Considering Sealife DC600 MAXX...

Hello,

Going to PNG for month of June. Will do 11 days diving on Stardancer / Walindi combo. A lot of Lake Michigan diving, some Florida keys and local midwest through the fall.

I am new to UW photo but have about 10 years film exp w/Canon EOS system. Will be ready to make the financial jump to the pro level Caon DSLR (w/housing, strobes etc) by Nov/Dec. Until then I have heard several good things about and seen pretty images taken with the Sealife DC600. It offers 6.1MP and comes in a package setup including 24mm wide angle and dual flash. Price around $1400.

This seems like a good option to let me get the feel for digital / flash UW for under $1.5K. Any thoughts would be appreciated!!

gjwagner

http://www.sealife-cameras.com/cameras/dc600_specs.html

To start off with let me say I have never used nor had 1st hand experience with the DC600. What I am about to write is based on my experience with my 500 model and then studying the pictures on the Sealife website for the 600.

The 500 for me was a great intro camera but one of the first things I began to notice was that the colors in the photos (and I used a strobe) were flat. There is very little "pop" to the colors that the camera captures. While the colors are definately there the rendition to me is undersaturated to a large degree. This picture is one I took in March (I began to take UW photos this year for the 1st time) with a strobe. There is very little color in the color or the area around it that the camera caught.

This is not just one incidence. It is much easier to see with a series of photos all at once. If you go to my album from March which is almost exclusively the 500 model photos and dont look at a single photo but rather the album view with all the thumbnails you can see the lack of color. http://good-times.webshots.com/album/557964721fNfxRD

I soon switched to a Canon G7 to take better pics and videos and the results were certainly more colorful.

Again, go the album view where you can see thumbnails and the overall color difference is very evident. In my opinion there are alternate choices for an UW camera that would work better than the 600. Whether its a G7,640 or Olympus you might want to look around for some more sample photos to judge from. That same $1400 will buy a G7, Ikelite housing and a DS51 strobe and I am sure a similar setup from other manufacturers.

To start off with let me say I have never used nor had 1st hand experience with the DC600. What I am about to write is based on my experience with my 500 model and then studying the pictures on the Sealife website for the 600.

 

The 500 for me was a great intro camera but one of the first things I began to notice was that the colors in the photos (and I used a strobe) were flat. There is very little "pop" to the colors that the camera captures. While the colors are definately there the rendition to me is undersaturated to a large degree. This picture is one I took in March (I began to take UW photos this year for the 1st time) with a strobe. There is very little color in the color or the area around it that the camera caught.

 

This is not just one incidence. It is much easier to see with a series of photos all at once. If you go to my album from March which is almost exclusively the 500 model photos and dont look at a single photo but rather the album view with all the thumbnails you can see the lack of color. http://good-times.webshots.com/album/557964721fNfxRD

 

I soon switched to a Canon G7 to take better pics and videos and the results were certainly more colorful.

 

Again, go the album view where you can see thumbnails and the overall color difference is very evident. In my opinion there are alternate choices for an UW camera that would work better than the 600. Whether its a G7,640 or Olympus you might want to look around for some more sample photos to judge from. That same $1400 will buy a G7, Ikelite housing and a DS51 strobe and I am sure a similar setup from other manufacturers.

It's funny that I opened this thread out of so many. I too many NEW to underwater photography and just receieved the DC500 with Strobe and Wide Angle Lens as a gift. I agree that the pic you took with it don't have that 'POP' to the color. Were you using a strobe? Did you try all the adjustments? What about usinf PhotoShop to tweak the colors back into the pics? Am I wasting my time? Any advice on settings would be great! If there is another setup I can switch to from the same price range that too would be excellent. Thanks in advance!

I was using a strobe and the lighting per se is fine in the photograph. I think that the camera itself does not capture the color as well as others do for the same amount of money. As for photoshop, I do own PS Elements 5.0 and have tried to work with the photos but do not have the experience to make much difference. I have a Sony cybershot N2 which produces such rich colors compared to the DC500 it makes me shake my head. Of course the Sony in a housing was less than $600 and the autofocus is as easily as fast as my Nikon D80 and works better in low light than my D80 too. Compared to the Sealife camera it makes it look like a childs toy and at half the price.

SonyCybershot pics

not cropped...

I am not proposing you go get a Sony just that there are better choices for the money in my opinion. I still think the G7, Ikelite, single Ikelite DS51 strobe is an awesome combination. Not cheap but at under $1400 U.S. it can do just about everything and has HighDef video as well at 15fps.