Picture colour is washed out and flash over exposes - help!

Hi all,

I am very new to digital underwater (3 days) but have been shooting with a digital SLR for about a year on land. Underwater, I am shooting with an Olympus 5060 with Olympus housing, internal flash and red filter.

I am currently shooting in the Red Sea and have been disappointed with the results. In previous years, I have shoot with a Sea & Sea rental (with external flash.) With the digital and filter (no flash), I find the picyure colour very washed out. With the flash, I find that it overexposes a lot. I was advised by the shop not to shoot with filter and flash. For the latest batch, I underexposed by 1/3 and stepped the flash down 1/3 - this gave less overexposed areas but still very washed out pictures. Yellow is about the only colour that is close to vibrant.

All shots so far have been taken on P with auto white balance.

Anyway, any tips you could offer would be very welcome.

Regards

Darius

hello,

you may find a lot of helpful info at www.splashdowndivers.com.. i used to shoot with oly 5050 but only shot in M(anual). my personal experience is that these cameras dont function well in P or A...

M.

Shooting in P the camera will always choose the lowest f-stop and the result will be overexposed flash and washed out photos.

HTH

James