I have an inexpensive Panasonic Lumix digital camera that I will be taking on a Caribbean cruise in Late January. It takes good pictures, even in relatively low light, but was obviously designed for use on land.
On eBay, there is someone selling an almost new underwater housing for the camera for $65.00, which is a deal compared to what it would cost new. Assuming it is in as good of shape as the auction states, will it be worth it to even try using this on a dive trips in Grenada, Bonaire, and Aruba? The housing is rated to 130 feet, so I’m not worried about the depth. What I am wondering about is the quality of the pictures I’ll get. Real underwater cameras have extra strobes and custom housings designed for this specific purpose, and consequently, take awesome pictures. This housing, shown here, has none of those:
I have seen other people’s attempt to use similar camera set ups on their dive trips from several years back, which generally resulted in 150 pictures of blue colored blurry shit. I have never taken an underwater photography course either, so I should add I have no experience with this, but would practice in a pool before January to get settings right before hand. My question is, am I wasting my time, or has the quality of the cameras and housings improved to the point where I have a decent shot at getting some good pictures? If I’m just going to waste my money and spend my entire dive clicking blurry pictures instead of enjoying myself, I’d rather know up front and not waste my time. Has anyone had similar experiences they can share, good or bad. Note, the advice of “why don’t you just break down and buy a $2500+ real underwater camera?” is not the answer I’m looking for. I want to know if a generic Lumix camera has a shot at getting good underwater pictures…
Sorry Lanzy, that’s just for snorkeling. I will likely be in the 40-80 foot depth range on these dives and this product you linked to is only rated to 15 feet. My camera does have a flash, but considering how poor light penetration is at that depth, I’m wondering if it will make a difference or if I’ll just get a bunch of shadows.
Down to 40 feet/12m you can get colour if you have the right white balance and the light/water clarity is good. At 80 feet you can take pictures worth keeping but they will be very blue heavy unless strobes are present.
There are filters you can buy that can help.
The big advantage of these is it means you dont have to get the ‘white balance’ right - the filter does it for you. Cameras underwater struggle to get the colour balance right, and this is the easiest way to correct it. The alternatives are here:
The other thing of course is practise, inexperience is the biggest cause of the blue blurry rather than the camera or the depth. Getting the hang of the light direction, not shooting at subjects in shadow, GET CLOSE, SHOOT UP, etc etc. There are some great websites on line to learn more, eg www.wetpixel.com
I had pretty good results with a Canon digital camera and housing 6 years ago in Hawaii. Stay shallow, and take closeup pictures - anything beyond 5-6 feet was pretty much a blue blur Practicing ahead of time in a pool for settings is an excellent idea - leaving it on the standard setting will definitely give you crappy results.
And test out the housing before you ever put a camera in it - put a ziploc full of coins and a piece of tissue in it, and leave it in a bucket full of water for a few days. If there’s the slightest bit of moisture, you’ve got a leak that will probably flood it quickly at depth.
I have a booklet on how to build underwater housings that was written in the '60s. I used to sell them on eBay, with a couple of whatsits for controls. Too busy to dig them out now.
Although I have about $1200 of underwater 35 mm camera equipment it’s now obsolete. I got a $150 underwater housing made by Canon for my Canon A75 PowerShot camera.
If the water has much in the way of particulate matter in it you will get back scatter and it will mess the picture up. At depths of 30 to 40 feet you may be able to get away without using the flash. The color will be best at those depths also.
Here is a link to a few pictures I took on Bonaire with the A95.
I just checked the specs that camera has an underwater scene setting too, using that could help a lot. You could try using that instead of the filter option, although they tend to be more optimised for snorkelling depths.
If you do get one, it’s possible to get fantastic pictures and video–but I advise you to find a good dive shop that has someone on staff who knows what kind of settings are optimal for underwater photography.
Because you’re going to Bonaire, I think it would be worthwhile to get the housing. Because there is so much to see in relatively shallow waters (30 to 20 feet), you have a good chance at getting some good shots.
Light is everything with photography. The problem with underwater photography is how well your eyes adapt to lower light. That is, it will seem like there is plenty of light to take a decent picture, but your camera will disagree.
So with less light (deeper conditions), this is where the flash comes in. However, as “Diver” points out, you are kind of limited in using the built-in flash due to “backscatter” (particulate matter in the water, which your eyes don’t see too well with ambient light). You can certainly try to use the flash, and in clear enough conditions can get some reasonable results. But it will vary from dive to dive.
If you do decide to get the housing and take the plunge to try some u/w photography, be prepared that it will take some “learning curve” to learn how best to adjust your camera to get the best results. And Photoshop is going to be a necessity (until you get an external strobe). Don’t underestimate what you can salvage with Photoshop, BTW. Most somewhat dark shots can be at least partially salvaged.
Here are some photos my husband (who knows absolutely nothing about photography) took with our sony point and shoot a few years ago. Messing with the white balance once I got these on the computer helped a lot. They’re not excellent or anything, but I’m glad we have them.
I think that the lighting issue aside, most not specifically for underwater cameras don’t have a white balance that you can adjust and mess with, which means that you’ll get lots of greenish/blueish pictures instead of nice, clear ones. For that reason alone I’d opt for something like a Sea Life type camera that has the white balance already built in. I have an Olympus 1030sw that I use when diving and while I get some great pics and video, many of them require touching up with Photoshop due to the lack of white balance in the camera itself, which sucks royally. If I’d known that prior to purchasing it, I wouldn’t have.