By John Pelchat
I am trying to decide between a Canon G7X Mark III and a Panasonic LX10 for snorkeling. Which has better underwater white balance capabilities?
We are preparing for our first snorkeling trip where photography is a primary consideration. We have never used a more advanced camera in the water. After reading on this website about possible cameras to use underwater, we are considering the two cameras above.
We are leaning toward the Canon (partly because we would also like to use it as our camera on land and it has greater zoom capability), but from our reading, the ease of setting custom white balance is a consideration. We have never adjusted white balance before on land and have no feel for how important (and difficult) this is in order to get good pictures.
The snorkeling trip we are planning is very much the culmination of a shared dream and we would love to be able to get somewhat respectable results.
Would any of you share your experiences with using the Canon or Panasonic cameras, including the results you had with using automatic and manual white balance settings underwater, as well as your overall impressions?
Thanks in advance.
Probably not surprisingly, since we own and use the original Canon G7X, we would recommend the Canon G7X Mark III. Yes, the manual white balance adjustment is not as easy as our camera. But the automatic underwater white balance colors are so good at most snorkeling depths, that we don’t find ourselves using the manual white balance very much.
Where the ease of a manual white balance setting will be missed is if you freedive down into deeper water, and the colors start to go away. Then a manual white balance will give better results than the automatic underwater white balance.
And, as you said, the Canon has a longer zoom lens, which certainly comes in handy in a travel camera.
But if you want the most control, and best colors in all situations, the Panasonic LX10 is a more professional choice.
The vast majority of the pictures and videos on our website for places we have visited in more recent years, are taken with the G7X in auto white balance mode. See Misool, Alor and Komodo for examples. At times we adjust colors in minor ways in Photoshop, but for the most part the colors are as delivered by the camera.