First of all you need to know how to dive and master your underwater diving skills before you can take it with you professional underwater gear.
But it is not necessary to dive deep in order to enjoy underwater photography. Most of the underwater world that is available to be photographed without flash is five meters below sea level and is in clear water. You can also take pictures from the surface or in your swimming pool.
Water conditions are never consistent. Whether diving in the ocean, lake, stream or swimming pool.
The main two problems in underwater photography is the exposure and color saturation. The light underwater is filtered through the water causing reading to be around 1/3 stop underexposed so open up between 1/4 and 1/2 stop over your camera meter reading.
In murky water condition, electronic flash use is essential because much of the light bounces off and shows the particles suspended in the water. |
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• The key to a good underwater or marine photograph is to keep the distance between camera and subject to a minimum and to bracket the exposures. Take natural light pictures with the sun over your head. The best time of the day is 10am till 2pm when the sun is directly overhead.
• Try to work in calm surface conditions it reflects less light then rough conditions
• On an overcast day use a strobe.
• Set your digital camera sensitivity light or choose a high-speed film in mechanical cameras (200-250 asa recommended)
• Stay shallow – there will be more natural light on your subjects.
•Get close to your subjects, the ideal distance is 1/5th of the total visibility e.g. 50 ft visibility shoot at 10 ft - the less water between you and your subject the less distance light travels through the water.
•Use color correction filters to record color in the red/orange range. The filters to be used are 10r up to 40r.
•Use a strobe, the strobe put the colors back. Use it even on bright days. Remember mistakes underwater can be fatal.
•Before diving with a camera take a good diving course first and learn about the physical and physiological hazards.
• Never dive alone and always dive with a buddy.
• It is easy to drift away while taking photos with a camera.
• Protect your camera from direct sun and keep it in a bucket full of seawater after diving on the diving boat deck. When getting back to shore, wash the camera in fresh water and leave it in a bucket for another to make sure the sea salt is completely removed to prevent corrosion along with the rest of your photography gear.
• Before the next dive, grease seals of the underwater camera or the underwater housing including the flash/strobe unit
• If you are using a film camera, choose color negative film because it is more forgiving on prints if you make a reading mistake.
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