Any Canon S80 Owners in the House?

I'm looking for a camera that is compact and offers manual controls, low lag time, fast focus and sharp pictures (aren't we all). Don't care about RAW. I'm currently looking at the Canon S80 but read a thread today that is making me second guess my choice. (I hate it when this happens!) Does anyone own a S80 and used it underwater?

Thank you,

Terri

Louisiana, USA

Terri, what put you off the S80 if not the absence of RAW ability?

The old S70 had RAW, and a custom white balance setting for underwater. But it had problems with focusing in low light.

This problem has apparently been fixed in the S80 which uses the new DIGIC II module for AF, also present in the fine A610 and A620 cameras by Canon (and they focus well - I've used the A620).

Regards

Robert

Christchurch, New Zealand

Is any Canon Powershot S80 users utilizing the Henrich's Digital Adapter for triggering their old Analog strobes i.e. Ikelite SS50's? If so, how did you mount the digital adapter to the housing? What did you use to keep the digital adapter in place over the internal flash area?

Charlie

Terri,

Personally the ability to post white-balance a RAW photo along with adjusting exposure settings etc in software make RAW the single most important feature of an underwater camera in my book. I've taken underwater jpegs (once by accidentally not noticing what the camera setting was and the other when I only had a small amount of memory left). While you can manipulate a jpeg somewhat in PS, I haven't found a way to fix exposure and white balance issues in a way that makes the photo better. So either your really good and take care underwater to make sure every photo is near perfect, or you shoot in RAW and do some PS work later. I had several nice animal interaction photo not turn out with Jpeg on that dive. Any attempt to fix it later in PS failed. I'll never shoot jpeg again. Sorry to muddy the water.

Gary

I (actually, the wife) has used S80 in the canon housing for a couple of trips.

Main reason to get it was small size.

Here is our (limited!) experience, using it mainly in 'P' or scene (UW) modes.

(a) AF is good topside, but not tack-sharp underwater, even in good viz.

(B) Colors are better than what I get from my old Olympus C5050.

© Using internal strobe is a pain -- close-up shots often get burnt,

and then it takes several button-presses to change flash power.

I suppose this will be less of an issue if you use external strobe.

To see what we have been able to do using these cameras, you can

check some photos from my website (S80 used only in the last

two trips):

Ajay's Webpage

If I have to choose again, I may look more seriously at Fuji E900, which

has been recommended here by more capable shooters..

Best,

Ajay.