Look Ma, No Flash

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:39:12 -0500, Dan Bracuk <bracuk@pathcom.com>
wrote:

>Last week I tried something new - new for me that is. I took all my
>photos with natural light only. The good news is that the good ones
>were much better than they would have been with flash. No shadows and
>no backscatter.
>
>The bad news is that I left the camera on fully automatic, except for
>the no flash part. That meant that in pretty well 100% of the low
>light situations, the shutter speed, or whatever you call that with
>digital cameras was too slow and my pictures were blurry.
>
>Next trip, manual f-stop and shutter speed settings. Anybody got any
>suggestions for something that might work? The camera is a 4
>megapixel Sony point and shoot.
>
>Dan Bracuk
>If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

Here's what works for me with great results (Olympus 5050 camera):
- pump up the ISO sensitivity a little
- turn off the flash
- turn on manual white balance, and set it at depth by pointing the
camera at a white diving slate when setting it
- in Photoshop click on auto levels to bring out the true colors that
you captured by setting the white balance but which are overshadowned
by the stonger blue channel

I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
technique with very good results.


Jon Weinberg

| email: jon at JonWeinberg daht com
| web: www.JonWeinberg.com

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:39:12 -0500, Dan Bracuk <bracuk@pathcom.com>
wrote:

>Last week I tried something new - new for me that is. I took all my
>photos with natural light only. The good news is that the good ones
>were much better than they would have been with flash. No shadows and
>no backscatter.
>
>The bad news is that I left the camera on fully automatic, except for
>the no flash part. That meant that in pretty well 100% of the low
>light situations, the shutter speed, or whatever you call that with
>digital cameras was too slow and my pictures were blurry.
>
>Next trip, manual f-stop and shutter speed settings. Anybody got any
>suggestions for something that might work? The camera is a 4
>megapixel Sony point and shoot.
>
>Dan Bracuk
>If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

Here's what works for me with great results (Olympus 5050 camera):
- pump up the ISO sensitivity a little
- turn off the flash
- turn on manual white balance, and set it at depth by pointing the
camera at a white diving slate when setting it
- in Photoshop click on auto levels to bring out the true colors that
you captured by setting the white balance but which are overshadowned
by the stonger blue channel

I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
technique with very good results.


Jon Weinberg

| email: jon at JonWeinberg daht com
| web: www.JonWeinberg.com

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:39:12 -0500, Dan Bracuk <bracuk@pathcom.com>
wrote:

>Last week I tried something new - new for me that is. I took all my
>photos with natural light only. The good news is that the good ones
>were much better than they would have been with flash. No shadows and
>no backscatter.
>
>The bad news is that I left the camera on fully automatic, except for
>the no flash part. That meant that in pretty well 100% of the low
>light situations, the shutter speed, or whatever you call that with
>digital cameras was too slow and my pictures were blurry.
>
>Next trip, manual f-stop and shutter speed settings. Anybody got any
>suggestions for something that might work? The camera is a 4
>megapixel Sony point and shoot.
>
>Dan Bracuk
>If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

Here's what works for me with great results (Olympus 5050 camera):
- pump up the ISO sensitivity a little
- turn off the flash
- turn on manual white balance, and set it at depth by pointing the
camera at a white diving slate when setting it
- in Photoshop click on auto levels to bring out the true colors that
you captured by setting the white balance but which are overshadowned
by the stonger blue channel

I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
technique with very good results.


Jon Weinberg

| email: jon at JonWeinberg daht com
| web: www.JonWeinberg.com

Jon Weinberg <jon@JonWeinberg.com> pounded away at his keyboard
resulting in:
:I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
:technique with very good results.

If you are at 70 ft on a cloudy day, can you photograph a swimming
turtle and end up with an unblurred image? That's what I'm trying to
accomplish.

I don't know for sure, but you might be doing unnecessary work with
that in-water camera adjustment. I don't do any of that and get
similar results with the Adjust Levels feature of Microsoft Digital
Image Pro. Mind you, I'm using a filter so that may be significant.
One day you might want to skip the initialization and see if it makes
a difference. Worse case scenario is that some photos won't turn out
as nicely as they otherwise would have.


Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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Jon Weinberg <jon@JonWeinberg.com> pounded away at his keyboard
resulting in:
:I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
:technique with very good results.

If you are at 70 ft on a cloudy day, can you photograph a swimming
turtle and end up with an unblurred image? That's what I'm trying to
accomplish.

I don't know for sure, but you might be doing unnecessary work with
that in-water camera adjustment. I don't do any of that and get
similar results with the Adjust Levels feature of Microsoft Digital
Image Pro. Mind you, I'm using a filter so that may be significant.
One day you might want to skip the initialization and see if it makes
a difference. Worse case scenario is that some photos won't turn out
as nicely as they otherwise would have.


Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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Jon Weinberg <jon@JonWeinberg.com> pounded away at his keyboard
resulting in:
:I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
:technique with very good results.

If you are at 70 ft on a cloudy day, can you photograph a swimming
turtle and end up with an unblurred image? That's what I'm trying to
accomplish.

I don't know for sure, but you might be doing unnecessary work with
that in-water camera adjustment. I don't do any of that and get
similar results with the Adjust Levels feature of Microsoft Digital
Image Pro. Mind you, I'm using a filter so that may be significant.
One day you might want to skip the initialization and see if it makes
a difference. Worse case scenario is that some photos won't turn out
as nicely as they otherwise would have.


Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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Dan Bracuk wrote:
> Jon Weinberg <jon@JonWeinberg.com> pounded away at his keyboard
> resulting in:
> :I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
> :technique with very good results.
>
> If you are at 70 ft on a cloudy day, can you photograph a swimming
> turtle and end up with an unblurred image? That's what I'm trying to
> accomplish.

Dan, aren't the options pretty limited?

I think you could raise ISO so a motion-freezing shutter speed could be
used, but that would increase the equivalent graininess. On my Olympus
4040z, increased ISO produces a lousy image, and it doesn't
color-correct well.

Otherwise, how about setting your shutter fast enough to freeze motion
and correcting underexposure later? That's just a thought, as I haven't
done much lightening of images and don't know how much would be lost.

Other than adding light, is there another option? Please tell me if I'm
missing something here.

What I was trying to suggest in my earlier post was that there's a
slight chance your camera, in automatic mode, may be biased toward
maintaining mid-apertures at the expense of faster shutter speeds. I
don't think that's the case, but it would be pretty easy to find out as
I described.

To find out, can't you just check the camera's automatic settings of
aperture and shutter in some low-light environment at home?

If it's chosing too slow a shutter speed, but still hasn't opened the
aperture fully, you'll be able to increase the speed and widen the
aperture, right? Maybe then you'll have enough speed for those
underwater action shots.

> I don't know for sure, but you might be doing unnecessary work with
> that in-water camera adjustment. I don't do any of that and get
> similar results with the Adjust Levels feature of Microsoft Digital
> Image Pro. Mind you, I'm using a filter so that may be significant.
> One day you might want to skip the initialization and see if it makes
> a difference. Worse case scenario is that some photos won't turn out
> as nicely as they otherwise would have.

That's what I think, too.

I found tinkering with manual settings of white balance with my Oly
4040z yielded very unpredictable results and I was better off using
Auto white balance and color correcting later. I even tried using
"Cloudy" white balance and other white balance settings, but came back
to Auto, which corrected pretty well.

Mind you, this experimentation was in green North Atlantic and
Northeastern US lake waters, but, in tropical waters, I used Auto White
Balance and color-corrected later, with adequate results for my
"snapshot" quality pics.

Maybe I need to experiment more with manual white balance settings, but
I think I've come up against the limitations of my camera and/or the
limitation of water conditions here in the northeast. 8^)

Dave C

Dan Bracuk wrote:
> Jon Weinberg <jon@JonWeinberg.com> pounded away at his keyboard
> resulting in:
> :I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
> :technique with very good results.
>
> If you are at 70 ft on a cloudy day, can you photograph a swimming
> turtle and end up with an unblurred image? That's what I'm trying to
> accomplish.

Dan, aren't the options pretty limited?

I think you could raise ISO so a motion-freezing shutter speed could be
used, but that would increase the equivalent graininess. On my Olympus
4040z, increased ISO produces a lousy image, and it doesn't
color-correct well.

Otherwise, how about setting your shutter fast enough to freeze motion
and correcting underexposure later? That's just a thought, as I haven't
done much lightening of images and don't know how much would be lost.

Other than adding light, is there another option? Please tell me if I'm
missing something here.

What I was trying to suggest in my earlier post was that there's a
slight chance your camera, in automatic mode, may be biased toward
maintaining mid-apertures at the expense of faster shutter speeds. I
don't think that's the case, but it would be pretty easy to find out as
I described.

To find out, can't you just check the camera's automatic settings of
aperture and shutter in some low-light environment at home?

If it's chosing too slow a shutter speed, but still hasn't opened the
aperture fully, you'll be able to increase the speed and widen the
aperture, right? Maybe then you'll have enough speed for those
underwater action shots.

> I don't know for sure, but you might be doing unnecessary work with
> that in-water camera adjustment. I don't do any of that and get
> similar results with the Adjust Levels feature of Microsoft Digital
> Image Pro. Mind you, I'm using a filter so that may be significant.
> One day you might want to skip the initialization and see if it makes
> a difference. Worse case scenario is that some photos won't turn out
> as nicely as they otherwise would have.

That's what I think, too.

I found tinkering with manual settings of white balance with my Oly
4040z yielded very unpredictable results and I was better off using
Auto white balance and color correcting later. I even tried using
"Cloudy" white balance and other white balance settings, but came back
to Auto, which corrected pretty well.

Mind you, this experimentation was in green North Atlantic and
Northeastern US lake waters, but, in tropical waters, I used Auto White
Balance and color-corrected later, with adequate results for my
"snapshot" quality pics.

Maybe I need to experiment more with manual white balance settings, but
I think I've come up against the limitations of my camera and/or the
limitation of water conditions here in the northeast. 8^)

Dave C

Dan Bracuk wrote:
> Jon Weinberg <jon@JonWeinberg.com> pounded away at his keyboard
> resulting in:
> :I've taken available light pictures down to 70 feet with this
> :technique with very good results.
>
> If you are at 70 ft on a cloudy day, can you photograph a swimming
> turtle and end up with an unblurred image? That's what I'm trying to
> accomplish.

Dan, aren't the options pretty limited?

I think you could raise ISO so a motion-freezing shutter speed could be
used, but that would increase the equivalent graininess. On my Olympus
4040z, increased ISO produces a lousy image, and it doesn't
color-correct well.

Otherwise, how about setting your shutter fast enough to freeze motion
and correcting underexposure later? That's just a thought, as I haven't
done much lightening of images and don't know how much would be lost.

Other than adding light, is there another option? Please tell me if I'm
missing something here.

What I was trying to suggest in my earlier post was that there's a
slight chance your camera, in automatic mode, may be biased toward
maintaining mid-apertures at the expense of faster shutter speeds. I
don't think that's the case, but it would be pretty easy to find out as
I described.

To find out, can't you just check the camera's automatic settings of
aperture and shutter in some low-light environment at home?

If it's chosing too slow a shutter speed, but still hasn't opened the
aperture fully, you'll be able to increase the speed and widen the
aperture, right? Maybe then you'll have enough speed for those
underwater action shots.

> I don't know for sure, but you might be doing unnecessary work with
> that in-water camera adjustment. I don't do any of that and get
> similar results with the Adjust Levels feature of Microsoft Digital
> Image Pro. Mind you, I'm using a filter so that may be significant.
> One day you might want to skip the initialization and see if it makes
> a difference. Worse case scenario is that some photos won't turn out
> as nicely as they otherwise would have.

That's what I think, too.

I found tinkering with manual settings of white balance with my Oly
4040z yielded very unpredictable results and I was better off using
Auto white balance and color correcting later. I even tried using
"Cloudy" white balance and other white balance settings, but came back
to Auto, which corrected pretty well.

Mind you, this experimentation was in green North Atlantic and
Northeastern US lake waters, but, in tropical waters, I used Auto White
Balance and color-corrected later, with adequate results for my
"snapshot" quality pics.

Maybe I need to experiment more with manual white balance settings, but
I think I've come up against the limitations of my camera and/or the
limitation of water conditions here in the northeast. 8^)

Dave C

"Dave C" <dcalderbank@top.monad.net> pounded away at his keyboard
resulting in:
:Otherwise, how about setting your shutter fast enough to freeze motion
:and correcting underexposure later? That's just a thought, as I haven't
:done much lightening of images and don't know how much would be lost.

That's what I had in mind all the time. Has anyone done this before?
What shutter speed did you use? Did you also keep a constant f-stop
or did you keep that on automatic? How were the results.

WRT lightening images, Microsoft Digital Image Pro, which I use has a
Add Flash feature. It works really well with underwater shots in that
not only does it add light, it also brings out the colours. I'll show
you guys a before and after example in a little while.

Dan Bracuk
If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.

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