Better colour stills

[jcbrown]

Hi,
How can I get better colour from my underwater stills, which colour filter for UK waters and will it work with a standard built in flash on my camera ?

Thanks

[David P]

Big topic...

(1) what camera/housing?

(2) if no flash - then first try manual white balance

(3) if flash then leave WB on auto...

[russthedude]

are you using manual/custom white balance? if not, do that. i also tend not to bother with the flash unless it is a close up shot or i just get loads of back scatter from all the plankton in the water.

if you do go for a filter, call camerasunderwater.co.uk and they will tell you what you need to know, they have them for green water, blue water etc

what camera are you using, and what sort of colour are you getting at the moment?

[jcbrown]

and am using the flash and the pictures are greenish close ups seem to be ok when using the flash

[David P]

Flash will only reach perhaps 1-2 feet with any usefulness. Otherwise (if your subject is further) recommend manual white balance if poss with that camera...

[copperband]

Once you've done all that and all else fails there's always Photoshop or my personal favourite, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

[Scuba Diva]

Indeed photoshop can make even seemingly unrescuable photos look passable if the composition is right. Shooting in auto does tend to give the greenish hue. The manual white balance is the way forward. Here's a bit from Mike Ward on various bits to do with digital in cluging the white balance - Dive With Mike - Compact digital. Lots of peeps carry a white slate to set it but Mike told me an easy way is simply to point the camera towards the surface when doing it.

[Blu DL]

I have been complimented on some of my photos. I describe the process as :

1/. dive in with camera.
2/. take rubbish photos
3/. 'Lightroom' them till they're good
4/.pretend you used manual white bal effectively and as if you knew what you were doing.
5/....talking about RAW files etc usually does the trick...