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Underwater Photography: Getting Started

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I was talking to a friend the other day, a very experienced diver, and he told me that he really wants to improve his photography and asked for some advice, which of course I offered. I also pointed out that there were numerous people writing about the subject both on-line and in print. He said that he always gave up reading articles as he disliked the way in which they were written; either too geeky or too much me, me, me. So although not the first time this has been done, I thought I’d write a very straightforward piece about getting started in underwater photography.

I started out as a regular photographer, wildlife was my thing and I was fortunate enough to work alongside some pretty serious photographers, and I learnt a great deal. So when I started diving in the late 90’s my first thoughts were how I couldn’t wait to get my camera into the water. You can’t imagine my disappointment when I repeatedly produced rubbish, rubbish and more rubbish. All the stuff I’d learnt about photography over the years all of a sudden accounted for…nothing. You see underwater photography is more about diving skills and know how than it is about traditional photo technique. It is in fact, surprisingly, all about the water. On land you can plant your feet firmly on the ground, accurately compose your image and shoot. In the constantly moving underwater world this is not so easy. Additionally you’re shooting through one big murky filter – the water itself, which presents the biggest obstacles of all… and that is exactly what we’re going to discuss in this feature.

Diving Skills

First things first; before you even take a camera underwater you need to have a reasonable level of control over yourself in the water. It is very hard to compose an image if you’re drifting about all over the place, banging into the reef and your fellow divers. Many underwater photographic workshops even insist that you have a minimum number of dives before you can enrol on the course. Even the most experienced diver will experience difficulties when diving with a camera for the first time, especially larger cameras.

To help with this most dive clubs and shops offer courses to improve your buoyancy control. PADI, which is the largest of the diving organisations, offer a course called the PPB, which stands for Peak Performance Buoyancy. This tuition helps you maintain your position in the water and will massively help your photography and make you a better diver.

Of course there is no substitute for experience so practice, practice and more practice is the best route to better photos.

Basics

There are two key elements to underwater photography that make the difference between mediocrity and wow, look at that photo.

The first is wide angle lenses, and I don’t mean 28mm, I’m talking super wide. The second is colour correction; anybody who has taken a blue washed out underwater photo will know exactly what I mean. These are two cornerstones of UW photography and we’ll be looking at them in depth (forgiving the pun) later on, but it’s important to pick the right camera in the first place as many excellent cameras topside are limited down under.

The majority of compact cameras nowadays have much longer zoom lenses than before. This is great for general use but for underwater work it presents a problem. Longer zooms are physically bigger than shorter ones, and that means that the housing to encompass them must also be that much bigger and more specifically wider so the camera does not see the edge of the housing around the lens and cause vigneting. This makes fitting an accessory wide angle lens very difficult, if not impossible. We’ll talk about this more in a while.

The other major consideration when choosing a camera for UW use is custom or manual white balance. This is little used in general photography, most people opting for the AWB (auto white balance) setting, but for a diver, manual white balance is a godsend. It enables you very easily to add back in the colour lost underwater – and without further ado, let’s discuss that in more detail.

Manual White Balance

Daylight is a mixture of different coloured light. Cameras ‘see’ light differently to the way we do. We don’t tend to notice the way light appears differently indoors to out, or how different a fluorescent tube looks to an old fashioned light bulb; but the colour of their light varies, and it’s called colour temperature. Take a shot indoors without flash and the picture will look warm. Using a flash, which is essentially the same colour as daylight, corrects this tint. Thankfully digital cameras have onboard firmware that corrects these different colour temperatures. This feature is called AWB – auto white balance, and it’s the default setting on pretty much all cameras nowadays. OK, OK, I’m getting there, honest – what has this got to do with UW photography? As you submerge deeper and deeper underwater, red light is progressively absorbed, and photos look bluer and bluer. Enter manual white balance. This camera function is a godsend for divers. It enables us to add back in the red light lost at depth, and it does it very accurately. Additionally, as you manually set it, it is accurate for the depth you are at. Most cameras capable of being housed have an underwater mode; why not just use this? This mode only adds back in a set amount of red, which only correctly works at one specific depth, normally around ten metres. Above this depth it is adding too much red and below not enough. The manual or custom mode lets you set the white balance for your precise depth ensuring your pictures always look colourful.

Wide Angle Lenses.

The other cornerstone of UW photography that we talked about right at the beginning is the use of wide lenses. As I mentioned previously, it’s the water itself that is the biggest problem we encounter. Whatever camera you use whilst underwater you still have to take photos through the water, and the less water you shoot through the sharper and clearer the end result will be. For this reason it is very important when choosing a camera to accompany you on your sub-sea adventures that you pick one that will enable an accessory lens to be fitted, so check availability of accessories before you commit to purchase.

Depending on the camera’s lens – 24, 28 or 35mm on the back end – a typical add on lens will convert this to around about 16mm. Accessory lenses for UW use are normally measured in terms of field of view and measured loosely in degrees. For example, Inon’s UWL-H100 lens has a field of view of about 100°. What this means in real terms is that with a suitable compact camera, even a large subject (a wreck for example) can be photographed in its entirety from only a few metres away as opposed to tens of metres away without the add on lens, and therefore shooting through much less water, which makes for a cleaner, sharper and more colourful image. This also applies for smaller subjects, but this is where your buoyancy control comes in; you need fine control to manoeuvre very close to a small fast moving subject like an anemone fish.

Combine the use of wide angle lenses with custom white balance and you’ve got a very good basic understanding of underwater photography.

Of course this is only really rippling the surface of this field; we haven’t talked about macro, strobes, filters, locations and a wealth of other topics. We’ll talk about some of these another time.

Blogs

Diver Discovering Whale Skeletons Beneath Ice Judged World’s Best Underwater Photograph

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UPY

An emotive photograph showing a freediver examining the aftermath of whaling sees
Alex Dawson from Sweden named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024. Dawson’s
photograph ‘Whale Bones’ triumphed over 6500 underwater pictures entered by underwater
photographers from around the world.

“Whale Bones was photographed in the toughest conditions,” explains chair of judging
panel Alex Mustard, “as a breath-hold diver descends below the Greenland ice sheet to bear
witness to the carcasses. The composition invites us to consider our impact on the great
creatures of this planet. Since the rise of humans, wild animals have declined by 85%. Today,
just 4% of mammals are wildlife, the remaining 96% are humans and our livestock. Our way
needs to change to find a balance with nature.”

UPY

Photo: Rafael
Fernandez Caballero

Whales dominated the winning pictures this year with Spanish photographer Rafael
Fernandez Caballero winning two categories with his revealing photos of these ocean giants:
a close up of a grey whale’s eye and an action shot of a Bryde’s whale engulfing an entire bait
ball, both taken in Magdalena Bay, Baja California, Mexico. Fernandez Caballero took ‘Grey
Whale Connection’ while drifting in a small boat, holding his camera over the side in the water
to photograph the curious whale. ‘The End Of A Baitball’ required Fernandez Caballero to dive
down and be in exactly the right place at the moment the whale lunged. “The photo shows
the high speed attack,” he said, “with the whale engulfing hundreds of kilograms of sardines
in one bite — simply unforgettable to see predation on such a scale.”

UPY

Photo: Rafael
Fernandez Caballero

Lisa Stengel from the United States was named Up & Coming Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 for her image of a mahi-mahi catching a sardine, in Mexico. Stengel used both a very fast shutter speed and her hearing to catch the moment. “If you listen there’s an enormous amount of sound in the ocean,” she explained. “The action was too fast to see, so I honed in on the sound of the attacks with my camera to capture this special moment.”

“It is such an exciting time in underwater photography because photographers are capturing such amazing new images, by visiting new locations and using the latest cameras,”
commented judge Alex Mustard. “Until this year I’d hardly ever see a photo of a mahi mahi,
now Lisa has photographed one hunting, action that plays out in the blink of an eye.”
The Underwater Photographer of the Year contest is based in the UK, and Jenny Stock,
was named as British Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 for her image “Star
Attraction”, which finds beauty in species of British wildlife that are often overlooked.
Exploring the west coast of Scotland, Stock explained “in the dark green depths my torch
picked out the vivid colours of a living carpet of thousands of brittle stars, each with a
different pattern. I was happily snapping away, when I spotted this purple sea urchin and I
got really excited.”

Photo: Jenny Stock

In the same contest, Portuguese photographer, Nuno Sá, was named ‘Save Our Seas
Foundation’ Marine Conservation Photographer of the Year 2024, with his photo ‘Saving
Goliath’, taken in Portugal. Sá’s photo shows beachgoers trying to save a stranded sperm
whale. The picture gives us hope that people do care and want to help the oceans, but also
warns us that bigger changes are needed. “The whale had been struck by a ship and its fate
was sealed,” explains Sá. “An estimated 20,000 whales are killed every year, and many more
injured, after being struck by ships-and few people even realise that it happens.”

UPY

Photo: Nuno Sá

More winning images can be found at www.underwaterphotographeroftheyear.com.

About Underwater Photographer of the Year

Underwater Photographer of the Year is an annual competition, based in the UK, that celebrates photography beneath the surface of the ocean, lakes, rivers and even swimming pools, and attracts entries from all around the world. The contest has 13 categories, testing photographers with themes such as Macro, Wide Angle, Behaviour and Wreck photography, as well as four categories for photos taken specifically in British waters. The winners were announced in an award ceremony in Mayfair, London, hosted by The Crown Estate. This year’s UPY judges were experienced underwater photographers Peter Rowlands, Tobias Friedrich and Dr Alexander Mustard MBE.

Header image: Underwater Photographer of the Year 2024 winner Alex Dawson

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World’s Best Underwater Photographers Unveil Breathtaking Images at World Shootout 2023

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The winners of the prestigious World Shootout 2023 underwater photography competition were announced at this year’s BOOT Show, captivating audiences at the world’s largest diving and water sports exhibition in Dusseldorf, Germany. Hundreds of photographers from 54 countries competed across nine categories, pushing the boundaries of creativity and technical skill.

Grand Prize Winners

  • Picture of the Year: Spanish photographer Eduardo Acevedo “secured” the top Honor with the prestigious prize the “boot Dusseldorf Director’s Prize, earning an Andromeda statuette and a €2,000 cash prize.
  • Best 5 Images Portfolio: Luc Rooman from Belgium triumphed in this category, winning a dream 4-week diving trip for two to Papua New Guinea, valued at $18,900.
  • Amateur Photographer: Alexandra Ceurvorst from the USA impressed the judges with her talent, taking home the 1,000 cash prize award.

Celebrating Diversity and Innovation

This year’s competition saw 11,680 entries from 964 photographers, showcasing a remarkable spectrum of skills and perspectives. From the intricate wonders of Macro photography to the beauty of “Black Water”, the “Underwater Fashion” category added a touch of artistry and innovation, while the ever-important ” Environmental & Conservation” category served as a powerful reminder of the need to protect these fragile ecosystems.

Looking Ahead: AI and Ocean Conservation

World Shootout founder and producer David Pilosof unveiled an exciting addition for the 2024 competition: this year the Environmental category will be focusing on the impact of plastic on our oceans and future.

This category will embrace the potential of AI or other editing software as a tool to amplify the conservation message.

Entrants will submit campaigns of three original underwater photographs dealing with plastic pollution, along with their final AI assistance processing. This innovative approach encourages artistic expression while raising awareness about a critical environmental issue.

Explore the Stunning Collection

Discover the complete album of competition entries by clicking here.

For Low-resolution photos of finalist entries in eight categories, click here.

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