Sealife DC250 manual Introduction, How It Works a Very Unique Camera Land & Sea

INTRODUCTION

How It Works - A Very Unique Camera

Land & Sea®

The SeaLife Reefmaster Digital Land & Sea camera allows you to choose between Land Mode for taking land pictures and Sea Mode for taking underwater pictures. This is essential for taking great pictures and achieving the perfect picture exposure.

Sea Mode: If the camera is set to Sea Mode and used inside the Underwater Camera Housing, the camera is programmed to automatically find the best exposure control combination in an underwater environment. The internal sensor reads the light conditions through the lens (TTL). It evaluates the whole picture in 64 segments with higher priority in the center. Then it automatically sets the correct exposure time, lens opening, and sensitivity. You may hear a

slight clicking noise when you move the camera to different light conditions. E SeaLife Research has tested several thousand combinations to achieve the optimal exposure controls. In the Sea mode, the slowest exposure time underwater is 1/30 seconds. If the surrounding light is too dark, the flash will fire automatically. While in the Sea mode, the camera flash will actually fire two, three or four times depending on the distance to the subject. The weaker flashes, called a pre-flash, is used to determine the brightness and reflection of whatever you’re taking a picture of. The primary flash will fire 0.2 seconds after

the pre-flash (hardly noticeable). Only the primary flash is used by the camera for properly exposing the final picture. The combination of the pre-flashes and main flash ensures the optimal exposure setting for the camera.

In order to avoid underwater “backscatter” (spots that show up in pictures caused by tiny particles in the water) and get more vivid colors, we recommend that you use the SeaLife External Flash, which is sold separately. You can even use two external flashes, like the pros do, in order to eliminate shadows in your pictures. When using the SeaLife External Flash, you must set the camera to the External Flash Mode. The External Flash Mode does not use a pre-flash, since this would cause the external flash to fire during the pre-flash and not during the primary flash.

If you are taking close-up pictures in very low light or even total darkness with the SeaLife Macro lenses and you experience overflashing from a reflective fish or object, you have the choice of immediately deleting the image by pressing the shutter button again within 3 seconds (the monitor will show you the picture and display “DELETE THIS?”). You can then redirect the flash by moving the flexible flash arm or attaching the flash diffuser. The Flash Diffuser is an accessory that can be clipped on to the external flash head. The system gives you many options to create great photos under many different conditions and using the various flashes or lens accessories.

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