Calling Bob and Anita!

[MarciaMarciaMarcia]

I have spent the morning enjoying your photos. May I ask what type of underwater camera you use? Yours are so clear with great color. Thanks for sharing them!

[parafins]

If Bob and Anita don't see this post, I know for sure that it is a Cannon Powershot.I belive it was a older model.I was so impressed by their camera that I bought a powershot a-540.I plan on taking it to S.T.J. and will try it underwater.Hope this helps.Dan {Parafins}

[MarciaMarciaMarcia]

Thanks so much for the reply. I wondered if that's what it was. I've been looking at the underwater cases for them. Great shots!

[Bob & Anita]

Thank you for your compliment. Below is a write-up we've did for others that have asked the same question. Note: jmq, a frequent contributor to this forum, is actually the master, we are just the grasshoppers - we've learned a lot of our knowledge from him.

The quality of our underwater pictures is a combination of the camera, its respective underwater housing, technique, and the software to enhance to the pictures.

First, the camera: We use one of the Canon PowerShot digital cameras, model A95 (newer models are available now). Our camera, like a lot of the newer Canon PowerShot cameras, has an "underwater" setting that makes things fairly dummy proof. Without the underwater setting you have to mess with white balance, etc - which jmq is an expert on. The Canon cameras also have a panoramic setting to use on land, which is quite cool (see examples in our STJ pictures).

Next, the underwater housing: Canon makes a whole line of underwater housings; you have to choose the right one for your model. These housings are extremely well engineered, giving you complete access to all buttons and controls. We’ve also used the housing while boating, river tubing and snow skiing.

Other camera manufacturers make underwater housings for their cameras. We have no experiences with those, but we can recommend with confidence the Canon cameras and their respective underwater housings.

Note: We have a slightly older Kodak digital that we used for most of our on land pictures. While on STJ we generally leave the Canon in the underwater housing, thus having the second digital on hand for our normal snapshots is quite convenient.

Third, the underwater shooting technique:
• Turn the flash off, unless you are shooting into a dark area.
• Shoot in bright sunlight of the midday.
• Shoot level or looking slightly up.
• Exhale as you shoot to help minimize your movement
• If you are able, put one finger down on something safe (rock or sand) while shooting to control your movement. Note, do not touch coral or other sea life.
(these last two techniques we learned from Colette at 6-PAQ Scuba: http://6paqscuba.com/
• We use weight belts designed for snorkeling to help us stay down without popping back up so quickly (you still want to have a slight positive buoyancy). If you are interested in these let us know and we’ll give you our write-up on snorkeling weight belts.
• Take your shots as close as possible, generally within arms length.

Here a link to additional info:
http://www.scubatoys.com/store/joelarry/goodphotos.asp
http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_g ... rwater.htm

Lastly, the software: We use the software that came with the Canon camera to enhance the underwater shots (ArcSoft Photo Impression) and can be purchased separately. It has a one-click auto-enhance function that takes out the bluish-green hues that all underwater shots get and brings out the true colors that you actually saw underwater. Sometimes we have to tweak the color balance or brightness setting because the one-touch over corrects, but generally the one-touch default results are perfect. Others on this forum use Microsoft Picture-It for their underwater photo enhancement, which also has a one-click auto-enhance function. We have an older version of Picture-It that we like to use for our above-water digital picture editing, but it doesn’t have the easy enhance feature for underwater shots that the new version have.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have more questions,[/quote]

[MarciaMarciaMarcia]

Lot's of helpful ino. Thanks again!