Digital color balance and SCUBA diving

bmoag wrote:

My recent experience in Hawaii:
Even in depths of just 10meters red light is fairly well filtered out by the
water as far as digital cameras are concerned. Using flash underwater is
often a problem as waterborne particles reflect the light back at the
camera. Post exposure color correction helps but the color effect is rather
unrealistic but better than nothing.

A dive light (waterproof flashlight) can help too, since you can
illuminate your subject from well off the camera's axis, and it
will give some red light to the scene.
--
Ken Tough

fake@ (Pete S.) wrote:
(Dan Birchall) wrote:
(bmoag) wrote:
Using flash underwater is often a problem as waterborne particles
reflect the light back at the camera.

Yep. "Backscatter." How much of a problem it is varies depending on
recent weather patterns (rain will cause runoff), time of day (morning
is clearer, before everyone gets to the beach) and how still the water
is, among other things.

Move the strobe a long way from the camera, and in extreme cases, well
behind the camera. Shooting mantas with a 10.5mm lens I have the
strobe about 18" behind and about 4' away from the lens centre.
Further is better!!

Agreed! Backscatter is worst when the flash is near the axis of
the lens. When I'm skindiving with a compact camera, I try to avoid
using the flash at all for this reason - the flash is an inch or two
from the lens axis.

Someday I'll be able to afford a nice housing with the external strobes
and all that good stuff.

--
Dan Birchall, Hilo HI - http://hilom.multiply.com/ - images, words, technology