Cebu, Philippines

Bought myself an Ikelite actionhousing for my aging Sony Rx100 (Mark I). Put it on my Sealife tray with a Sealife videolight. Here are some shots:

Small yellow frogfish.

Turtle. Night dive.

Lionfish. Nightdive.

Green soft coral + a (i guess) goby.

Ghost pipefish

Large grey frogfish

Large yellow frogfish

Sardines + diver

More sardines

Whaleshark and diver. Visibility was pretty poor, I am still trying to process the image in a better way to get the clarity better.

Very nice results with just a video light/no strobe!

How are you processing the images? Did you shoot in RAW? I may be able to give you some tips on increasing clarity.

I use Lightroom.

On some (perhaps most) flash shots I end up reducing highlights to bring out details. Flash on fish and crustaceans can be very reflective. Your lionfish shot, for instance, could be improved.

To make cloudy water look clearer, I pull the blacks down until the histogram comes close to the left edge. Sometimes have to increase overall exposure as this darken things up, but it can make a big difference.

Here are shots from Roatan last year, mostly done with a Sony RX100 II and dual strobes, but some from a Canon s95 and a Canon s120 with no flash. http://www.cjcphoto.net/roatan2015/misc/index4.html

As an example of how you can clear things up with that Blacks slider,  here is a shot my wife took last year with a Canon s120 in kind of murky conditions in St Thomas.  (Unfortunately shot in JPG mode so post-processing was limited):

St Thomas - yes, the water looked like this pretty accurately, other than colors.

I took a shot of my wife about the same time, and the out-of-camera shot looked like the above.   However, after some post-processing I got this:

I find that the vast majority of my underwater shots need a good deal of post-processing, and typically I'll be doing this:

1. Adjust exposure, often increasing it, but sometimes decreasing if I overdid the flash.  Generally within +/- 1 stop.

2. Pull highlights way down, often 90-100% (in Lightroom).  This will bring out a lot of subtle details (christmas tree worms) and reduce reflections (fish, lobsters, etc.)

3. Pull shadows up - depends on the scene a lot.  Usually in the range of 10-40%

4. Pull blacks down until the left edge of the histogram almost hits the far left side.  Careful not to go too far.   This one greatly increases apparent clarity by reducing haze.

5. Play with clarity a bit (1-10), vibrance and saturation (maybe +5 each).

Before doing any of the above I try to set a 'good' white balance, as it makes a huge difference.  I generally use  the eye dropper tool on something close to the camera that is either white (corals, sand) or metallic (parts on a diver).   A lot of times I just fiddle until it 'looks good'.    It's extremely useful to shoot in RAW mode.

It's too bad you shot with such high shutter speeds, necessitating really high ISO images.   What you want is a lot of dynamic range to allow you more latitude in pulling up shadows and reducing highlights.

I try to keep shutter speeds around 1/160th or a bit higher, though I'm now dealing with a DSLR that has much lower sync speeds than a mirrorless camera.  (Max 1/250th-1/320th, for my camera).

On the whale shark image you may be able to boost exposure by a stop, then pull the black slider back to clarify the image.   It tends to be more effective for underwater shots than using the clarity slider.

I have a couple of mine from RX100III, also from Cebu

Just looked back at this thread and discovered your post with the missing images.  Very nice.  I've never seen a whale shark, but would certainly like to.

I only used my RX100 II for about a year (3 dive trips), so I never mastered it.  (Updated to Nikon D810 underwater, with RX100 as backup camera).

When I first shot the RX100 II, I tried using it in Aperture mode, which is my usual above-water mode for a DSLR.   I like controlling depth of field.   However, my shutter speeds were dropping way too low, resulting in a lot of blurry shots.   I then switched to Shutter priority and found good results from 1/125th to 1/200th.   I usually opted to stay at 1/160th to keep the ISO down.   I don't like the results above ISO 800.

On my DSLR, I shoot in manual mode to keep a minimum shutter speed and (especially for macro) control depth of field.    But my Nikon gives me a lot of control over ISO even in Auto ISO mode, plus it performs quite well up to ISO 3200.   I was somewhat frustrated with the Sony user interface underwater, partly simply because it was difficult to read the small print when I changed modes to even know what mode I was in.  (Unlike my Canon point-n-shoots, which announce a mode change in letters 1/3rd the size of the LCD.)    Ultimately I liked the 20mp (compared to my Canon s95), the better ISO performance of the larger sensor (compared to s95), and the ability to shoot in RAW regardless of the mode selected.    But I did not find the autofocus speed to be significantly better than a point-n-shoot, so moved (finally) on to a DSLR.

My current intention with the RX100 II is to bring it as my dive camera on non-dedicated dive trips (trips with 2-4 dives in a week) where I can easily pack the whole rig AND still have room in my suitcase for clothes.

I know what you mean about the expense.   In my case I was at the point where I had wanted my DSLR underwater for almost 10 years, and if I didn't get one, it would never happen.   I spent about $10,000 on the housing, ports, strobes, finder, focus light, arms, etc.   Plus camera and lenses.   And I don't dive that much - only one dive trip this year.  Only 29 dives total with the rig in a year.   I sure do like using it though, and I love the images I get.

The housing almost seems affordable, now that I have it and the various accessories.   It's about 1/4 the cost of the whole rig, which makes it sort of affordable to replace if I get another camera.   I can re-use 3/4 of the gear on a different housing, as long as I stay with Nauticam.