Diving and Traveling with Your Smartphone

Diving and traveling with a smartphone is a major life hack for underwater photographers. If you’re used to lugging around a big, heavy underwater camera and housing, then you know it can get tiring. Between extra time in airport security and excess baggage fees, you might be wondering if there’s a better alternative. Well, there is!

As you know, smartphone cameras have become so advanced that many are as sophisticated as dedicated cameras like the Olympus TG-6. But a smartphone can also be used as a computer – aka editing powerhouse. So ask yourself – what do you really need on a dive trip?

Photo taken by the ProShot Team in the Red Sea

Editing on Your Smartphone

I was introduced to this intriguing concept at an underwater photo workshop in Socorro in 2021. One of my workshop guests had brought her iPhone and an iPhone housing and showed me that she had just downloaded an editing program that looked very familiar – Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom is the gold standard for underwater photo editing with pro photographers, and the mobile version is very similar to the desktop. Throughout the trip, she would take photos on her smartphone in a “RAW” file format and then come back to the boat to edit the images in Lightroom on her smartphone. She didn’t travel with an expensive laptop, a hard drive, or anything. All her photography and editing were done on that one device so she could share images and video directly to social media!

If you’re a video shooter, you may want to consider a popular mobile video editing software – CapCut. It has almost all the same video editing features as advanced paid video editing software, but it’s also free.

Photo taken by @meganhassa ProShot & Tidal Sports Ambassador

Packing for Your Next Trip

Packing with an underwater smartphone housing is easy! All you need to do is put your smartphone in your pocket and your ProShot housing in your airline-designated personal item. The Proshot Dive Case should be able to fit in any small backpack – even with filters and the handle. The housing also comes with a nice carry case, which makes this convenient.

Destinations for Streamlined Packing

You might like to pack light for every trip you take, but there are some places you should plan to avoid checked baggage if possible. These are remote dive destinations with more flight connections and have a higher risk of delayed or lost luggage or places requiring small domestic flights with hefty luggage fees. Consider packing light with your phone and ProShot Dive Case when you visit the following places:

1. Papua New Guniea (also known as PNG): This up-and-coming diving hotspot is challenging to reach. If you can, skip checked luggage when you head to PNG and pack the essentials in your carry-on bag, including your ProShot smartphone housing. You’ll only need casual tropical attire, making it easy to keep your packing streamlined. Once there, you’ll be rewarded with beautiful coral reefs and a wide variety of diving, including muck, walls, and even wrecks.

2. Galapagos: We know you will want to capture incredible underwater memories when you visit the ultimate bucket list dive destination. The Galapagos Islands may not the most challenging destination to get to, but with multiple connections and possible flight delays, packing all your essentials into your carry-on is the best way to ensure you embark on your liveaboard with everything you need. You can always get photos of the endemic wildlife topside using your smartphone; if you’ve packed your ProShot Dive Case, you can also capture the impressive underwater sights.

3. Mozambique: Getting to this often overlooked African scuba diving haven requires multiple international and domestic flights. Whether you head to the famed Bazaruto Archipelago to seek whale sharks and dugongs or to Ponta do Ouro for the ultimate shark dive, you want to take an underwater camera. You don’t need much clothing or shoes in this barefoot beach destination, so it should be relatively easy to streamline your packing to a carry-on with your smartphone and ProShot housing.

4. French Polynesia: If you plan to island-hop around this gorgeous region, checked luggage fees can really add up. Save costs by packing the necessities in your carry-on, including your ProShot Dive case, to make sure you can get videos of Fakarava’s famed “walls of sharks” and the renowned humpback whales in Moorea.

Traveling with your smartphone and the ProShot Dive Case is a convenient alternative for underwater photographers. With advanced smartphone cameras and mobile editing applications like Adobe Lightroom, you can easily and efficiently edit underwater images. Streamlining your packing can reduce stress and save costs, especially when visiting remote and challenging destinations.

Author Bios

Nirupam Nigam is a dedicated underwater photographer and fisheries scientist. While growing up in Los Angeles, he fell in love with the ocean and pursued underwater photography in the local Channel Islands. He received degrees in Aquatic and Fisheries Science and General Biology, as well as a minor in Arctic Studies, at the University of Washington. After working as a fisheries observer on boats in the Bering Sea and North Pacific, Nirupam became the Editor-in-Chief of the Underwater Photography Guide and the President of Bluewater Photo - the world's top underwater photo & video retailer. Check out more of his photography at www.photosfromthesea.com!

Jenny Hanna is a technical writer and dive instructor. Born and raised in a landlocked city in Canada, she fell in love with scuba diving on a trip to Thailand. Jenny eventually left her corporate finance career to work as a dive instructor and manager in Indonesia. She holds a degree in English Literature and a Graduate Certificate in Technical Writing. Jenny combines her passions - writing and scuba diving - in her role at Bluewater Travel.