UNDERWATER Photography

[Princess-Kaveshla]

ARTICLE BY DAN SCHMITT
From www.istockphoto.com




You�ve seen the shot: the fish, shark, scuba diver, or the underwater fashion shot (with billowing hair and suspended fabric). You want some of that. Odds are your current camera won�t handle immersion in water, so you probably need to dip into the equipment account.

KEEP IT DRY!

For the really low end, disposable underwater film cameras can be found for about $15. Aside from all the normal reasons that a disposable camera might not be optimal (poor lenses, number of shot limitation, having to develop film) underwater photography will add the extra annoyances of backscatter, and color and light dissipation at depth. More on those later, but if you shoot close to the surface in very clear water, you might be able to get by.

A number of point and shoot manufacturers (Sony, Olympus, and Canon jump to mind) make polycarbonate housings that give access to all the buttons, waterproof-rated for 30 meters. Some third parties also make housings, and these vary from high thickness polyurethane bags with a port for the lens (OK for close to the surface, but at depth the pressure compresses the bag and makes it hard to operate the controls) all the way up to machined aluminum rated to 300ft. A good resource to see who makes what for your camera is DigiDeep.com.

You may find that the only housing for your camera is very expensive, or you really don't want to chance your new D2X getting wet. Lots of times it is more economical to get a comparable point and shoot camera with the manufacturer's $150-$200 housing than house your current camera. The Canon A95, with housing, hits about $430 (and puts you on the edge of the new large category, so frame well). Other things to consider are strobe compatibility, wet-mount lenses, filters (for point and shoot) or the port system the housing supports (for DSLRs.) Also be sure the camera supports a raw format or at least a custom white balance, to fix reds, (or lack thereof), as well as manual shutter-speed and aperture modes to control blue backgrounds.

CRYSTAL CLEAR?

Look at a nice cool glass of water. Taking a picture in water shouldn't be that much different than through the air, right? Unfortunately, it is. Water absorbs light depending on wavelength (higher wavelength is absorbed faster.) This means that red goes away first (at 20 to 30ft) then orange, and down the spectrum, with the last light being blue. This is why many underwater pictures have a blue tint to them, and the deep end of the pool is a darker blue than the steps. Light has to travel from the surface, to the subject, to the camera, so distance from a subject has the same effect as depth.

Another issue for underwater photographers is backscatter. Water has the annoying property of being rather dense. Where air would let dust settle to the floor in a few moments, that same dust swirls about in the water for days. This junk in the water will manifest itself as a grainy or noisy background in natural light, or as little circles of light reflected from your strobe with artificial light. The farther you move your strobe perpendicularly from the line between the camera lens and the subject, the larger the speck in the water needs to be to reflect light back. Oops, looks like I slipped back to equipment.

STROBES

Clear housings will often allow the camera's internal flash to illuminate a scene. Since they tend to be really close to the camera lens, even the smallest amount of dust in the water will show up as backscatter. Getting closer to the subject will help eliminate this (less water between you and the subject means less chance for dust to be suspended in the way making backscatter.) With the light absorption of water you will find that the effective distance of your strobe is much shorter before things become blue. If the budget can stand it, a strobe will greatly improve the results you can get underwater. Two will let you light from an angle, avoiding backscatter, and the harsh shadows you get from lighting from a distance. Underwater strobes tend to be very powerful and counter the light fall-off effect.


YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT MIGHT SWIM BY
Videographers and natural light photographers will use a red or magenta color-correcting filter to lift the blue or blue-green tint from the water (it works well in the 15 to 40ft depth and distance range.) However, this is rough for fast subjects, since you use less light, and rules out the use of the strobe. Since you never know what might swim by, versatility can be nice. Get a wet-mount filter that you can remove under water, or use a blue-green filter on your strobe. Some companies (Inon and Seax) provide wet mount lenses for macro or wide-angle (or even fish eye) views.

MODELING LIGHTS
Generally these are just underwater flashlights with an even light distribution. That being said, it's a great help to get the auto-focus to lock on something under an overhang, or at a depth where most of the light is coming from your strobe. 60ft down on a cloudy day can be very dark.




PORTS

SLR (and dSLR, and some other systems) will support different ports for different lenses. In general, a flat port is good for normal and macro underwater photography, but for wide-angle shots, you need a dome to counteract the magnification you get from the air-water interface (there are some physics about it if you want to read about refraction, but it's not that exciting.) A really large dome port will also give you a much better chance at split over/under shots, because you will have a larger area for the water line to settle on. Be careful though, the focusing is tricky. Generally focus on the submerged stuff and get a really big depth of field to withstand the magnification of the water on only half your image.


NOW GO GET WET!
First, read Steve Geer's Landscape and Wildlife Photography Tips. Almost every tip there holds well for underwater photography. Getting close is even more important to maintain good colors. The only change I would make would emphasize the 10am to 2pm time frame, where the sun is high in the sky and provides lots of light for more interesting backgrounds and nicer blues. There are groups of animals that vary their activity by time, but the ocean is big and you can almost always find something if you know where to look.



When composing a scene, most underwater subjects tend to look better from an angle looking up. This gives you a chance to get a nice blue gradient background going to the surface, and captures the variation of color on flora and fauna. Most underwater swimming critters tend to have a dark top coloration, a lighter underbelly and a very thin view from above. Looking directly down while snorkeling, fish blend in with the bottom very well. Looking up from the side or front changes the camouflage into highlights. Most plant and coral life has stuff reaching up for light or to filter water passing by, and support structures underneath, making the angle looking up view work well for them.

The sun will give you a nice blue gradient, and you can darken or lighten the blue by decreasing (darker) or increasing (lighter) the shutter speed, adjusting the aperture to maintain the exposure on your subject. If you can get underneath other divers, boats, or large wildlife, the sun will give you a nice target for silhouettes, and depending on surface conditions, you can get a very nice set of beams from the subject. The same ripple surface effect can be utilized on the other end by getting a pattern of light on an otherwise uninteresting bottom surface.

Dan Schmitt (DanSchmitt)
Dan Schmitt has been taking underwater pictures for the past 4 years in Hawaii and Okinawa. Previously he did software development for a research group at Texas A&M while his wife earned her veterinary degree.
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