white balance settings

In a few months I will be snorkeling in the Caribbean. I have a Sony DSC N1 with an underwater housing on order. Rather than spend a bunch of $ for a filter, I'd like to use one of the camera's white balance modes to approximate an "underwater" mode. This camera does not have many choices: auto, daylight, cloudy, fluorescent, incandescent, flash. There's no custom option.

Any hope for getting better colors in this setting? Can colors be corrected with software, later?

Thanks

to a few meters depth, it should be fine to correct in post processing. According to the magic filter website, they are good from the surface to 15 meters if whitebalanced each depth. The autofilter is used from 3 meters and deeper.

I don't have a real suggestion on a white balance starting point without filters. Since it is probably in clear water under the sun, auto or daylight might work well.

Gerard

hey Old Guy,

none of the white-balance options seem that great, if your shooting in less than 15ft of water you might be able to make it look better in photoshop by using the white-color eyedropper in the levels tool if there is white in the photo, or by using the levels tool and/or color balance slider.

cloudy might be a little better than auto, but I'm not sure, you can always give both a try.

you can also use your flash if the subject is close and the water is clear, then they should look great.

maybe others who also have had this issue will chime in.

Scott

Thank you both for your suggestions. I've decided to try to fix the color from the comfort of my home, with my software. Since it appears there is no adequate white balance adjustment available I hope this will work.

It isn't worth $75 or so for the filter since I will be so shallow (I'm snorkeling, not diving). Or am I wrong?

Just another tip for fixing the color balance in post proccessing. As Scott suggested, use a white point in the photo to correct for color temp. However, you may not have a white area in your photos so try taking down a solid white color peice of PVC pipe or white board (something small) with you. Take a shot of it at the depth your going to be shooting. Then later when your proccessing your photos you can use that one photo to correct the color for all your other photos. Then you can make individual adjustments on single photos if you wish, but that should correct the color for the most part. Good Luck.

Great idea! Thanks.

Hi oldguy 55

I'm going to say an easier solution...

I use ALWAYS " DAYLIGHT" WB ...

Later,at home,you can use photoshop to correct a little only the blue color(the other color don't need any correction)

Do in this way:(photoshop- open file/picture/adjustment/selective color adjustment/...then select cyan and move yellow cursor about -60% or -80%)

I do in this way.

some of my photo:

sorry...

in this photo I 've not correct any color!

byeeee from Italy.

Ryan's reef photo used to have the magic filter that you could cut and place in your housing for about $20. Just my 2 cents but if you're not shooting in RAW, Jpeg white balance correction always makes the photo look fake.

I agree - the magic filter is really useful for snorkelling, it's almost ideal. It's also one of THE MOST inexpensive bits of underwater photo kit you can buy. I say go for it.

Cheers

James

Hi all,

Just to add to what the others are saying-get a magic filter!

The auto magic just slips into place inside your housing, and you can forget it is there. Your pictures down to 20m or so (depending on water clarity) will be corrected. It is by far the simplest solution, and in my experience gives much better results the manual white balancing etc.

They are relatively inexpensive here in the UK-I'm not sure about the US.

All the best

Adam