White balance and the E-M1

I just got back from 1 week in Cabo Pulmo, Baja CA. It was my first full trip with my E-M1 in the Aquatica housing. I had a hell of a time setting white balance underwater for available light shots at any appreciable depth. In manual mode, I'd get the ISO, Shutter, and Aperture all set to give me a good exposure, but when I tried to set white balance shooting my hand, a sandy bottom, or a white slate, I'd always get a NG/Retry error, which required me to trip the shutter lever to get out of. Has anyone else had this problem? At 40-50 feet, the only way I was able to get any available light shots was to use the preset underwater (fish icon) option in the E-M1 white balance menu. I did try using the set white balance in shallow water (~10-15 feet) where the light is better and it worked there, but in deeper water I had no success.

An idea that I came up with once I got home was to try using the temperature option in the white balance menu, and use the viewfinder to see if the resulting image looks realistic. However, I'm not sure if white balance is just a matter of having the right temperature setting, or is there something more to it?

Shots with strobe and the AWB setting came out fine, but my available light shots weren't as good as I had hoped.

If you are shooting in raw why worry?

Bill

hi mate i have one it doese the same as yours !! only thing which seems to help is ramping up the iso.

Hi,

as Bill said: Shoot RAW! Don't waste your bottom time fumbling at your camera settings - you can do it later when shooting RAW. Are you familiar with this concept? (I know some photographers are not), but this is THE advantage of a digital camera. Plenty of infos available on the net. And don't be afraid, it is not comlicated.

Jock

p.s.: This comment is for stills.

I just shoot in raw, like the previous comments it just saves time and hassle.

I join the choir. Just use raw!

By all means, you can still throw in a few reference shots on your hand, a slat the sand or something neutral. This can be handy when you are adjusting the CB later.

/O

thats the problem you cant throw in a few wb shots to help later the bastard thing will not wb underwater at all most of the time.

Yes guys, I did shoot RAW (Actually, RAW + JPG). So I bet you figure I can bring a RAW photo into Photoshop or Lightroom and use the WB picker tool to gen a photo that looks better. Will it be 100% effective - i.e., be able to guess which colors should be red if red is totally lost at the depth I shot the photo? I guess the same thing applies when you shoot a supposedly white balanced photo at depth.

Related question - does one need full Photoshop to do the basic manipulations to photos that I'm most likely to do, like WB adjustment, or does something like Photoshop Elements or Lightroom have enough capabilities? From what I've read, Lightroom is more for photo organizing.

Lightroom is certainly enough. Pick a neutral with the eyedropper and go, then slide the color temp for fine tuning.

Bill

On the computer, WB on Black dive gear, grey tanks, sandy bottom near subject distance, etc

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Related question - does one need full Photoshop to do the basic manipulations to photos that I'm most likely to do, like WB adjustment, or does something like Photoshop Elements or Lightroom have enough capabilities? From what I've read, Lightroom is more for photo organizing.

During your dive you could, from time to time, e.g after a significant change of depth/ambient light, shoot at a neutral object for reference.

Later in lightroom, you take that reference pic, automated white balance adjustment via the picker and... you just copy-paste that WB adjustment setting to the next few RAW pictures, as simple as that :-)

It is maybe due because the camera can't compensate the color gap between what the sensor is expecting to see at the surface and what he is seeing underwater. The Sony camera's have the same issue.

If you really want WB underwater you may try use a Magic-Filter or any red/orange filter that pre-compensate the missing colors. I haven't yet try this prior but I'll do it during my next five.

For photo, as mentioned by other, you can always shoot in raw a grey card, for video it is handy to WB underwater.

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