I’m not going to pretend like I know a lot about the subject of underwater photography (and I’m certainly not going to get all highfalutin and say crap like “digital darkroom” or “digital film”… sorry just a pet peeve) but I do know a couple of things about it. And by “a couple” I mean “two.”
1. You know all the blue in an underwater photo? That’s water. You know how to take it out? Okay, those of you who said “Photoshop” aren’t really on the right track. All you do there is try and color correct.
The right answer is “remove the water.” Get closer to your subject. If you are taking a shot of something far enough away and find you have to zoom, then it’s going to be a bad picture. No amount of color correction will help it. Maybe some clever Photoshopping but who has time for that?
If you find you can’t get those subjects in the frame, get a wider lens. If you don’t know how to go about taking the water out, go find some anemone fish and practice on them. They pose for you. They don’t leave. They’re great subjects. Stick the camera in their faces and go to town.
See if you can figure out which photos in the linked gallery I used the zoom on and which ones I didn’t. But if it comes down to getting a single shot of something really cool, then do it. Better than no photo at all.
2. Buoyancy is your friend. If you’re a new diver trying to take a photo and you’re bouncing off the coral or standing on the rock (this is about 85% of you so pay attention) then consider leaving the camera on the boat for a dive and learn how to properly hover and then how to hover at angles including upside down. Then learn how to move into and then away from something fragile like a coral outcropping.
Here’s a hint: don’t just start kicking away from it, ffs. The displacement your fins put out is already screwing up the coral and whatever is on it. Imagine the poor anemone fish or nudibranch thinking to itself “shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit it’s a tornado!”
Oh, remember that black tip gallery I was talking about? Here it is. The shots were taken with the G9, ISO 400, no flash. -jp
