Underwater Photography Tips

General thoughts:

On numerous occasions I have witnessed diver’s surface after a dive and feel their photos were mediocre at best. They also believe better equipment is the answer to obtaining quality photo’s….…couldn’t be further from the truth! There is an old adage “It’s the cook, not the pan”. Applying a few basics can produce very nice photographs with the simplest of systems.

After viewing photographs and having witnessed diver’s underwater, a few minor adjustments would make a world of difference in their photographs.

Swimming ten feet off the bottom, looking down and snapping photo after photo will not produce desired photographs. The back of a fish or diver is not attractive. Nor is the tail of a fish or diver (Of course there are a few exceptions) swimming away.

Understanding your camera settings and relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO is paramount.

If you are like me, you use the same camera for more than underwater photography. One site that has been incredibly useful is Digital Photography School ( Digital-photography-school.com ) and it is free! Sign in and create an email account. Each day you will receive an article on photography, equipment and how to shoot various types of photographs. I have been on this site for several years and the information is applicable to my underwater photography as well. A library of archived articles is available with step by step information on how to shoot most any shot with settings used by professional photographers (land).

The following link will take you to a simple article that explains the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings. http://digital-photography-school.com/learning-exposure-in-digital-photography/

Another free and extremely useful site with tutorials directed at underwater photography exclusively is Underwater Photography Guide….. http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/underwater-photography-guide. This site has tutorials on how to shoot any type of underwater photograph with equipment and settings used by professional photographers. Underwater Photography Guide is the property of and maintained by Bluewater Photo, an underwater photography store located in Santa Monica, Calif.

Underwater photography at times can seem to be overwhelming with all the data, settings, etc. Don’t feel alone, I made the same mistakes as did every other photographer out there… and at times still do! Pick a type of underwater format such as wide angle or macro and focus on developing your skills. Also, have a specific purpose and subject in mind for each dive, nudibranchs, fish, etc.

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Underwater Photography Tips

Tips

By no means are the following tips intended to produce magazine cover ready photographs, but it will get you started to the point your family and friends go …WOW… at your photo’s.

Understand your camera - In other words, read the manual from cover to cover and not just the sections of interest (which most of us do). Know program functions, manual (if available), shutter priority and aperture priority.

Practice with your camera and housing – One cannot expect to jump in the water for an hour or two a month and learn to use our equipment proficiently. Once in the water, control features, dials and knobs should be second nature and adjusted easily. Flowers make for great subjects to practice macro. Allow for practice on distance, angle, focus and settings. Wide angle can be most anything around the house, patio or yard. If you have access to a pool, maximize that time! Practice out of the water and you will be much more proficient with your equipment in the water.

Don’t shoot down – When shooting down the subject looks flat and in most cases is lost in the surroundings. Try to shoot at a level even with your subject or upward angle. Think about composition and 5 different angles to photograph your subject. Practice on a flower, photograph looking down, from the side, from underneath, etc. Be surprised at what you discover. I once read a statement by a professional photographer that made a great deal of sense… If you are going to swim/stand around at an average distance from something, shooting it at an average angle, with average settings, you are going to get average photos. So get low, shoot across, shoot under and shoot each subject from 5 different angles...get creative! (For clarification, swim was added to the statement)

Get Close - This point cannot be stressed enough. When you think you are close enough, get closer! The majority of photos should be taken from less than 3 or 4 feet of your subject. Make your subject fill the frame, but when photographing a diver or fish leave some room in front of the subject. This gives the viewer a sense of where the subject is going. Don’t put a diver or fish right up against the edge of your photo. Lighting is another reason to get close and will be covered later. Subjects photographed from a distance are mostly, if not completely, lost in the background. Getting close also limits the water column and number of floating particles between subject and lens.

Don’t Photograph Tails – This applies to both divers and fish. Never shoot a subject going away from you, they never look good.. Wait a moment and most fish after realizing you’re not a threat will swim in front of the lens. Patience is the optimal word in underwater photography!

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Underwater Photography Tips

Eyes – Always get the eyes! The eyes should also be the main focus point and in focus. There is a saying in underwater photography…..”If you didn’t get the eyes…you didn’t get the shot”! If a subject is swimming away…..you can’t get the eyes!

Composition – The Rule of Thirds, divide your screen into thirds vertically and horizontally. The main point of your photo that you want a viewer’s eyes to go to first should fall on one of the intersecting points or lines of thirds. As previously mentioned, leave room for a subject to …. swim out of the picture in the viewer’s mind! Composition is one of those items that can be adjusted in postproduction with cropping, limited cropping to trim an edge or slide a subject over and is not that critical in the initial photograph. Like horse shoes and hand grenades, close will be sufficient when you snap the picture.

Strobes – Consider an external strobe rather than rely on the built in flash if using a point and shoot system. As we learned in our basic scuba lessons, light diminishes and color is lost with depth. The loss of color is almost immediate. To bring out color in our photographs we need to reintroduce light in the way of a strobe flash or other light source. Macro subjects are one exception where the subject is so close to the lens it limits particles that may cause backscatter in a photo and a diffused built-in flash works just fine. Backscatter is created when our light source is projected directly out in front of the lens and bounces off particles in the water back into our camera lens. The result is a picture that looks like it was taken in a snow storm. External strobe(s) allow us to direct light on the subject from various angles so as not to bounce off particles in the water directly back into the camera lens. This is where getting close comes into play. The less water we have between lens and subject, the fewer particles in the water to create backscatter. Additionally, we need to light our subject to bring out natural colors. Earlier I mentioned taking the majority of photographs from less than 4 feet so adequate lighting is applied. As we get further from our subject the more light is lost. Even the most powerful strobes are only effective from less than a few feet away. Think of it this way, light from our strobe must travel out to the subject illuminating it and back to the lens with that image. If shooting from 5 feet away, light must travel 5 feet out and 5 feet back for a total of 10 feet. This is a long distance. A built-in flash will typically not have the power. Taking a picture from ten feet away means light must travel 20 feet and so on. Typically this will produce underexposed photographs.

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Underwater Photography Tips

Be Your Own Worst Critic – View your photographs and do not keep out of focus or poorly composed shots. I rate my photographs on a scale of 1-5. A 1 never makes it out of the camera and is deleted as I review shots. A 2 is discovered in a first pass when downloaded to my computer prior to saving. I do nothing with these, but may save a few in a file I created called….. look again. These are pictures I view to see what I could have done differently to create a good photograph. A 3 is a photo I would not normally keep, but may show another diver clear enough they might enjoy having it or something to share for a specific purpose. I will usually provide an email copy and then delete the photograph from my files. A number of 3’s are posted at Power Scuba and then deleted in my files. A 4 or 5 photo is a keeper with 5’s making the enlargement capable bucket. A number of 3 rated photographs were posted from our Coronado Island trip that either demonstrated high visibility or featured a diver. Like I said before…we all like to see what we look like underwater. Especially those that work as subject matter to help me practice. Each one of them deserves to see as many of their pictures as possible for the effort.

Have a purpose to each Dive – When entering the water have a purpose to the dive and review appropriate settings or technique such as photographing divers, fish, sunbursts in Kelp, nudibranchs with a black background, etc. Know your equipment so that an easy adjustment can be made should another photo opportunity present itself.

Shoot Vertical – Don’t be afraid to turn your camera sideways and shoot a subject vertical (think of it as in portrait rather than landscape). Gives a whole new look and different composition considerations. Many of the photographs we love in magazines were shot in the vertical.

Review – When reading a diving magazine or any other for that matter, I look to see how the photographer applied the tips contained in this document and ways to improve my own photography. I also print certain articles on how to shoot specific shots from both of the websites mentioned earlier and take those with me on trips. WIFI isn’t always available. Serves as a reminder or checklist not forget an exposure or internal camera setting. Review is always beneficial. Mark basic settings and tips on a slate and take it on your dive.

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Underwater Photography Tips

Book a photo trip – If you look around there are trips scheduled specifically for photography. Bluewater Photo schedules one and multi-day photography trips. Although professional staff are available to assist and answer questions, I find the conversations and photo reviews with other divers most beneficial. Multi-day trips offer an opportunity to spend evenings going over shots, postproduction techniques and settings.

Photo Etiquette – No conversation on underwater photography would be complete without mentioning a few items. Rinse tanks are for exactly that…..rinsing, not storage! Leave room for other divers to rinse off their equipment after a dive. By leaving a camera in the tank you expose it to scratches on the lens from other equipment or someone accidentally hooking one of your latches and causing an unintentional flood.Be careful when swimming around another photographer not to kick up the bottom where particles may blow across their subject. If you would like to photograph a subject being photographed by another diver, wait until they are finished. Move on to another subject and return later in the dive or wait until they finish.

Useful Links from Underwater Photography Guide:

Setting up your point and shoot or DSLR.http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/underwater-camera-settingsChanging camera settings on a divehttp://www.uwphotographyguide.com/underwater-photography-changing-settings-diveBackscatter Underwater - Causes and how to avoid it in your photographshttp://www.uwphotographyguide.com/backscatter-underwater

A wealth of information on equipment and many more tutorials are available for free at Underwater Photography Guide.Take only pictures…..Leave only bubbles!

Safe Diving!Gene

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