Two weeks ago I received my new Canon Powershot G12 and its Canon WP-DC34 underwater housing.

The G series is Canon's high end point & shoot line which started in 2000 with the 3.3Mpixel "G1". The line has been acclaimed as a near-DSLR experience and although the DSLR extremists will probably disagree with that, I have to say that they are still pretty darn good cameras. G12 is the successor of the G11 (hence the name) and Canon kept the same specs when it come to stills but added the possibility to shoot HD720p@24fps to the cocktail.

They also added a little front dial to select shutter speeds or apertures in manual or priority modes but somehow forgot to mention that to their case supplier and it's of course not available underwater. But nothing to worry about because it's still accessible. But you need two fingers. No big deal. But still...  

Anyway, I couldn't go diving last week, the local conditions sucked and I don't have my own private G650 so I was forced to experiment topside. The first things I tried was to submerge my case down to 6ft in my swimming pool. Without the camera, you never know... I used bathroom tissues instead to check for moisture afterward but I somehow managed to choose the kind that would shed lint all over. Not a good thing. I had to clean up the inside of the case and with that new rubber insert they put in the lens tunnel, that's far from easy. Anyway, waterproofness test passed with colors.  

Then I try the controls. As mentioned earlier the front dial is unusable underwater and so is the back dial which are both options to control shutter speed and aperture. Too bad. But, if the back dial is selected for these operations, then the shortcut button can be used in combination with the flash and macro buttons to control these parameters. Tested... Passed.

There's also a couple of tweaks that I decided to perform like disabling sounds (uses battery for NOTHING), removing the 2 seconds preview after a shot (to be able to shoot multiple times right away), removing the AF assist light (not super useful underwater and uses battery), enabling continuous IS (IS = Image Stabilization, enable clear shots even below 1/30s), limiting ISO to 400 in auto-ISO (to avoid the camera defaulting to 3,200 ISO when shooting at 1/30s with no flash) and disabling continuous focus (to save battery life). I am not sure if I should have done the last one as in movie mode, it shoots like a DSLR and does not auto-focus dynamically. I'll have to experiment more I guess.  

Then I started shooting. As you know, I'm against external strobes and it's important that the internal flash performs well, especially for close ups so I tried a couple of macro shots of a few foreign coins that happened to be hanging out on my desk and had been doing so for almost a year.

I was APPALED by the result.                       

Macro shot, internal flash, Tv, 1/100s, 28mm	Macro shot, internal flash, Tv, 1/100s, 35mm

As you can see, there's a big huge dark spot on the lower right corner of the picture. WTF?  

Well the G12 has a huge 28mm-140mm lens compared to my old A85. Since the rather tiny internal flash is located on the top left corner of the camera (when shooting), then the lower-right corner of the scene is actually shadowed by the lens barrel. To make things worse the underwater case has an even bigger longer lens tunnel to allow for full 140mm deployment of the camera zoom lens. That sucks. However, the diffuser kind of makes things a little better by smoothing and distributing the light more equally. Hopefully water will have an even greater beneficial effect. But just to be on the safe side I programmed one of the custom setting to Tv, 1/100s, macro, 35mm to try to compensate for the effect at the cost of a longer focus distance. My macros won't be super macros but with 10Mpix under the hood I may be able to crop for an equivalent effect. I also programmed C2 for extreme close ups with 28mm and manual focus with the subject almost touching the end of the lens tunnel on the case (which wastes a good inch of focus distance by the way).

Then came Thanksgiving, for my non-US readers it's just a four day week-end that people usually spend with their family eating turkey. With my family 10,000 miles away and a distaste for turkey I found that spending the extended week-end on Catalina works better for me. For my non-Southern-Californian readers, Catalina is a small island off Los Angeles famous for its 1900's casino, its free roaming buffaloes and its kelp forest. The Casino is now a movie theater, I've never seen a buffalo but I love the kelp forest.

November in Southern California is usually mild with highs in the 70s. Well not this year. Not on Catalina. It was freezing. For California. Everything is relative. My Polish readers would probably walk around in shorts and Ts but here in SoCal, below 60, here come the ski jackets, the gloves and the wool hats. That's hilarious. Until you realize that you are now completely acclimated and really freeze your ass too. So anyway, it was cold, in the high 30s at night, in the low 60s during the day. Water was as usual this time of year, in the mid to high 50s. Cozy when you dive dry, a little uncomfortable for a wet suit unless it's 8mm+ and brand new.

In November in Catalina, visibility is usually in the 50ft+ range. Last year we had 80ft!

Well, not this time baby.

15-20ft at best. Cloudy and green past 30ft. So a good thing I had programmed my macro settings.  

We did 4 dives. I shot Macro Tv 1/100s (close up), P mode no flash (kelp sunbursts) and Tv 1/40s no flash (at depth for black & whites).  Most of the shots came out clear and in focus. The camera has a very nice feature where instead of the green/yellow indicator for in-focus or not-in focus it actually zooms in the center of the picture. It helps a lot. I liked it.  

When I compare my 500 shots of the weekend with my first shots from my Galapagos trip in 2004 with my then brand new A85, there is a definite difference. Even now, my A85 will have hard time to focus. The G12 won't. Even in difficult, layered plans and low light situations, the G12 gave me crisp and clear pictures.  

I did not experienced underwater any of the heavy shadow effects that I had seen topside. All my shots taken in C1 setting (35 mm) came out clear and free of dark corners. I will have to experiment more with true macro to see if the giant lens is indeed a pain. No need for an external strobe so far (thank god!)

The camera controls with the case are very easy, even with gloves. Changing the shutter speed even with two button press is not that bad. There is however one ergonomic issue that I detected. I would have inverted the position of the mode selection dial with the ISO selection dial. I use the mode selection dial far more often than the ISO dial. I even anticipate that I will probably never use the ISO dial underwater. For me it is kind of counter intuitive to have to reach for the mode dial in front of the camera as opposed to at the back. Maybe it's because I'm used to my A85, but I found it disturbing. On-screen indications are also very valuable because the size of the case dials make it very difficult to see the mode that is being selected  through the case. The carousel-like mode indication is adapted as you can easily see in which direction you're going.   

Top Controls	Back Controls

The case is more buoyant than my A85+WP-DC11. It wouldn't have been such a big deal if on the first dive I had not tied my wrist strap on the left instead of on the right... Not easy to shoot with only a few inches of flex zone... The extreme buoyancy of the case did not help and it's worth noting that there is not a lot of room inside the case to add lead. I wouldn't recommend that anyway as it may reduce the air flow around the camera and increase the risk of fog in warm waters (i.e not on Catalina).

So that's it for the technical aspects of the dives...

As far as cool stuff are concerned, we spotted a resting angel shark at 60ft. I shot a couple of close-ups of that odd-eyed guy. I was informed later that angel sharks have been reported to bite divers hands and cameras. Well this one was cool but don't do it at home kids... My buddy also spotted one of the rarest nudibranchs of our waters: Hypselodoris californiensis. I did not know that they could retract their little furry thing they have on their butt. I also spotted a few green abalones, numerous lobsters and one of the biggest green moray I have ever seen around here. Pictures below (finally!)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Here are a few panoramic shots topside, this time taken with the G12 and assembled using Autostitch.

View from our terrace at Villa Portofino

The Avalon harbor

Sunset in Avalon