One can get even more creative by using compact camera for underwater photography. The focus is to develop one’s skills in underwater photography completely and to spot great photo opportunities. One can shoot ordinary photos underwater using compact cameras, but instead one should have full manual control to come up with cracking creative underwater photos.
Consider the following tips if you are a compact camera user-
- One should avoid using the digital zoom while shooting with a compact camera.
- While using a compact camera one should try and minimize the backscatter. One can shoot in clear water and if possible go for an off-camera strobe.
- Each lens of the compact camera has an ideal spot which gives the best performance. One should try and shoot with close range as compact cameras do not deliver good color or sharpness beyond 4-5 feet.
- If the flash of compact camera is turned off, then one should either set the camera to underwater mode or on manual white balance.
- When using compact camera, one should bring a dive light. This will help the camera to auto-focus.
- The f-stop of the compact camera at the widest zoom is basically F2.8-F8. There are some cameras which offer smaller apertures like F11 when zooming in further. Hence, one should read the camera owner’s manual before shooting.
- Compact cameras lack advanced metering systems and hence shooting slides can cause great frustration with compact cameras.
- Compact cameras are very slow in focusing especially in low light conditions. This makes fish photography extremely difficult. Hence one should use additional light in this case to attain better focusing.
- Compact cameras have more noise as compared to dSLRs, which is due to their small sensors. Hence one should try and use ISO 100 as much as possible.
- In larger housing, compact cameras fog up easily as compared to dSLRs. Hence one should use one or two desiccants inside the housing.