Underwater Photography: A Step-by-step Guide to Taking Professional Quality Underwater Photos With a Point-and-shoot Camera

by Maria Munn

Overview

Be inspired to take the underwater photographs you have always dreamed of using a compact camera

'Book of the Year'
Diver Magazine

Designed to help the beginner and the more advanced digital compact camera users, Underwater Photography for Compact Camera Users promises to inspire both snorkelers and divers to achieve fabulous underwater photographs.

Crammed with fantastic tips and photographs to illustrate the techniques, it delivers the expert advice without confusing the beginner or patronising the advanced user.

Included in Underwater Photography for Compact Camera Users:

• Choosing and caring for your camera underwater
• Understanding the settings on your camera
• Using accessories
• Underwater composition
• Lighting your subject underwater
• Natural light photography
• Downloading and sorting your images
• A special 'guest gallery' to inspire and show you how to capture the photographs you have always dreamed of

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118345702
Publisher:	Fernhurst Books Limited
Publication date:	06/29/2012
Series:	Coach Yourself to Success , #10
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	35 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Maria Munn is a multi award-winning underwater photographer and award-winning author. She is deeply passionate about conservation and hopes to bring a better understanding of the marine environment through her photography. She is a highly experienced teacher, helping thousands of photography students across the globe to improve their skills, and even win awards. Maria has a Licenciateship with the Royal Photographic Society, won BSAC's Travel Photographer of the Year (2008) and has won a Bronze Medal with Underwater Photography's Annual Competition (2010), as well as being a Runner-Up (2011) and short-listed (2012) with two of her photos. One of her photographs, taken with a compact camera (no external lenses or strobes), was voted into the finals of 2013's Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Since launching PADI's Digital Underwater Photography Speciality at the London Dive Show in 2006, she has continued to be the leader in teaching underwater photography using compact cameras.

Read an Excerpt

1.1 Essentials of a Good Underwater Photographer

Taking good underwater photographs is harder than it looks. The ability to stay still for long periods is important, as is heaps of patience when a subject doesn’t look the right way. Then of course when it does, you need to be ready to capture the shots that you want with the correct settings to ensure the images are in focus and properly exposed.

When snorkelling don’t forget to wear a protective vest or t-shirt. It is all too easy to get carried away with the overwhelming sensation of enjoying the reef life beneath you and end up badly sunburnt.

It is so easy to get carried away taking photographs that divers can forget basic diving skills. The following tips are very important to help keep you safe underwater. Make sure you know your dive kit inside out and always maintain a good, safe dive profile.

Never lose sight of your buddy and make a note of where the boat or exit point is.

Always start at the deepest part of your dive and gradually ascend. If you find a turtle during a dive, don’t follow it deeper, wait patiently and it will more than likely stay around for a while. The same applies if a subject is above you; don’t rapidly ascend to photograph it, otherwise you may give yourself a serious lung expansion injury.

Keep breathing, be patient, relax and enjoy your diving. The skill of underwater photography will open up a whole new world for you which you will never want to leave.

Perfect buoyancy is paramount and you must be able to hover motionless in the water without damaging any of the reef or marine life around you. Remember to be aware of where you put your fins and also be careful when swimming along not to stir up sand behind you. Reef sticks can help you to keep steady underwater while taking shots, but always remember to double check where you put them otherwise you might end up hurting a camouflaged subject such as a stonefish on a rock or a stargazer in the sand.

Talking to local dive guides and studying your subject before a dive helps you to find out where great photographic subjects hide and if there is anything unusual to see.

Chatting to other underwater photographers in the area will help you to form a plan as to where you may like to dive in order to find the particular subject that you are looking for.

Always approach your subject as slowly as possible so as not to frighten it. Breathing slowly will also help. Talking to fish and spending a lot of time with the same subject can really help it to relax and not feel threatened in its surroundings. This is when the best photo opportunities will occur.

1.2 The Effects of Light Underwater

Why is it underwater photographs sometimes look so blue? Well, water absorbs light and in doing so it filters out colours selectively as either the depth or distance from our subject increases. Reds are lost within the first few feet (1m). This is quickly followed by the loss of orange, yellow and green at about 25' (7.5m). Red subjects appear green at about 60' (18m). Try taking a tomato with you on your next dive and see what happens. Always remember that colour is lost not just the deeper you go but also the further away you are from your subject.

Torches, filters, strobes, the use of manual white balance and even the little built-in flash on your camera can all help to put colour back into your underwater photographs and will be looked at in depth in the following chapters.

Table of Contents

Introduction to Underwater Photography 7

1.1   Essentials of a Good Underwater Photographer 8

1.2   The Effects of Light Underwater 8

1.3   Choosing a Compact Camera for Underwater Use 9

1.4   How Many Megapixels Do I Need? 10

1.5   Essential Accessories for Your Compact 13

1.6   Traveling With Your Compact Camera 15

1.7   Caring for Your Equipment Before and After a Dive 16

Understanding Your Camera’s Main Setting 19

2.1 Getting Started – Choosing The Correct Set-Up Options 20

2.2 Automatic Underwater Mode 21

2.3 Programme Mode 24

2.4 Understanding Aperture Settings 24

2.5 Understanding Shutter Speed Settings 25

2.6 Understanding Manual Mode 25

Exploring Your Camera’s Menu Settings 33

3.1 Autofocus –v- Manual Focus 34

3.2 Continuous Shooting 34

3.3 Custom Settings 34

3.4 Dynamic Range 34

3.5 Exposure Bracketing 35

3.6 Film Speed/ISO 35

3.7 Flash Exposure Compensation 35

3.8 Image Stabilisation Mode 38

3.9 Infinity Mode 38

3.10 Metering Modes 38

3.11 Noise 41

3.12 Optical Zoom –v- Digital Zoom 41

3.13 RAW –v- JPEG 42

3.14 Rear Curtain Synchronisation or Slow Sync Speed 42

3.15 Shooting with Colour Options 45

3.16 Understanding the Exposure Compensation Tool (EV+/EV-) 45

3.17 Using the Built-In Flash With Your Camera 50

3.18 Using the LCD Screen –v- the Viewfinder 52

3.19 Using the Video Mode Underwater 52

3.20 Using Your Camera’s White Balance Settings Underwater 53

Choosing Different Accessories for Your Compact 59

4.1 Choosing a Lens 60

4.2 Using a Close-Up Lens 60

4.3 Wide-Angle Lenses 63

4.4 Using a Fisheye Lens 64

4.5 Filters for Fabulous Underwater Colours 67

4.6 Using a Focus or Modeling Light 68

Lighting Your Subject Underwater 73

5.1 Introduction to Underwater Lighting 74

5.2 Considerations When Buying a Strobe 75

5.3 Arms and Trays for Your Strobe 76

5.4 Tricks and Tips Before Using Your Strobe 78

5.5 What Is Backscatter? 79

5.6 One Strobe or Two 80

5.7 Using a Strobe to Capture Macro Subjects 81

5.8 Strobes for Wide-Angle Scenes 84

Natural Light Photography – Ideal for Snorkelling 87

6.1 Natural Light Photography – Ideal for Snkorkelling 88

Underwater Photography in Temperate Waters 93

7.1 Underwater Photography in Temperate Waters 94

Composing a Great Underwater Photograph 99

8.1 Abstracts 100

8.2 Camouflage 102

8.3 Caves 106

8.4 Close-Focus Wide-Angle Photographs 109

8.5 Contrasting Colours Underwater 110

8.6 Photographing Divers 112

8.7 Eye-to-Eye Contact 114

8.8 Fast Moving Subjects 115

8.9 Fish Behaviour and Interaction 115

8.10 Fish Portrait 118

8.11 Landscape or Portrait Shots 119

8.12 Leading/Diagonal Lines 120

8.13 Which Way Should Your Subject Go? 122

8.14 Looking Up or Down on a Subject? 123

8.15 Photographing Macro Subjects 125

8.16 Night Dives 127

8.17 Reflections 128

8.18 Rule of Thirds 129

8.19 Same Photo, Different Idea 132

8.20 Schooling Fish 135

8.21 Shapes 137

8.22 Sharks 138

8.23 Silhouettes 139

8.24 Split-Level Shots 139

8.25 Wide-Angle Reef Scenes 140

8.26 Photographing Wreck Scenes 142

Downloading and Shoring Your Images 147

9.1 Downloading and Storing Your Images 148

Practise, Practise, Practise 151

10.1 Practice, Practise, Practise 152

Guest Gallery 153

11.1 Guest Gallery 154

Notes 165

Glossary 172

Index 174