What Is A Split Shot? Also Known As A Half-half Or An Over-under Shot?
Well, in the world of underwater photography, technically they’re a way to show the above world and the immediate underwater, all at once, and they’re a really fun way to let the viewer know what it is we do, all captured in the one image. A picture where the topside of the picture and the land or seascape is visible, but the bottom half of the view is the underwater reef scene.
As travellers with Snorkel Venture, we’re very lucky to visit some of the most beautiful tropical paradises in the world. And I’ve always been fond of taking shots that show the viewer exactly what it is we do and where, so what better way than a split shot? It’s like two for the price of one click of the shutter. And the great news is that they’re easier and much less expensive to achieve than you may think.
The Necessary Kit And Equipment.
Being an underwater photographer, also teaching underwater photography workshops alongside my job as a Snorkel Venture guide, has meant that I have amassed a lot of expensive underwater photo kit over the years. My bigger camera, lenses, housing, and strobes come to more than $15-20K, and it allows me to do some extraordinary things with it, but aside from the price, it’s huge and costly to travel with.
So it was a revelation that when I started doing more of the Snorkel Venture trips, I could leave it all at home and instead use exactly what the majority of our SV clients use, and that was, in the main either GoPros or similar or the seemingly ubiquitous Olympus Tough range, currently the Olympus TG7. Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical at first, and being a photo nerd, I felt that ‘could these tiny marvels that fit into my carry-on luggage really do a decent enough job, especially for publication ?’
Well, I was pleasantly surprised. Having used GoPros and TG cameras for a good few years now alongside my bigger rigs, that they definitely punch well above their weight, and I’m actually finding that in many scenarios, because of their less cumbersome size, they allow me to get shots otherwise impossible on larger equipment, but that’s a story for another day.
Split shots are by their very nature wide-angle pictures, so a camera that fits that bill perfectly in taking these sorts of images is an action camera like a GoPro. By default, these cameras usually have a baseline wide angle of around 150 degrees, much wider than the baseline on a TG or similar camera. Action cameras of most of the major brands have been around a while now, so there’s also an ecosystem of third-party accessories that allow you to extend what is possible with this tiny tech. And to do a split shot, a non-negotiable, is that the camera you’re using needs to be placed behind an acrylic dome of some description. Typically around 6 to 8” in diameter. This is because to ensure correct placement of the boundary between the air and the water below necessitates some way of more easily positioning that boundary. And as you could imagine in a wavy environment like the open ocean, even on the flattest and calmest of days, lining up that boundary layer would be intensely frustrating just trying to do it with the action camera lens on its own, being typically less than an inch across!! Luckily, the action camera accessory ecosystem is well served, and a quick search online will result in a bunch of dome choices, typically ranging from $50 to $100. Handily, they all incorporate a built-in underwater housing too; you just need to make sure you get the correct one for the model action camera you intend to use.
All of the shots I’m sharing in this article have been taken with either the GoPro 9 or 10, so you don’t even need the latest model to do this, and you could probably pick one of them up for less than $200. The dome I use goes under the brand name of Shoot, although I’ve seen the same one with different names on it. I’ve settled upon this one after trying others, as it’s seemingly the most robust. It has a dual handle design, comes with a handy line on the back to line up the water level, and the cover slips easily over my arm when I’m using it. I mention the cover’s practicality, as I’ve lost far too many other neoprene covers over the years, and as it slips easily over my arm, it’s almost impossible to lose that way. The cover is also useful as an 8” acrylic dome is very vulnerable to scratches, and it doesn’t take too many scratches to render it unusable over time. As even if the whole lot is only $50 online, I prefer not to be too wasteful. To get things in perspective, a dome port for my bigger camera is over $500, and then there’s all the rest of the kit that goes along with it too. Is it better quality? Yes, but not to the tune of 10x better quality, and the results from this less expensive setup speak for themselves.
Ok, We’ve Got The Kit. How Best To Use It?
I wish it were as simple as saying you’ve spent your $250 now to just get in the water and fire away, and you’re guaranteed great results immediately. But like the best things in life, you’re going to have to work a little bit for them, but it’s definitely worth the effort. On the Snorkel Venture trips, oftentimes folk see me using the domed GoPro setup, and it piques their interest, and I’m only too happy to lend it out for them to have a go, but first I give them a little mini workshop as to improve their chances of success.As the GoPro is an action camera, it has a small LCD screen, almost too small to really frame up accurately with a dome, so to increase your chances of success, I always suggest putting the GoPro into both RAW mode and Burst mode. Why? Burst mode is a setting that most action cameras have that will shoot a bunch of pictures in very quick succession, allowing you to pick the best afterwards. I set Burst at 10/1s, which is ten (RAW) pictures in the moment you press the trigger.
I set RAW as my picture quality setting by default on the GoPro, as it’s the highest possible quality available, and the most pictures it’s able to shoot in RAW is ten at a time, before the camera needs a little breather of around 10 secs to catch its breath, so to speak, or buffering if you prefer the technical term.
Why Shoot RAW?
Ok, I understand that a lot of folk would rather not shoot RAW on their cameras as it means that you ARE definitely going to have to edit or post-process the pictures afterwards in your editing software of choice. I use Adobe Lightroom but there’s a great free alternative available for Windows or Mac called Darktable. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and split shots by their very nature really stretch what is termed as dynamic range in photography. Not only do you have to put in a little work at the picture-taking stage, more of that to follow, but you definitely have to process these shots more carefully than you would your regular pictures if you want to see them at their best. Yet another reason why RAW shooting is the best way.It takes me on average about two or three minutes to edit a RAW split-shot picture, so it’s not too massive a headache once you’ve got a successful workflow learnt. And surely worth the effort for a potentially frame-worthy shot?
The Best Way To pick Your Shots And Then To Shoot Them
We established that the GoPro screen is tiny, and I don’t think that you’re going to be peering at it from an inch or so away desperately trying to frame things precisely with the waves buffeting you, and water coming down your snorkel, that will soon put you off the whole endeavour, I don’t. Try and make your first time doing this in as calm conditions as is practical. Find somewhere that you’ve got great, attractive, colourful reef that is really close, if not touching the surface, and as close to land or a visible topside feature as possible. Luckily, on one of our trips, this happens a lot I’ve found, and it won’t be long until the circumstances favor you.
This next bit is really important. Pick the first or last snorkel of the day when the sun is lower is best, and make sure the sun is behind you. This means that the light falling on both the reef and the background is most even, and that your action camera’s tiny automatic sensor has a chance to record the dynamic range (there’s that term again) in its entirety.
The dynamic range is the difference between the lightest and darkest part of the scene, and traditionally, although they are getting better, cameras with tiny sensors like GoPro’s, TG series, and phones tend to struggle in scenes with a high dynamic range, especially like a split shot. Did I mention that shooting RAW helps enormously in this regard?
You can shoot when the sun is higher, but really try to avoid shooting towards the sun for these shots, as the camera will do its best, but there’s only so much leeway you have in the edit. Thinking and planning these shots will pay dividends in your end results.
Final Thoughts
Thinking and planning ahead ? You might want to be more spontaneous than this and react in the moment when the situation best presents itself, yes?
This is why I carry both my domed GoPro on my snorkels alongside my regular TG7 setup. Isn’t that cumbersome and just gets in the way, I hear you say?
I wear a pair of pocketed scuba shorts available from most outdoor stores, and my domed GoPro rig fits neatly inside one of the pockets, secured by a carabiner as it’s quite floaty, and my TG swaps places with it if I’m shooting split shots. I even carry a second GoPro that I use for other tasks in the other pocket, and even with all three cameras I’m still way less encumbered than I am with my big Mirrorless underwater rig with two strobes, etc, but you might think that even this was too much, and so in the past without the shorts I’ve simply stuffed the domed split shot GoPro inside my rash vest so as to concentrate on my TG rig.
The TG-shaped Dugong in the room: “What about shooting split shots using the camera I already have ? My Olympus TG6/7.”
Well, it’s entirely possible and I’ve done split shots with a TG7, but to do it properly utilising a domed fisheye lens, you’ll need to buy some very particular kit, which will cost a lot more than $250 for the system I’ve been talking about. That kit you’ll need is an Ikelite Housing, currently the only brand to make a dome to accommodate the Olympus Fisheye lens, and in the UK this is already approx $700 without the camera and fisheye lens factored in.
I’m lucky in that I own this as well, but to be honest I’d rather keep the GoPro and dome for my split shots and other wide-angle photos and video and the Olympus TG7 for macro and close-ups, as if I put the TG in the Ikelite housing with the dome attached it’s no longer useful for anything other than wide-angle shots, so it’s much more practical in my opinion to use both separate cameras in all honesty.
When shooting split shots, try not to think too much about the framing and getting things precisely right, there’s a bit of random chance and luck involved. A good place to practice the technique before you start in earnest, is at the back or side of the boat either tender or liveaboard . You may not have a great reef just under the surface, but the water should be calm, and you’ll get the hang of the framing more easily there. And it can make for a fun shot.
And as they say, practice makes you lucky. Enjoy.
p.s.please don’t hesitate to get in touch and ask more specific questions about this. If we’ve been on a trip together before, you’ll no doubt have my WhatsApp details, or maybe contact me on Facebook Messenger if we’re in touch there. If not, just drop me a line via Snorkel Venture.
