Getting back into UW photography and have many questions!

Hi guys,

I used to froth on UW photography with my shitty little Canon G11 and Canon housing. Since then, that camera's died.. I used an E-M1 for a while but getting the housing and ports/domes etc for the lenses was too expensive.

I just sold my E-M1 due to a lack of use but, I was thinking.. my time with a compact underwater was great, so...

I mostly want to use this camera for ambient light wide angle shots of underwater scenes but, I have no doubt I'll get into wanting to do more macro and using the strobes I have.

I'm thinking about getting an RX100 VA with a Fantasea housing for it and then, using some of my existing toys from my G11.. like the Inon S2000 strobes, optics, etc.

I have a few questions or comments and would like you lovely people to help.

I feel like the RX100 VA with the Fantasea housing is what I can afford and possibly the best performance in a.. compact package.

1) I'm going with the VA rather than the mark 6 due to the more open aperture and I feel like this would make a large difference in ambient light. Also, the Fantasea housing restricts the zoom range to 67mm anyway, so, the extra reach of the mark 6 is relatively useless. Thoughts? Correct decision?

2) When using a wide angle lens/fisheye versus a standard (rectilinear?) lens at a given aperture, the fisheye will give more DOF for the given aperture over the standard lens, right?

3) I have these stackable Inon 165 M67 lenses but.. what do they actually do? I never used them with my G11... they don't actually increase magnification, right? Just affect focusing distance?

4) What lens is the one in the image I have provided? I feel like I never used this either.. but it doesn't have any markings or writing I can see?

https://imgur.com/dOft9mo

https://imgur.com/yT6EMgx

5) What would be the best overall/quality vs cost wide angle/fisheye 67mm lens for the Fantasea housing for the RX100?

6) I actually have a ridiculous amount of questions as I want to get really into this - last time I was doing photos I didn't really know what I was doing. Is there someone that can take me under their wing via a messenger and I can ask endless annoying questions?

I think that'll do it.. thanks for all the awesome articles over the years, too! WetPixel is still what I check every morning along with the local paper and Surfline. (Sorry about my impossible to understand mental vomit, haha)

Cheers

Adam

The choices would be RX100, G7X MkII or Panasonic LX10. they all have trade offs. The Sony doesn't do so well with UW white balance compared to the Canon and Panasonic - this could be an issue if you want to do ambient WA shots. This article talks the pros and cons of each: https://www.backscatter.com/reviews/post/Backscatter-Best-Underwater-Compact-Cameras

You should be able to get any of them housed for a similar price. If you are doing WA, none of these is particularly wide UW (around 30-32mm equivalent ) with the flat port and a wide wet lens of some form may be quite beneficial. As to which one, the UW camera stores all have recommendations on which WWL to use.

On your lens this is the one I think: http://www.inon.jp/products/lens/ucl165m67/top.html it is a close up lens allowing you to focus closer as it says there at infinity focus, it bring focus to 165mm away focusing closer allows you to get more magnification for macro photos.

No idea on what the lens you posted photos of is, looks like some kind of wide angle lens

The S2000 strobes will work fine with your housing, assume you already have a tray/arms.

Thanks Chris. Regarding white balance, don't you just shoot raw then adjust WB in Lightroom or PP?

Yes, for RAW pictures should be fine. However, you are going to have a big limitation if recording video.

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I would add the TG-6 to the list if you are at all interested in macro stuff. The Sony is nice for WA but completely useless for macro even with a good diopter.

Bill

Thanks Chris. Regarding white balance, don't you just shoot raw then adjust WB in Lightroom or PP?

You can, but it's probably better to get close beforehand, depends how good you are at post processing.

You can, but it's probably better to get close beforehand, depends how good you are at post processing.

Bump up the contrast and hit up the sat, right?

I would add the TG-6 to the list if you are at all interested in macro stuff. The Sony is nice for WA but completely useless for macro even with a good diopter.

 

Bill

Fark, is that right? Why is that? I'm sure I've seen good pictures coming from the RX100 in macro?

Yes, for RAW pictures should be fine. However, you are going to have a big limitation if recording video.

 

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Don't you just change the WB in Premiere Pro, too? That's what I've been doing thus far with my GoPro stuff but then, I feel like.. the colours are right but there's not as much. Impact?

Maybe I'm even more noob than I thought.

Bump up the contrast and hit up the sat, right? In a word No......

Fark, is that right? Why is that? I'm sure I've seen good pictures coming from the RX100 in macro?

Don't you just change the WB in Premiere Pro, too? That's what I've been doing thus far with my GoPro stuff but then, I feel like.. the colours are right but there's not as much. Impact? Video is not shot in Raw so while you can colour grade you can't make major corrections to the colour balance (some Raw formats are just starting to appear)

 

Maybe I'm even more noob than I thought.

You don't want to touch contrast in post processing it can create issues with clipping and it doesn't warn you it's happening. Normally you should not need saturation adjustments if properly processed. Read up on how to adjust levels in your program. None of this will fix colour balance issues.

You can adjust levels channel by channel to set colour balance right here is one link: https://digital-photography-school.com/using-levels-photoshop-image-correct-color-contrast/ Once you get the hang of it it's very quick.