Newbie wants advice (C-8080 + Ikelite)

Hello after advice read here I went and bought an Ikelite Housing to go with my Olympus C-8080

Will be going to Red Sea shortly, would appreciate any tips on what settings to use on my camera .... I know I can adjust them all with the Ikelite .. but initially want to keep fiddle factor as low as possible, until I get used to having a XXL sized polycarbonate box with me on dives !

I am diving without using a Strobe (as I don’t have one yet) plus have bought a CR-Pro filter especially for this.

Mode .. should I go for P-A-S or one of the scenes ?

ISO .. leave it set to for example 100 ? or set to Auto

PIC .. should I use RAW or Jpeg.... I have a couple of 1Gb card so that would give me around 80 or so shots per card.

White balance – Auto or manual ? (also what about with filter fitted ?)

Exposure comp .. read a piece on a diving usenet group, where one

photographer always uses -1.0ev

'My Mode' – anybody come up with a good set of settings for configuring up ain ‘My Mode’

All advice appreciated.

since its your first time, use P mode, auto ISO, shoot RAW with a jpeg duplicate, manual white balance, not sure about exposure compensation

the more auto the camera, the longer the shutter lag. You will need a focus light!!. focus lock sometimes is a challange

I strted that way and quickly changed to A mode to control depth of field, use auto wb, I set the iso at 64 or 100. use fill flash, if ikelite ttl working you will be happy with the pictures, photoshop will help for final crop, white balance etc. you can shoot in RAW mode but will need a 1gb card.

I shot some rweally good pictures this way. I have now graduated to a dslr.

Enjoy,

the more auto the camera, the longer the shutter lag. You will need a focus light!!. focus lock sometimes is a challange

 

I strted that way and quickly changed to A mode to control depth of field, use auto wb, I set the iso at 64 or 100. use fill flash, if ikelite ttl working you will be happy with the pictures, photoshop will help for final crop, white balance etc. you can shoot in RAW mode but will need a 1gb card.

 

I shot some rweally good pictures this way. I have now graduated to a dslr.

 

Enjoy,

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As explained in post ... I do not have a strobe so option is not there.

Do have a powerful LED light which could be used for focus assist, but that seems awkward to achieve .. yet another thing to hold.

I have !Gb cards so could shoot in RAW ... does the post processing with RAW really make that difference, thought photoshop was now so good that high quality jpeg would be just as easy to tweak.?

since its your first time, use P mode, auto ISO, shoot RAW with a jpeg duplicate, manual white balance, not sure about exposure compensation

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can you explain the JPEG duplicate ? what is the purpsoe of this, is it a separte picture .. or just a stright duplicate of teh RAW file, if the latter then othetr than filling up the card what is the reason ?

On the the WB .. you say use manual, is that only without filter or both ?

Assume I will only be using filter down to 10m or so.

internal flash works somewhat, external better. there are some ultralite brackets that hold focus lights on the case. jpegs can also work but you lose some info. most of my early shots were jpeg, now I shoot raw