Strobe vs. Speedlite (flash)

Hello all!

When using a strobe and soon to be using two, should I set my Rebel to AWB or to flash? Anyone have any experience which renders colors more accurately? This was taken in AWB. I needed to use a faster shutter speed and to get closer next time.

On land I always set white balance to flash when using my speedlite. What should I also lower cameras ISO to? I usually use high speed sync with my speedlite(s) above water. New to underwater

--Chris

Shoot RAW and then see what is best for you and for your equipment, then if you decided to return to JPG you'll know what to choose.

But I don't think you'll do it, after see the advances of the RAW mode not lot of u/s shooters return back.

Like Aron Said: RAW is the solution.

To have a Camera with RAW mode and not use it UW is like having a Strobe and not turning it on.

I have never investigated the different WB presets as I use RAW all the time too. Only thing I do sometimes is to set the color temp manually or to calibrate WB with a sample target for getting an out of the camera JPG as reference and a good starting point for RAW conversion.

I understand that the flash preset uses a certain or even fixed color temp meeting the speedlite's color temp (around 5500K). This would not work for underwater as your strobe light is filtered by water and underwater strobes differ in color temp too. I would try manual Kelvin dial in or better: RAW

Julian

I agree with the rest

About your ISO question. ALways use the lowest ISO the lighting conditions allow. In other words, always the lowest for macro etc for best colour saturation.

FOr WA again, if the conditions you are in allow, the lowest the camera goes to. Low light, crap conditions you might up it some. I would try never to go higher than 400 underwater. Personally mine is always on 200 as that is the lowest my D70 can go

I shoot mainly jpg’s and while shooting macro I set my camera to the flash setting , the color looks much better than AWB.

Marc

I agree with Marc. I use flash WB all the time underwater. If you don't shoot raw, flash has been the most reliable for me. Raw, of course, allows you to choose the WB after the dive is over. When I am shooting with my D100, I don't shoot raw when shooting macro because sometimes I need to bang off a bunch of shots rapidly and the D100 locks up big time after 3 shots....then you sit and just piss in your suit until the buffer is cleared.

Joe

You pee in your suit?!? Yuck...

But ya i agree there, i do shoot in RAW in macro but usually set it to flash. I find it is pretty good the majority of the time

Mike,

Yes, I use the peter heater when I am in my wetsuit, but only when I am bored B) Now when I am wearing my drysuit, well, that's another story.

Joe

Dang JOe, there's a lot better things to do with the Peter than make it a heater when bored....

Thanks for all the replies! I will switch over to RAW as soon as I can get some software to View and Edit. Anything out there other than Adobe at $1,100?

Thanks for all the replies! I will switch over to RAW as soon as I can get some software to View and Edit.  Anything out there other than Adobe at $1,100?

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See the Image Processing, Printing, and Storage forum, there are few free RAW tools that mention there lately.