GHOSTS - 20 May 2008 10:14 AM
thanks for that, ok i am still new to this so i am sorry if im confused , WB and WB shift whats the difference and how to adjust to day light i only have auto ,indoor outdoor, or one push which i really dont understand but to push it in front of a piece off paper.
Sorry about that I meant outdoor, not daylight.
Countless articles and books have been written on WB (you can eeven just poke around threads here to see the issue), but basically, broad stroke, white balance is adjusting what the camera should be seeing as white based on light. In other words, and you can try this, take a sheet of white paper inside under some lights you have on in your home and set the camera to auto WB. You will often see the paper is not white, but may even go as far as a strong yellow. (Depends on the light, I am thinking of one room in my house which shows this well 
) Without moving your position change the WB to Outdoor and you will see the color shift. Now WB by pressing One Push by zooming into the paper, set the One Push, then zoom back out. You will see the paper come close to white (or white). But this may make the scene look different, for instance “cold looking”, so you would add a bit more red by the white balance shift. In other words light is all not the same and affects the color of what you shoot. When diving as you go deeper you start losing reds which is why things look more blue as you go down. Color is removed in ROYGBIV. (Red goes first, then Orange, Yellow and so on.)
WB is compensating for the changes in color. Red filters are adding back some of the color that is missing (though adding a filter also cuts out light coming into the camera which affects exposure somewhat.)
Being able to WB with the one-push will help, but I am not sure you should worry about that quite that much, at least to start since you built the housing, it is working and you may want to start getting some use from it before going further, especially since you are freediving and not going very deep (though I can not freedive to 1m 
). Not sure how much fiddling you want to do initially and how often you get to feedive (I always assume people from Australia who come to diving discusssions must live in Cairns or Port Douglas and can dive whenever they want, even though I spent a about 6 weeks in Australia, including the outback ) With a red filter, daylight balance and a bit of post work you should be able to get alot of good footage to start. You may not even need a red filter on the 5m dives or perhaps even a bit deeper. Even the time of day (where the light is coming from) can affect things.
GHOSTS - 20 May 2008 10:14 AM
tAnd what should i do with the setting like e.g.. PROGRAM AE, should i put it on beach and ,exposure ,AE SHIFT , should i adjust or leave on auto,
i will be using a wide lens most of the time.
It will be affected by the light to some degree. But as a starting point (pre-fiddling) leave it on Auto for those items. They would otherwise for the most part be controlled by the roller and menus if you were to get into tweaking them during the dive. Sometimes using the various presets or changes which could be worthwhile if you were able to access them can lead to results you may not like if you set them up. In other words if I was going to go in with my camera knowing I could only access ON/OFF/REC for overall general shooting I would set the camera off of the easy mode and use Outdoor WB/AF/Turn off Recording Light/Show Zebra. Good general starting point (other than accessing manual WB) and I actually often initially set up my camera that way in case something goes a bit off in the camera (which has happened where my menus or rollers would not respond properly during a dive) so I can still get footage I can use with some tweaking in post.
The only other changes to consider are dialing the AE Shift down a bit so you do not blow out bright areas. (On the HC3 at least when the camera is set to Auto AE, AE Shift will adjust the exposure level and I would guess all the Sony’s like the HC3 operate the same) If slightly underexposed you can tweak things up and if you had good light hopefully there will not be too much noise/artifacts. If over, you will not get things back if blown out. The other setting to consider is to set AF to a couple of feet to get WA shots. But not sure I would say do that as an absolute. In good light the AF can do a pretty good job for WA and you may not want to be tied to a fixed setting.
GHOSTS - 20 May 2008 10:14 AM
Does a filter sit on the inside or outside of a lens as i wont to make one some how, not sure what its made out off, and were i can get the materials???
i really appreciate it that some one can explain this to me as i am so keen to learn thanks rick
The filters can be screwed onto the camera like a UV filter or the rest (though I am not sure if they make them for the camera, I would guess they do) or can be flipped down in front of the lens as in the Gates. Or you can even slip one over the outside of the port. With your set-up it sounds like the screw-in or over the port. The advantage for your set up if you can do the over the port method is that you can remove it if you feel like it and take a few different versions without having to open things up. May not be quite optically as good as the other method, but the benefits of shooting a couple of variations if you freedive to the same spot is probably worth it.
The bottom line is that these things will start becoming a bit clearer after a couple of dives and looking at the footage. You will start getting a bit more of a handle on how the camera behaves and what is going to work. Well at least that is what I tell myself, there is always a suprise at some point. But that is what makes this fun
Hope that helps as a start
