Underwater Photography 101: Tips and Tricks to Get Started

Underwater photography is an excellent way to create incredible memories of your diving experiences. However, just like land photography, underwater imaging takes a little time and effort before you can produce great images that will stay with you forever. So here are our top tips for getting started on your underwater photography journey.

Manage Your Expectations

The first thing you need to do when starting underwater photography is manage your expectations. Like any skill, it takes time to perfect and lots of practice. Cameras are complicated with lots of settings and functions that take time to get used to; you need to learn how each setting works and how they interact together. While within a week, you should be able to take some good snaps, manage your expectations and have patience since you are still some time off producing award-winning photos.

Develop Your Spotting Skills

The sad truth is that underwater photographers are the most boring dive buddies out there. Why do you ask? The answer is simple they take their time to explore and not miss out on any great subjects while you are left hanging around. If you are patient, then they are the best ever buddies. They are exceptionally good spotters, and you will end up seeing far more interesting things diving with a photographer.

Spotting skills don't just come from nowhere; you have to develop them and develop the frame of mind that enables you to find lots of subjects. The first step toward developing your spotting skills is to slow down. The slower you swim, look around and really register and take in what you see, the more you will spot. Remember, most creatures are somewhat camouflaged or hidden, and their survival is designed around avoiding detection from a casual glance.

Another great way to improve your spotting is to get into the habit of looking into every nook and cranny you pass and under every overhang, no matter how small. You will be surprised what you can find. For instance, in tropical waters, there are plenty of shrimps, critters, and even smaller reef fish that spend their day slightly undercover. A quick glance under an overhang will yield results, finding lots of new subjects to photograph. The better you're spotting, the more interesting subjects you will have.

Grow Into Your Gear

Underwater photography is a hobby that you are best served growing into; sure, you can go out and spend an enormous amount of money on the most advanced mirrorless camera, a few lenses, housing, strobes lights, snoots, and much more. With all this gear, you will soon be frustrated since you will be unable to create the fantastic images you see other people make. Failing to grow into complicated gear often leads to frustration and abandonment. Just look at the amount of second-hand high-end underwater camera gear available on online auction sites if you want proof.

Think of photography like becoming an airline pilot. Every pilot of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner first learned on a simple single-engine turboprop. If on day one they were put in a 787, the results would be tragic. The situation is similar, although less dangerous, with underwater photography.

If you are interested in underwater imaging, perhaps your first step should be using something like the ProShotCase for your iPhone. This is an easy introduction to underwater photography since you are comfortable using your phone’s camera so you can focus on just shooting. You can then grow into a small compact. Today compacts are incredibly powerful units, and with the right lenses and housing, you can produce some stunning images. Many underwater photographers never go beyond a compact camera. They are great to use, make life easy, and deliver everything you want.

If you get the limits of your compact- (by now, you are virtually an underwater imaging expert), you can then opt to move into the realm of mirrorless DSLRs and lenses and such. Although now you are into the professional territory, and the cost of the gear shows it.

Perfect Your Composition Technique

The quickest route to start producing good underwater images is to work on your composition. A well-composed photo is interesting in itself and has an impact even if it is not perfectly executed from a technical perspective.

One of the easiest rules of composition is don't take side on pictures unless you are planning on using your images for an Identification book for zoologists and biologists. It is always far more interesting to capture behavior; a photo of a fish doing something mundane is better than a photo of a fish. You don't even have to capture the whole fish either; a picture of the fish's eyes and mouth peeking around a rock or coral outcrop is interesting since it makes you think about what the fish is doing. Getting the subject's eyes in the image and making them the compositional focus of your photo is a great way to start producing stunning underwater images.

As a rule, head-on shots or slightly off head-on images make for great pictures since they create emotion. This applies whether the subject is a nudibranch that is less than an inch long and is a couple of inches from the lens or a shark that is several feet long and a few yards from the lens.

Take the above example of one of the most mundane fishes you can encounter in the tropics, the lizardfish. The face-on image with the eyes and rows of sharp teeth make this a great image of a predator, even if it is only about 6 inches/ 15 cm long and a very regular encounter.

Another tool you can use to get good results with your compositions is the rule of thirds. Using this compositional tool, your main subject occupies a third of your mage in the foreground, with the rest of the image being made up of the background. The technique is especially useful when taking reefscape images when the main subject is then positioned in a third of the images, and the stunning coral makes up the rest of the picture.

Don’t Waste too Much Time on Post

One thing you can easily find yourself doing early on is getting too hung up in post-editing. This is especially tempting if you are trying to fix a host of issues like backscatter or even bad composition- for instance, a great shot, but you can see a divers fin in the background or bubbles.

Remember, you are trying to learn underwater photography, not become a photo editing expert. You are better served using your time to practice your photography skills than your photo editing skill. Most professionals spend minimal time photo editing. They may adjust contrast, brightness, or a minor tweak to color balance. A small amount of editing can turn a great photo into an amazing one, but it can’t drastically improve an average photo much without an enormous amount of work.

When it comes to postproduction, learn a few tweaks and tricks, then spend most of your time doing what you love taking pictures!