This is a question that most new underwater photographers ask at some point. It’s not at all uncommon to encounter an experienced and well accomplished topside photographer, new to underwater photography, sitting on the dive boat, scratching their head while reviewing their shots, wondering why all of their carefully composed shots are hazy, blue, and unsharp.
Things just don’t work underwater like they do above the waves. You have to change your game plan. However with a little knowledge of the physics involved in capturing images underwater and a few adjustments to your approach you can bring the color and sharpness back to your pictures.
Believe it or not this ray was only 12 inches from my camera, shot with an ultra wide 15mm lens.
Water absorbs light rather quickly, with the red end of the spectrum being lost first, leaving the blue wavelengths intact the longest, deepest and furthest. This phenomenon is taught as part of basic diver education in reference to how divers experience colors while underwater. The rule is that the deeper you go the more blue things will appear due to the lack or red light. What many budding underwater photographers tend to overlook is the fact that this property of water is in effect both vertically and horizontally. Just more of the visible spectrum is lost as you go deeper; you lose the same light the further they are from your subject. In order to see something, light must come from a source, hit the object and be reflected to your eyes. So if one considers light from the sun, traveling 60 feet underwater, reflecting off of a fish or piece of coral, and traveling another 20 feet to the camera, it has had 80’ of water to absorb that light. This makes for some pretty blue pictures! With the use of a flash you can artificially cast a balanced spectrum of light on your subject giving you all that color back. However, how and where to use that flash is its own topic, better addressed another day.
This is what happens when too much water is between you and your subject. This manta was shot from about 10′ away with a 60mm lens.
Another thing to consider about the underwater environment is the effect that turbidity has on our pictures. While using any sort of lens with a long focal length or “zoom” lens, you are artificially bringing the image closer to the camera, or in other words, “compressing” the distance between you and your subject. However you are also compressing everything that is between you and your subject. In air with its high degree of visibility, the effect is negligible. However while underwater, all of the little suspended particles and plankton that are invariably in the water column are also being concentrated onto your picture. The result is poorly rendered, and softly focused pictures. To use a long focal length lens underwater similar zooming in on a topside subject through a long distance of thick fog. The only way to get a sharp image is have as little water as possible between your lens and your subject.
So what is an underwater photographer to do?
Get close. Get REAL close! This is the only way to get crisp, clear, and most importantly colorful pictures. Rarely does an underwater photographer use any lens longer than 35mm unless they’re shooting a macro lens with a specialized close focusing distance allowing a 1:1 subject/film ratio. A vast majority of underwater pictures of relatively large subjects, say a fish or turtle, are taken with 24mm, 20mm, and even 15mm lenses and are shot from mere inches away. For example, if you were to take a picture of your dive buddy on the beach, you would stand back 20-30 feet and zoom in to fill the frame with their body. However to achieve similar sharpness and color while underwater, you would want to have your camera no more than 24” from their body. This is where wide-angle lenses come in, because they allow you to get in close and still get your entire subject in the frame. Additionally the shorter the focal length lens you use, the closer the workable focusing distance will be, and this further aides your ability to shoot in close. Long zoom lenses may be popular on land, but they have no purpose underwater. By eliminating excessive water, silt and plankton between you and your subject, you will be able to shoot pictures that are as crisp and colorful.
This picture of a moray eel was taken no more than six inches from those teeth!
So what is the key difference between a great underwater photograph like you see in the magazines and one that you wouldn’t show to your family? It’s not the top-of-the-line camera, not the exotic lenses, and not the artistic vision of the photographer. It’s the ability to get close to the action. Work on your buoyancy control; get good at estimating distance underwater, study up on the habits of your subjects and most of all is to be patient! I’ve spent many dives awkwardly perched upside down for most of my no-decompression time waiting to get close enough to a subject to get a proper image. In the end it’s always worth it!
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Very good points. It took me a while to understand this for some reason, but close (even topside) is the way to create a beautiful picture. I always think now, this arms really close, then Iove a few inches closer before taking the pic.