Hello divers,
Here is a newcomer, experienced photographer outside the water, diving since 6 years (last 3 times to the Similans liveaboards). Now I have decided to join my buddy in taking pictures underwater.
Therefore I invested in the new Canon Powershot G9 (after reading some of your forum), WP-DC21 housing and a 2GB card.
As I have just one more weekend to test and get used to the new toy before leaving for the Maledives (2 Nov), I thought that some of you could give me some good hints for starting and optimum settings. I intend to use RAW format for further processing of data. Typical questions I have:
- Auto-focus frame mode centred?
- the G9 has an underwater shooting mode with white-balance setting, is it ok?
- ISO speed on Auto?
- any recommendation for flash settings?
- any recommendation for Macro?
Looking forward to your infos
Cheers
Alex

To quickly answer your questions :
1. Auto focus centered is fine if you know your subject will always be in the center and I am sure will speed the focus up .. can you change the focus mode UW ?
2. the UW WB setting is ok ... you are best doing some manual settings at different depths .. the auto UW setting tends to be good for 5ft down.
3. ISO speed I would suggest auto is OK ... but i would set it on 100 maybe 200 if a cloudy day. I am very rarely not on ISO 100
4. I take it you only have an internal flash ? you want it on IMO but it will only light up subjects 3ft or closer. Too close may get shadows.
5. Macro, with compact units I always found full Zoom (closer) and the macro function on the camera with the flash to work best. The zoom allows you to be back from your subject not scaring it, and the macro function helps it focus (the zoom also helps the flash light everything as you are so close you may get shadows)

with regular shots, remember these basic help hints and you should get some good results
main subject 2-3ft away (thr flash wont work any forther away and you will end up with just washed out images)
aim slightly upwards (creates nice blue colours in the water) (not needed for macro)
let your subjects (if moving) come to you .. chasing will always give you fish butts
compose shoot check adjust, that way if you get it wrong you can just go ahead and shoot it again while you are there)
you have a 2gb card .. no harm in shooting the same shot over and over again to make sure you have one good shot when you check them later on the computer.
concentrate on your diving and your safety first, get your bouyancy right, get yourself settled and calm, then shoot. If you find your shooting getting panicky just start over and get back to diving and ignore the camera for a bit.

thanks Giles,
good hints that should help me starting! anyway it will need practising
the flash is internal (one day I might use external light, but that is too early now)

I agree with most of Giles’ suggestions.  The only counterpoints I have are:

- macro - If I understand Giles’ suggestion correctly he is advocating using the telephoto end of the zoom with the macro setting to enable you to be further away from the subject whilst still getting a frame filling shot.  Maybe the G9 will be different, but I have found with older (and to be fair, lesser) Canon cameras (Powershot A85 and S70) that the auto-focus just does not manage to focus in macro mode if you zoom in at all - only the wide angle setting works.  Maybe you could use manual focus instead?

- Auto ISO.  Obviously, ISO is just another exposure parameter, which Canon’s AE is more than capable of setting, however, I suspect that underwater it will tend to set a high ISO rather than a low one.  I haven’t seen any photos taken by the G9 at high ISO’s but if the results from the A85 and S70 are representative, high ISOs are to be avoided due to noise.  I advocate setting the lowest ISO offered by the camera and using the flash, although if you are not in clear water, flash will result in backscatter, so you may have no option but to shoot ambient light, in which case you probably will need a higher ISO anyway, in which case, Auto probably isn’t losing you anything.

Good luck; enjoy your new toy - there’s been quite a bit of chatter about the G9 recently, and it looks very nice.

cheers
Graham

didn’t I say ISO 100 ?

Giles - 21 October 2007 08:00 PM

To quickly answer your questions :
<snip>
3. ISO speed I would suggest auto is OK ... but i would set it on 100 maybe 200 if a cloudy day. I am very rarely not on ISO 100
<snip>

Well, yes, you did say ISO 100, but you also said auto is OK, so the advice was a bit diluted!  I felt a clarification would be useful.  Didn’t mean to be argumentative

cheers
Graham