Goldstein School of Life Science Cellular, Molecular and Bioscience Program Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-4501 phone: 480-965-7176 fax: 480-965-6899 e.goldstein@asu.edu >i am really new at this and i have seen some discussion on color balance and a >white reference card but i assumed that it was for macro, not for distance shots >which will vary. am i wrong about the white balance for different distances? i >bought the sony because it is a simple point and shoot and i didn't want to have >to change settings under water. thanks >elliott With Macro, the shots you take have very little water between the camera, the strobe, and the subject. So the colours come out quite nice. With depth the red/blue changes. The deeper you go the bluer (less red) it gets. So the camera needs to compensate for this. With horizontal distance the light has further to travel from the subject to the camera and so ...... the bluer (less red) it gets. So if you go deeper and further from the subject you can be very blue very quickly. Try taking wide angle shots of deep wrecks!! One way round this on digital is to correct the colour balance in the scene by altering the colour balance of the camera to compensate. The camera may do this automatically, it may not. You may wish to do it manually anyway. Or you may choose to turn it off altogether and correct the picture on the PC, post dive. But thern you may just find you need to store a large "raw data" file. White or grey card "standards" will only give a setting that is correct for the distance you hold the card away from the camera, and the depth you are at. If you move up or down, or change the distance from the subject, your white balance setting must also change. Or you could just stick to snapshots........ Me? I've not gone digital yet, I can't project them. I just take deep wreck pictures on fast (1600 - 3200 ASA) B&W in ambient light, with a housed SLR. And macro of pretty fishes..... Pete S. Pete S. <> pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: :Me? I've not gone digital yet, I can't project them. If you buy a projector for your computer, it would be easy. Expensive, but easy. Dan Bracuk If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure. The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/ >Pete S. <> pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: >:Me? I've not gone digital yet, I can't project them. > >If you buy a projector for your computer, it would be easy. >Expensive, but easy. £25k was the last estimate for a digital projector that could match analogue (slide) projection. A "high end" consumer digital projector is only going to give 1200 pixels horizontal. If you project it 2m wide, that would give each pixel as being 1.6mm. Which is not good enough. And even that digital would be £800. Too many £ for not enough result. Pete S. thanks for the info. i am going to go on one of the Sony forums and see if anyone knows how much the camera will compensate. i do know that with the red filter, the pictures are 'bluer' than without, but still need a little touching up. elliott > >i am really new at this and i have seen some discussion on color balance and a > >white reference card but i assumed that it was for macro, not for distance shots [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > Pete S. -- Elliott S. Goldstein School of Life Science Cellular, Molecular and Bioscience Program Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-4501 phone: 480-965-7176 fax: 480-965-6899 e.goldstein@asu.edu Elliott Goldstein <e.goldstein@asu.edu> pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: :i have used the sony P-7 on my last couple of dives. i bought the underwater :(red) filter for it. that restores some color, but if you are taking scene [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] : :http://www.public.asu.edu/~elliotg/ They're ok. Dan Bracuk If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure. The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/ > Hi! > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > excellent visibility) > We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. It sounds like you are using the built in flash on the camera. An internal flash is too close to the lens and will cause "backscatter", an illumination of the suspended junk in the water, to appear in your pictures. It should give you fairly good results to about 12 inches away when you are taking close up shots. After that, you need a good external underwater strobe to fully illuminate your subject and get good colors. Even then, you are only going to get good results (depending on the clarity of the water) to about 9 feet away from the subject. Plus, you need to place the strobe as far from the lens as you can to minimize backscatter. You should be able to find plenty of strobes that work like slaves and can be triggered by your internal flash. Just my $.02 SignatureRay Contreras =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Webmonkey for: http://www.ossystems.com http://www.bobs-garage.com http://www.rayzplace.com >Hi! > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >excellent visibility) >We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. Shoot in "Raw" mode and use something like Photoshop to clean them up (with the RAW plug-in) or get some real, external flash units - or both. -- SignatureKarl Denninger (karl@denninger.net) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights Activist http://www.denninger.net Tired of spam at your company? LOOK HERE! http://childrens-justice.org Working for family and children's rights http://diversunion.org LOG IN AND GET YOUR TANK STICKERS TODAY! dj_google@daum.net (DJ Kim) pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: :My wife and I did our first dives in the French Polynesia. :Although the dives fully lived up to our expectation, the pictures we :took underwater with our Sony DSC-P10 (5.1 megapixels) digital cameral :did not. :We were well aware that cameras do not pick up red color, so used :flash each time. Nonetheless, the pictures looked still very dull. Stand closer to the fish and use a strobe. Dan Bracuk If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure. The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/ > dj_google@daum.net (DJ Kim) pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: > :My wife and I did our first dives in the French Polynesia. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Stand closer to the fish and use a strobe. Should they stand in the sand or on the coral? > Hi! > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > excellent visibility) > We used ample flash but I guess the built-in flash was not enough. The built-in flash is not enough. Further, that flash can serve to illuminate particles in the water. You'll want to get an external strobe. Dennis |
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