Sealife DC2000 Raw question

I just bought a used DC2000 for snorkeling. I am testing JPEG against Raw in Photoshop 12.1 ACR 6.7. Surprisingly JPEG images out of camera are dramatically better. It is immediately obvious that JPEGs are corrected for vignetting and barrel distortions, but more importantly are also much sharper and with better colors. In comparison Raw images just look flat and blurry, almost like a slight motion blur. (I've never had this problem with Canon, Nikon, or Fuji.)

I need Raw for correcting underwater photos. What is the best way to resolve this issue? Is my software too old (like 2010 vs. 2012 process)? Is the SeaLife camera/lens profile available to install or apply somehow? Should I do any DNG conversion prior to processing? Or should I use a different Raw converter? I would appreciate any insight.

I'd say that you need to practice at whatever software you are using to process your RAW images.   The camera-generated JPG's are going to do the following for you, and you should be able to replicate or better in post.

a. white balance

b. sharpening (very possibly too much sharpening, once you look closely)

c. contrast

d. brightness

e. some specific tone curve

What software have you tried for post-processing?

Yes indeed the camera does all that (with no excessive sharpening) plus also corrects for substantial vignetting and substantial lens distortions (at least barrel but possibly more). I use Photoshop 12.1. I've tried to match the camera results and got close, but with a lot of effort. I guess I could spend more time to create  a camera/lens profile and then use it for all shots as a starting point, but I cannot possibly be the first one shooting Raw with this camera, so I wonder if anyone already has done something like this and could share the optimal settings.

Press Correspondent wrote:

Yes indeed the camera does all that (with no excessive sharpening) plus also corrects for substantial vignetting and substantial lens distortions (at least barrel but possibly more). I use Photoshop 12.1. I've tried to match the camera results and got close, but with a lot of effort. I guess I could spend more time to create a camera/lens profile and then use it for all shots as a starting point, but I cannot possibly be the first one shooting Raw with this camera, so I wonder if anyone already has done something like this and could share the optimal settings.

I don't think there are 'optimal settings' that apply to more than a few specific instances.   Learning how to post-process well is a necessary step in underwater photography.   Does the camera come with any software at all?

In looking at some specs on the DC2000, it sounds like it's got perhaps the same sensor Sony puts in one model or another of the RX100.   If so, I'm immediately more interested in it, in general, as I suspect the user interface and menu system is much better suited for diving than any of the RX100's.  (I have the RX100 II).  I;m wondering if you can use Sony software to process the images?

When I post-process raw files (D810, D850), I do find certain characteristics that are similar in the same type of circumstances, meaning light levels, mostly.   If I am shooting ambient, I need at least enough shutter speed to freeze some motion, but as little as possible to make use of the lower light levels.   For me that is 1/160th.  I also know that if I use auto-ISO, I will end up at the highest ISO before flash kicks in, and that causes a host of issues.   If I limit the upper ISO, I frequently end up with underexposed shots, an those shots will have a lack of color, and not enough dynamic range to preserve both highlights and shadows.  (And that is with ISO's even down to 200-320).   So I have certain post-processing settings that are going to be likely, including a high color temp and boosting saturation while reducing highlights and pushing shadows.  It does get easier over time, but it can be tedious.   Perhaps my best advice here is to start with as accurate a white balance and exposure (in post) as you can get before dragging sliders around.

Thanks for your valuable insight. I will most definitely keep it in mind. My question though is far more basic. It is not about correcting underexposed shots or setting the optimal ISO or shutter speed (although These are very important of course). My question is how to correct a properly exposed shot in Raw at least to match the correction applied by the camera in JPEG. The immediately noticeable corrections include the lens distortion correction (barrel etc.), sharpening, and color.

One way I can think of is to take one shot and then spend a day or a week) to make Raw look the same as JPEG. Write down the settings and use them as a starting point for all images. (Before applying further individual corrections.) For example, Raw images look blurry with the default ACR settings. Trying to sharpen them straight forward (e.g.  by using Unsharp Mask) makes them look oversharpened before they become as sharp as out of camera JPEG. I've tried using several sequential sharpening filters with different radius settings and it gets close to what the camera does. Clearly the camera uses a custom filter. It would be nice to know it's parameters instead of trying to reverse engineer it. The same with the lens distortions, etc.

While I think you can learn a lot from the exercise of trying to replicate the in-camera jpg's, I doubt the settings you come up with will apply in more than general terms to other shots, unless they are taken under the same lighting conditions.   But learning how to process the shots that way should allow you to understand the path to take for processing other, quite different, shots.    I find that reviewing my shots each night on a dive trip helps a lot to eliminate problem settings for the next day.     Stuff that makes the post-processing itself easier.   Sometimes that is to take reference shots in conjunction with shots I really want to turn out well.   By that I mean to take a shot of something easy to color balance in the same lighting as the desired shot so I know what settings to use on the desired shots.  A reference shot might be another diver (tanks, black suits and metal bits are often excellent references for white balance adjustments.

And white balance is a real key here.   Get that right first, along with brightness, and then start applying curves and the like.

Also, don't necessarily use the Adobe Standard profile.   I shoot Nikon, and I find I like the Camera Standard profile much better as a starting point.

I'm still wondering what magic sauce Sealife has cooked into their jpg engine.   Nikon's Auto white balance is nowhere near good enough to use at any depth.

Hi PC,

I took several hundred photos using the DC2000 system while on a trip to Palau - all in RAW (39Mb DNG and ~5Mb JPG). Incidentally, it would be nice to have the option to disable the creation of JPGs to increase next-shot availability and save on storage.

I used Adobe Camera Raw to process the shots into TIFs and a combination of DXO Photolab and/or Photoshop CS6 (v13) to do all the processing. I used either the built-in red filter settings/no light or a Sea Dragon 2500 light attached using their flex-connect arms to allow it to be positioned directly behind the lens. I also used the Sealife 24mm (19 mm equiv) wide angle lens - of course, removed for macro shots.

I was very pleased with the results and was very happy I had stuck with shooting RAW for the entire trip! Processing the DNGs, I was able to get the white balance corrected perfectly and the IQ from the 1" Sony sensor was pretty impressive for such a low cost system.

Could you share 2 or 3 of your DNGs via whatever cloud storage you prefer? I could process them and let you know what settings I used. I am sure other photographers here would do the same.

Ian.