Sealife DC2000 review Pt.2 - Underwater

Well have returned from my trip to the Isle of Pines in New Caledonia. Truly paradise. Unfortunately it blew strong easterlies all the time we are there so we did not get out to the reef as hoped. However we did do 2 snorkelling trips to the "Natural Pool" in Oro Bay. This is a gorgeous natural seawater aquarium about 20 minutes walk from were we stayed. The wind stirred up the water a bit so there is a bit of sand floating round.

The first part of the review is here

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60001463

Initial

So firstly the DC2000 worked underwater. No leaks although there were some disconcerting bubbles coming from the shutter button initially. I worked out this was just air trapped under the release.

RAW v JPG

I shot mainly jpgs but did do RAW+jpg one day to see how it went. If anyone wants to see these they will need to email me with a dropbox link or something as the DNG files come in at 40MB. Personally I didn't see much difference in quality but I am no ace at PP so I am not really qualified to say. There is a 6 sec write time which I found a little frustrating so switched back to jpg only after about 15 images. I am happy with jpg.

Viewfinder

The first day was cloudy and I could see the viewfinder ok. The second day was very sunny and I struggled to see the LCD viewfinder. I changed the setting from auto to bright but it didn't make much difference. On both days I could make out the yellow focus boxes so I knew when I had focus but did find myself shooting blind on a number of occasions. I think this is fairly common with snorkelling and wouldn't be a problem down deeper. Please note I wear glasses and while I have a prescription mask it is "off the shelf" and not 100% correct for my vision.

Focus speed

This was good and I had no issues. It was fast enough and as noted I could see the focus lock on the Lcd ok. Shooting blind sometimes the focus missed the fish (they do dart around a bit) but generally it was fine. I was happy with my focus success rate. Shooting blind and on the fly at passing fish I would put my success ration at around 60-70% which I found quite acceptable.

Battery life

I shot 255 images in and out of the water. I used the flash on 5 or 6 occasions, took some panoramas. Reviews everything on the LCD back at the hotel and download about 80 images using the wifi software. When I snorkelled the camera was on for 30 minutes at a time twice. At the end of that I was still on 2 bars but wavering down to one. Based on that I expect normal use to be around 300+ shots. Overall I was quite happy with battery life.

Focal length

Some reviews say the lenses is not wide enough. I found it plenty wide enough and for the casual underwater /fish shooter like myself I find I am cropping almost every shot. So its not too long. Given you have 20MP to crop with I am happy with the focal length and wouldn't want it any wider. I also used the camera for a days exursion shooting landscapes and was happy with the focal length.

Images

Cropped and quickly adjusted images. As I said it was a bit sandy and not perfect snorkelling conditions. I think I will get better at using this underwater so generally I am pretty happy.

Firstly the location of the snorkelling (its not me) then some images shot underwater.

I will do a third part reviewing the panorama mode which I also tried and the wifi.

cheers Russell

The "Piscine Naturalle" - Natural Pool near Oro Bay