Tag Archives: tx7

Diving Blogs

Just back from diving in the Caribbean…

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I just got back from some great diving while in the Caribbean from March 17th – March 24th, 2012.   I got to do diving in Grenada, Barbados and Dominica.     I will be posting many videos and photos from the dives, but wanted to get the first video posted as soon as possible.   Just finished editing and putting this together of a dive through Grenada’s Underwater Sculpture Park which felt a little like diving in a sunken city.  It was very cool and if you ever get a chance to dive there, I highly recommend it.

Please enjoy this video I put together with the best highlights of video and photo’s from this dive.  Note that I had to use my backup Sony TX7 camera due to a mixup with Fedex, so I didn’t have the NEX7 camera that would have shot this with much higher quality.  But I did have my new lights, the Light and Motion Sola 1200 and 800 to use with the TX7.

This video can also be found directly at YouTube here: http://youtu.be/Zmy0o7Zk4wg

 

Camera Equipment

My starter underwater camera…

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The first underwater camera I used (and still the only one I own so far) for scuba diving is the Sony Cybershot DCS-TX7 with the Sony Marine housing.

For basic underwater photography and videography the camera is ok, but sadly the camera was fairly limiting for underwater photography (in terms of getting good color, and configuring it for underwater shots).

This camera, however, shines when it comes to shooting 1080i underwater videos.  Most of the video’s on my website so far were shot with this camera.

If you need a relatively inexpensive underwater setup that can double as a great above water point and shoot and video camera then this one is for you.

It is very light weight, easy to travel with, and the underwater housing works great.

In the end however, this is a starter camera setup, so if you are really going to get into underwater photography or videography then this system will only take you so far.

Problems with the camera for underwater use:

  • In housing mode (to use it in the underwater housing) you can not configure many options, including ISO.  This makes it hard to use external flash correctly, causing either too blue or too washed out of photo’s.
  • The auto-focus had problems with particulate in the water, as many cameras do, but also could not properly focus on a subject in crevices and the like.
  • Battery life was limiting underwater.  The battery could make it through a 1 hour dive no problem, however, it would not endure a second 1 hour dive.  You will need at least 1 hot spare battery and a dry place to switch it on your surface interval for each additional dive.
  • Taking pictures of very small creatures was not effective with this camera.   It does a far better job with larger items.

Next up… my use of the Sony NEX 5N camera and Nauticam housing for it…