More photos with a red filter and bad viz

Some photos from Bare Island on sunday, around the bombora on the island's south. just after low tide, low visibility, canon G7 with a red filter (did not use the strobes at all).

For processing I have only used picasa, with the tint filter and 50-60% color preservation, sometimes the warmify filter. The pics are slightly blurry because of the low light and low visibility.; so the sharpening filter makes things worse. I also found that the increases the saturation also makes tha colors much worse in this case. In photos with blue water (well it was green really but picasa made it blue) and some reef, i prefer not to use any warmify-ing. if the photo is mostly reef then a warmify works well.

before and after:

new fujifilm F100fd

Summary: No aperture/shutter priority. And due to the 5x zoom, the large, square-ish lens barrel on the housing looks like trouble. Maybe the F50fd is a better choice.

a new fuji F camera, 12MP with the fuji super CCD sensor that, according to the reviews i've read, has by far the best high ISO performance. The new camera offers an ISO 12800 !!! mode in 3MP resolution. dcviews.com says something about a 380USD pricetag.

interesting features, copied from a dpreview.com preview article and fuji's announcement:

• SD/SD-HC cards supported
• 28mm equivalent wide lens
  
• good high ISO performance, low noise
• wide dynamic range comparable to the fujifilm S5 pro
• image stabilization (CCD shift)
• Dual Shot Mode: In this selectable mode, the FinePix F100fd quickly shoots two images in rapid succession – one with the flash and one without – and saves both.

some stuff that look like disadvantages especially for underwater photography

• 12 Mpixels
• 5x zoom. if the lens needs to extend too far, it may make it difficult to use wide angle wet lenses ( a problem that the canon G7 has for example)
• no aperture/shutter priority ?? is this true? that would be a deal breaker.

Fuji has announced also a matching housing (see this page for example).

The lens barrel looks big and square-ish. reminds me of the odd shaped lens barrel of the canon WP-DC11 housing for the G7 (and i guess the canon G9 housing as well). This is expected because of the 5x zoom which means that the lens length changes quite a bit from wide to all-zoomed-in. I am guessing that the housing will have the same issues with wide angle conversion lenses as the G7. Anyone has any info about that?

Also, I am guessing that the shadow from the lens barrel will render the internal strobe of the camera totally useless as in the case of the G7: If an item is close enough, you get a shadow. If it is far enough to avoid the shadow, well it is too far away for the weak internal strobe to give enough light.

Comparison with the previous model, F50fd

If indeed the F100fd camera has no Aperture/shutter priority, then it is a 'pass' for underwater photography. And it seems that this is the case, as mentioned on dpreview.com and according to fujifilm's website. a short comparison for underwater-useful features:

feature	F100fd	F50fd
SD cards	SD-HC	SD-HC
Image stabilization	CCD shift	CCD shift
lcd size	2.7in	2.7in
macro closest focus	5cm	7cm
Aperture/Shutter priority	NO ??	yes
aperture (wide)	f3.3-f9	f2.8-8
zoom	5x	3x
wide (35mm equiv)	28mm	35mm
u/w housing	weird lens barrel	yes
dynamic range function	yes	no

new canon dSLR

canon announced a new entry level dSLR, 450D which has live view with contrast based autofocus which means that no mirror flap is necessary for focusing during live view mode. dpreview.com mentions a price around 900USD with a lens and lots of info about the camera.

The olympus E410 which also has live view for some time now, needs to flip the mirror in order to focus which causes some delay and a screen black-out. I have used the olympus E410 (only on land) a little bit and i find the live view mode is a bit slow.

Fantasea and ikelite should produce housings soon. so a fantasea housing with the new canon camera would be around 2000 USD or so, an ikelite would be maybe 2500USD with the camera (just guessing those numbers, i may be way off). The olympus E410 with an olympus housing is now about 1500USD.

Kurnell, the leap to the steps

some photos from kurnell, the leap to the steps. Lots of nudibranchs ...

aperture 2.8 (blurred background) or aperture 8 ('black' background)

using a red filter

Some more photos using a red filter with the canon G7.
Again these photos were taken in very low visibility conditions, but this time at depths around 10m (Bare Island west - southwest side). Simple processing was done using picasa, using the "tint" filter with lots of color preservation, sharpening, and sometimes a bit of saturation. Before and after examples:

SS Bombo - blue photos

It was blue water diving at the SS Bombo (off Wollogong) after all - or to be more precise, after using picasa.
Some examples of "before" and "after picasa processing".

In each of the following sets of photos, the first photo is the original (canon G7 in a canon housing, with a red filter and auto white balance), the rest are after using picasa mainly the "tint" filter with about 50% color preservation.

doubles

twin independents that is. but which ones?
in the following table, the column "tanks and weights" corresponds to the weight of the (empty) tanks plus all the weight i need when using my drysuit with light undergarments (one layer of fleece). at the moment i mainly use a 95 catalina 240bar (plus a luxfer 80) so that would be the more accurate estimate for the weight needed.

tank	capacity	pressure	cu ft	weight	b empty	tanks&weights 1	tanks&weights 2
faber	12.2 L	232 bar	100cf	13.5kg	+1kg	21kg (12lb lead)	34kg ?
faber	10.5 L	232 bar	85cf	10.4kg	+1kg	16kg (12lb lead)	26kg ?
catalina	11.1 L	207 bar	80cf	14.5kg	+2.6kg	24kg (18lb lead)	38kg ?
catalina	10 L	240 bar	85cf	--kg	+ ?? kg	??	??
catalina	11 L	240 bar	95cf	17kg	+1kg	23kg (12lb lead)	40kg

"tanks and weights 1" is for single tank, "tanks and weights 2" is for doubles with some effort to take into account the extra regs. i use this website to calculate buoyancy characteristics, so the numbers are not terribly accurate.

SS Bombo photos

Some photos from the SS bombo, off wollogong. all my photos from today's two dives on the wreck, are here.
the visibility was very bad. I was experimenting with my new red filter on the canon housing for the G7.




Both of the photos above were taken with the red filter and auto white balance.
Below is a comparison between photos with the filter and without it.

No filter, natural light only, depth about 27m, auto white balance



red filter and natural light only depth 27m roughly, auto white balance