Anyone using digital underwater camera ?

[aquaholic]

<font color='#008080'>Hi guys,

I use an oly c4040z with Light &amp; Motion Tetra housing (90m rated) and love it to bits! Don't use a flash, but have a hid 10 that I use for helping the camera to focus and to provide general lighting. The white colour of the hid allows the camera to auto whitebalance beautifully and I got some quite reasonable results, even without filter. The housing is robust and small, so doesn't get in the way of the stages which was my main concern. It is not the cheapest though..

Taking a strobe would make the setup more bulky, and more hassle to setup. I already carry the torch anyway so can't be bothered with a strobe. A bit of light is good though as I found when my torch packed in the otehr day. You can do a lot with digital editing later, but to put light were there was none is tricky &nbsp;

[clive francis]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (AndyP @ Mar. 09 2003,23:16)]Felt like putting a bit more, so;

Lenses, the faster the lens, the more light it lets through (F number) this is usually quoted on the outside of the lens, with zoom lenses the F number will vary with zoom, the longer the focal length the higher the F number. Effectivly this means the more you zoom in the less light the lens will allow through. Hence the reason why digital cameras are generally better for close up / macro photography. The big disadvantage with low F number lenses is when they are at there lowest setting i.e. F1.8 or in the case of most compact cameras F3.5 they have a fairly poor depth of field (only the subject is in focus). Again a reason why automatic digital cameras are better for lose up work.

Flash guns (strobes) versus video lights
my reason for disliking flash guns for digital cameras is that they tend to cause saturation in the image (the pixel becomes full to overflowing) With the strobes which are triggered by the cameras own flash (where there is no electrical connection) the camera takes the image with a &quot;standard&quot; set of flash settings, the strobe will provde more light than the camera expects, again saturating the image. Having said this the camera fires slightly before the flash, in the testing I have done there is an optimum distance from the subject, the &quot;strobes&quot;are great for static subjects about 3 - 4 feet away.

The reason why I prefer a video light is that the camera will compensate for the amount of light it is receiving and adjust its gain, shutter speed and apature (F stop) to give the best possible picture.

Just a few thoughts for you all to chew on.

Andrew

the ikelite ds 50 and 125 follow the ttl flash of the olympus so it is impossible for the strobe to over saturate the picture unless the camera truely messes it up.

[clive francis]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (bunny @ May 29 2003,09:21)]Hi... Haven't quite got the hang of this forum yet, so this reply is probably miles away from what I'm replying to, but it relates to Clive's comment about buying 3 128mb cards.

Don't!

Instead, buy an Archos Jukebox, which is a little gadeget smaller than a palm pilot, and holds 20 gb worth of images. This means you can download your images from your card after each dive, and there's a little screen to scroll through everything you've downloaded (it also functions as an mp3 player). All yours for about 300 quid.

don't?

£300 for the hardrive or £100 ish for 3 memory cards?

if you want to be able to play MP3's then yeah go for it but just to store photo's on then it is a waste of money.

on a weeks diving holiday you would have to take a lot of photo's (55 on each at SHQ for my Oly C3040) to fill up 3 memory cards.