Choosing to photograph those small fast fast-moving reef fish is arguably one of the hardest subjects you could choose underwater. Trust me, I know it's tempting and borderline addicting, and please don't hate me for saying this, but reef fish just aren't the right subject in most cases. Hear me out, please. Photographing reef fish from wavy surfaces as they erratically dart in and out of the reef beneath us is like trying to photograph rabbits from a turbulent helicopter. One in fifty photos might be in focus, sharp, with the subject facing the camera, and correctly composed without excessive cropping. If you want to consistently get great photos, and ones that aren't cropped down by 50-75% ruining any chance for enlargements and framing, then reef fish really aren't the right subject to be focusing on. If you only want to get ID photos to help you identify them later on, then go nuts. But if you want to take your underwater photography to a level that's going to interest even your non-snorkeling friends beyond one or two photos, then the trick is to go abstract. Going abstract with your snorkeling photos can be one of the easiest things you can do to help elevate your images. It doesn't take much more than training your eye to look for those unique details within the reefs and corals and then knowing how to execute the photo with your trusty camera, which I'm assuming is an Olympus TG camera in or out of a housing. Here are some simple steps you can follow to help get you those stunning shots that will make even your non-snorkeling friends' jaws drop and begging for more. Shallow Water For best results, stay shallow. Look for subjects within arms reach. Even if you can dive down
Choosing to photograph those small fast fast-moving reef fish is arguably one of the hardest subjects you could choose underwater. Trust me, I know it’s tempting and borderline addicting, and please don’t hate me for saying this, but reef fish just aren’t the right subject in most cases. Hear me out, please. Photographing reef fish
White balance is one of the principal camera settings or functions we need to understand in order to bring out the natural colors of the reef and our fishy friends. What is the white balance you ask? Well, in the most simple terms, white balance is a setting included on all digital cameras, usually indicated with a “WB”, which changes the overall color of the picture to accommodate different lighting environments. For example, a land photographer would change the white balance settings when they move from shooting in a sunny outdoor environment to an indoor environment lit entirely with fluorescent light. For us underwater shooters, we adjust the white balance to account for a loss in the red wavelength as we go deeper underwater. If you do not adjust your white balance your images will come back in shades of blue and green when they should be coming back with a full spectrum of colors. How do we correctly set our white balance? Let me explain. Underwater Auto Shooting Modes As I said, as we dive deeper underwater we start to lose certain colors, most importantly red. With this in mind, we need to try to account for this loss of red by utilizing our camera's built-in digital red filter, which is controlled through the white balance function. Many cameras like newer models of GoPro or the Olympus TG series—some of the most user-friendly cameras for snorkelers and divers—will have pretty fantastic auto-white balance settings for underwater shooters. For GoPro users, you'll just need to switch the white balance setting into Auto and just let the camera do its thing. In my experience, and from what I've seen from our guests using GoPros, the colors come back very accurate. For the Olympus TG folks, simply turn the little dial on
White balance is one of the principal camera settings or functions we need to understand in order to bring out the natural colors of the reef and our fishy friends. What is the white balance you ask? Well, in the most simple terms, white balance is a setting included on all digital cameras, usually indicated
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