Advice for a Canon S90 and Ikelite housing.

I've just bought an S90 and Ikelite housing after spending days researching on the internet. Got to say I bought new in both cases but got absolute bargains. Having never used a camera underwater before I'm hoping some current or ex S90 users can give me some pointers.

I work in Saudi Arabia and all my diving takes place in the Red Sea so at least I'm getting good viz and some excellent light. At present I wont be using a strobe but will be limiting my camera use to fairly shallow depths. So to questions...

What is the best mode to use the camera in for use uw?, auto or manual set up? What settings do you use? Is the 'underwater' mode worth using? Any other advice you deem useful would be welcomed, thanks.

Hi Steve.

The red sea sounds great!

The best is to shoot raw, and white balance after. It is far easier and better results than any auto or built in underwater WB.

Above 10 feet or so, you will not need any special white balance.

From 10ish to 30ish feet, there are some filters you can get, called magic filters, or ur-pro blue water filters, that will dramatically improve the quality of the photos, and make it very nice to shoot video with ambient light.

Did you get a flash diffuser? This will help a lot, as long as the water is very clear, to light things up, and bring back colors, within 1-2 feet of the camera.

What housing did you get?

Hi Steve.

 

The red sea sounds great!

 

The best is to shoot raw, and white balance after. It is far easier and better results than any auto or built in underwater WB.

 

Above 10 feet or so, you will not need any special white balance.

 

From 10ish to 30ish feet, there are some filters you can get, called magic filters, or ur-pro blue water filters, that will dramatically improve the quality of the photos, and make it very nice to shoot video with ambient light.

 

Did you get a flash diffuser? This will help a lot, as long as the water is very clear, to light things up, and bring back colors, within 1-2 feet of the camera.

 

What housing did you get?

I've got the Ikelite housing, although I can't pick it or the camera up until I go home next in April; it comes with a diffuser that can be fitted.

Apart from setting it up to take RAW what other settings does it require?; I've noticed in the manual which I downloaded that the flash does not deploy all the time.

For best image quality, you'll want to keep the iso at the lowest.

Many people use full manual mode underwater, where you set the aperture and shutter speed yourself, and just slowly adjust them as you go down and up, and the light level changes.

The problem with this in Canon's recent P&S cams, is M for ambient light exposure, also forces you to use manual flash exposure.

So, you should play around, and turn the cam to force flash off, and shoot ambient light shots, in M mode.

Then you could turn the flash on, and maybe use Av mode, wide open, as long as it doesn't make the shutter speed too slow.

The ike flash diffuser helps a lot, to get nicer looking shots, and a bit less illumination of the particles in the water.

When shooting no strobe, or shooting videos, the ur-pro filter makes an incredible difference!

http://www.ikelite.com/web_two/urproexamples.html

Enjoy.

Hi Steve,

This is a great set-up; I have used a Canon S90 in an Ikelite housing for approximately one year and is very happy about this

As I am shooting mostly in the dark green Danish waters I almost always use a strobe so I cannot specify settings for natural light shooting. But a suggestion is to start out with the auto-mode, read the settings history, use the same settings in manual mode for a start and work your way out from there.

The manual for the Ikelite housing (which is a part of the package) contains recommandations to settings for the Canon S90 if you use a flash. Despite many stating the opposite I find the internal flash is quite usable for macro shooting! Included in the housing package is a flash diffusor. This is designed for being placed on the port directly agains the front of the camera. However when placed here the port will cast a shadow over the pictures if you are close to the subject. I enhanced the scaloped section of the diffusor enabling me to mount it in the recess in the middle of the port. In this position you can get significantly closer to the subject without getting a shadow.

Most of my photos (see the link below) have been taken with the Canon S90 (the remaining part with a Canon IXUS 870).