Underwater photos

Lovermont · Post by **Lovermont** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:08 am

In my couple months of lurking/participating, I've noticed that many of you take great underwater photos. I just can't find a thread addressing how you're all capturing these images. Do you have a waterproof camera or do you have a casing for your camera? Is everyone using digital technology, or are some of the photos captured using film?
I have a birthday coming up next month, and my second trip to STJ coming up in 2+ months, so it's a perfect time to be thinking about this

Any insight to this would be appreciated.

waterguy · Post by **waterguy** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:20 am

I think all are being taken on digital you have to use a photoshop like program afterwards to get the blue out. I have an olympus 730 under watercamera

Maggy · Post by **Maggy** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:38 am

I have a Canon Powershot A720IS with underwater housing and I am very happy with it. It takes good pictures both above and under water. You just set the mode to underwater and you are ready to go. It's much easier than you think. The hardest part is to come close enough to the object and to be still in the water.

jmq · Post by **jmq** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:49 am

Some previous threads on this topic. Maybe some of this will help you decide.

http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... er+housing

http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... er+housing

http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... er+housing

http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... er+housing

http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... er+housing

Lovermont · Post by **Lovermont** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:19 pm

Thanks for your recommendations and the links. Looks like I have some more research ahead of me. I really want to be able to capture the beauty of underwater STJ.

Agent99 · Post by **Agent99** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 6:08 pm

Perfect timing. We've talked about it for years but never bought anything other than the UW disposables. My husband just won a new Canon G10 Powershot so we ordered a Canon WP-DC28 underwater case from B&H to go with it. The case arrived just about an hour ago. I'll let you know how it does.

ifloat · Post by **ifloat** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 7:44 pm

Another Canon A720IS with underwater housing here. My older daughter used it in Hawaii and got some nice underwater shots. We'll be sharing it on STJ and I think we'll get great memory shots from it.

Maggy, I looked at your albums. Gorgeous shots. I have a couple of questions for you so I'll send a PM tommorow.

I also have a Canon A590IS in a dry bag for a backup. Didn't want to spend $170 for a housing for this camera which only cost $100.

Canon is coming out with a new Powershot D10 underwater camera for around $330 which can be preordered on Amazon, I haven't looked at the details yet.

California Girl · Post by **California Girl** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:04 pm

I have a Canon SD400 with the underwater housing, but now that I got a new Canon SD 880IS for my birthday I want the housing for it too! If I can't afford it before our trip in April, I'll stick with the SD400 for underwater shots. (But I really want the NEW housing!)

My underwater shots are here: http://www.pbase.com/thegripps/underwater

jmq · Post by **jmq** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:30 pm

ifloat wrote:Canon is coming out with a new Powershot D10 underwater camera for around $330 which can be preordered on Amazon, I haven't looked at the details yet.

Wow I didnt know that.
Cool - a Canon underwater camera! Thats great news for fans of good design and superior image quality for the $ can rejoice (no offense to Olympus, Pentax, etc owners)

Canon is often not cutting edge, but is content to learn from the design and build issues of others. I assume it will be worth the wait and you can expect the performance and image quality that the Powershot series is known to deliver. Hope the price goes under $300 soon for those who need an UW camera.

Maggy · Post by **Maggy** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:47 am

ifloat wrote:Another Canon A720IS with underwater housing here. My older daughter used it in Hawaii and got some nice underwater shots. We'll be sharing it on STJ and I think we'll get great memory shots from it.

Maggy, I looked at your albums. Gorgeous shots. I have a couple of questions for you so I'll send a PM tommorow.

I also have a Canon A590IS in a dry bag for a backup. Didn't want to spend $170 for a housing for this camera which only cost $100.

Canon is coming out with a new Powershot D10 underwater camera for around $330 which can be preordered on Amazon, I haven't looked at the details yet.

Glad you liked them! And just PM me, I'll be happy to help if I can.

Very interesting news about the Canon Powershot D10 underwater camera. My husbands camera (our old) Pentax Optio W10 died on our last vacation to Virgin Gorda, so we need another one. Since he snorkels and I dive, we have to have two cameras. When we were in Thailand he claimed he saw both blacktip shark and leopard shark, but without pictures I couldn't believe him

ifloat · Post by **ifloat** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:27 pm

Just a little tip, if you can't get a good still shot underwater, either because you are too slow, the subject is moving around, or because of lag time after you press the shutter button...you could switch your camera to burst mode, where it fires off a series of shots in a row, or do what I do in similar situations.

Switch to movie mode and take little bursts of movies. You can crop out the best still images from those later, and for small size prints they will look fine.

For some odd reason if my camera cant get non blurry low light images with no flash in places like the indoor gorilla habitat at the zoo, I can switch to movie mode and get gorgeous frames.

I'll try the same thing while snorkeling now that I have figured out how to keep my camera set on underwater white balance while in the movie mode. (Now I don't need to bug Maggy with the PM!)

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