A Brief Acount of my firsthand experiences with Sea & Sea DX5000G and Auto-Magicfilters.

I had the opportunity to try the auto-magic filters with my trusty old DX5000G last weekend. For those who do not know what auto-magic filter are, they are basically photographic filters for underwater use. Developed by Dr. Alex Mustard and Peter Rowlands, these filters provide natural colors underwater upto a depth of 12-14 meters without a strobe. Using the auto white balancing feature of the digital compact camera. For more information you can visit www.magic-filters.com

Sea & Sea DX5000G is a Ricoh Caplio GX 5 megapixel camera in a special housing developed by Sea & Sea of Japan. Although the camera left its place to a more superior model DX8000G shortly after its release, DX5000G is one fine piece of equipment. The ability to use the camera with manual settings and to attach/detach a wide angle conversion lens underwater was one of the strong perks of this compact gadget.

However, as most of you know very well,colors swiftly fade away as we descend to the deep, first dissappear the reds than the greens and all that remains is the blue under 30-40 meters. Therefore the photographers are equipped with powerful and bulky strobes for retrieveing the lost colors.

So if you are still reading this text here is what i experienced with the silver bullet that was being offered. But first, let me explain the settings that i have used, the dive site was the famous Monem Wreck, off İzmir-Çeşme and the shooting will be done in shallow waters upto 18 meters with wideangle. So i set up the camera in order not to fumble with the settings underwater. First i have decided to use the focus at infinity since the model will be at a suitable distance for that. That set, i decided to use matrix metering, ISO200 to compansate for the loss of light and a tripod for longer exposures.

Although higher ISO values produce some considerable noise in the photo afterwards it is possible to clear them very effectively with the nifty software called Neat Image which can be found at www.neatimage.com .

So all set up, we started the dive at the anchorline and descended to 16 meters and from there ascended and made a full tour of the ship. The best opportunities for photography appeared on the upper decks where available light was sufficient for exposures like 1/125 at F/2.5 and the compositions were relatively easy. In the dark tunnels and passageways of the ship the exposures went as low as 1/30 and below. The tripod helped a lot in taking these shots and the results were impressive. As i have noticed, the reds, yellows and orange colors really pop out with this and with little practice it is possible to take stunning shots.

Yes the format is JPG but still the lightness and compact size of the system provides freedom to stretch photographers imagination. It is good on the air consumption and trim of the diver too

These photograhps require a certain aftercare sometimes but this will be another post, most of the images that come out of the camera are good to use without intervention.

Cheers,