Underwater
Photography ABC
Marcelo Mammana - Aventurarse Expert
First
and foremost, an underwater photographer must know how
to dive. Sounds stupid? Its not. For example, What do
you think polo players do? They don't worry about the
horse. They are not afraid of falling. All they are interested
in is sending the ball into the goal. The same thing happens
with diving; being comfortable in the water is the only
way to have the right conditions to take pictures.
Beginners (we've all been through this) are always worrying
about the air in their tank, about depth, darkness and
ghosts. They spend half the time looking at their watches,
and that's ok, that's the way it should be.
Therefore, you must wait until you're confident in the
air in your tank without having to check on the manometer,
until you are really enjoying the water.
The next step is simply
getting a camera, diving into a pool or a shallow reef,
and taking the first pictures.
This is an introductory
article, so I'll try to be brief and precise. In future
articles, I'll expand on the subject.
Underwater
Ok,
you're already in the water. Now´s the time to approach
your object! Closer! One meter is fine. Unless you're
taking pictures of a whale, a shark or a shipwreck, one
meter is almost perfect. Regardless of what lake or sea
you're in, water acts as a filter, diminishing the light,
and therefore your visibility. That's why zooms are not
popular underwater. In a monochromatic environment, where
everything is painted in shades of view, clicking on a
subject that is 10 meters away is useless. If your subject
doesn't get extra light it will appear blue and confound
itself with the background.
There is an 80 mm Nikon
lens for Nikonos V, nobody will use it. Must be for a
reason. The most popular lenses are either regular or
wide angle, allowing the photographer to take pictures
at a very short distance.
Let's suppose visibility
is two meters, trying to get color and detail out of an
object three meters away is impossible. Note that I use
the words "detail and color"; taking a picture
of a wreck that is five meters away is possible, the shape
will probably be visible, but detail will be invisible
and the colors will be monotonous.
Using a flash
Under the water, light diminishes in quality and quantity,
horizontally And vertically. A flash helps to revive the
colors that water filters out.
In this article's first picture,
the photographer was 10 meters away from the subject.
The flash was too far away, and the sunlight was not enough
to illuminate the details.
Warm
colors are the first in disappearing. 30 meters away,
we see everything blue. The flash is in charge when taking
a portrait or a macro photograph. Sunlight is more effective
for shallow sceneries, silhouettes or wrecks, where a
flash is only useful to highlight a detail.
The second picture of this article
was taken with the same lens as the first one (15 mm Nikon).
In this case, we got as close to the angelfish as 40 cm.
The flash adds detail and color to the picture, and the
sun is in charge of illuminating the reef behind it.
Immediate satisfaction?
Start with macro. It is a system similar to Nikonos, everything
is preset, so once you're in the water, all you have to
do is pick a subject, frame it and shoot. That's it!
In macro photography, the need for depth forces us to
tighten the opening of our diaphragm. To achieve correct
exposure, we must use a flash and get very close to our
subject. In this article's third picture,
the flash is the source of all the light. Although it
was taken during the night, very little would have changed
during the day.
If instead, you want to
put a reflex camera into a box, everything is a bit more
complicated. In my next article, we'll talk about macro
photography in more detail.
So, to a brief summary:
Suscribe
