Photo Clinic, Part 4

In the Water:
     In scuba photography, some things are just the same as with land photography. But there are some BIG differences that can really mess up your pictures. Some of these differences are: color absorption by water, particles in the water, water motion such as current or surge, diver bubbles, and that darn mask. In this lesson, I'll talk about how you change your photo techniques when you're "In the Water."

     Get rid of the water between you and your subject. On land, the best "people pictures" are made with a telephoto lens (around 75 mm) because this gives a more flattering perspective. In the water, you want to do the opposite. Get in close to the subject and, when practical, use a wide angle lens.

This 20-mm wide-angle lens lets you come very close. This eliminates most of the water between the lens and your subject. Surprising, the perspective is fairly natural -- there's little of the fisheye "warping of the universe" you see with wide-angle land photography.

Red light is absorbed by sea water. So the closer you can get your strobes and lens to the subject, the truer the color. Getting close also means fewer particles suspended between the lens and the picture subject. Even "perfect" underwater visibility is only about 150 feet because of tiny particles. So even if you can't see 'em, the particles are there, and they'll dull your picture.

In the pea soup of algae where Quail Creek enters the reservoir, visibility is down to four feet. The photographer's goal is to eliminate a most of the algae between the lens and the fish. That means getting your diver and fish in tight together, limiting the picture area, and using a wide-angle lens. This "gets rid" of two-thirds of the algae and water. Picture: Steve Argyle comes face to face with a vicious bluegill. Nikonos V w 20-mm lens, rose filter, ambient light.

     Get down and shoot up. In land photography, you usually want to be at, or slightly below, the eye level of your subject. In scuba, getting below your subject gives the best pictures. Shooting upward provides a sense of space. It surrounds your subject with blue water, or upward-growing kelp strands, or the pilings of a pier, or the flare of sun on the water. And notice how photo pros always shoot sharks from below? It's because the color pattern of most fish makes them drab and hard to see from above.

Unlike land photography, with scuba you can choose any camera angle -- right, left, above, below, or inside (in the case of shark photos). Photos that look upward "set the stage," showing the water and surroundings. The fill-flash highlights the foreground colors. Photo: Dominic Bria descends through kelp at the Channel Islands. Nikonos V, 20-mm lens, single YS50 strobe.

     Shoot the flash at an angle. On land, you see those awful "flash shadows" if the flash is more than an inch or two away from the lens. But in the water, you want the strobe away from the line-of-sight of the lens. Any light that hits the water in front of your subject lights it up. At worst, you see a "snowstorm" in front of your fellow diver when the pictures are developed. At best, it mutes the contrast and colors. So position the strobe well above and to the side of your subject. You might find a "spotter light" helpful in aiming the strobe precisely.

Holding one strobe out to the side of this sulfur sponge produces shadows that give a sense of the three dimensions of this representative of the phyllum porifera. Despite heavy surge, no particles spoil this picture, because the strobes are positioned so they don't hit the water in front of the camera. Sulfur sponge at San Clemente Island Nikonos V, 1:1 macro tube, double YS50 strobe

     Use the water. What do you do topside when there's a cluttered background? You open the aperature to a lower f-stop (and compensate with increased shutter speed) so the background is out of focus. Well, in the water there's a better way. Shut down the aperature to a higher f-stop -- yes, just the opposite from what you'd do on land. Using your flash on TTL, the background will appear dark. Of course, you can blur the background, but in the water this is much trickier, less predictable, and doesn't look as cool. (On the Nikonos V, there's a pair of "in-focus" brackets that show what distances will be in focus for a given f-stop. Very handy.)

In this closeup photo of a hermit crab, we don't set the aperature to adjust for ambient light. Instead, we let the TTL of the flash determine the correct exposure for the foreground, while the background remains an uncluttered black. Hermit crab at Ana Capa Island Nikonos V, 35-mm with closeup lens, single YS50 strobe

     Avoid "mask squint." Topside photographers can put the viewfinder right up to the eye, where they can see all the details of their picture. But underwater, you can hardly make out anything as you shove the camera hard against your mask. So open your other eye, so you can notice details that you can't see through the viewfinder, such as errant hoses, bubbles in front of the face, etc. Use the viewfinder only to line up the shot.

A good quality optical viewfinder gives you a bigger, brighter image. It also can give you frames for both 35, 20, and 15 mm lenses. But beware. The viewfinder is pretty far away from the lens, so if you're shooting really close, you need to adjust for parallax. (A nearby viewfinder-centered fish will become a bottom-half-only fish when you get the pictures back.)

Click on the garibaldi for the next lesson.

About the author: Bruce Argyle was raised on a goat farm near the swamps of Utah Lake. One of the worst scuba photographers ever to click a shutter, Dr. Argyle gets away with writing this tutorial because, hey, it's his web site and he'll do what he wants with it.