Blue Water Shots

[Wolverine]

Hi guys,

I will be heading to Tubbataha next week and need some tips for blue water shots. So far, I have not been able to get decent color or contrast with these types of shots. What kind of settings do you use? I have tried F5.6 and 1/100 but generally these shots are way too dark. I know the strobes are pretty useless, or at least lose efficiency outside 4ft. What can I do to get enough lights to the subject? Looking to take some shots of fish/ and *crossing fingers* mantas.

Thanks in advance.

 

[hvulin]

you can lower your Fs to F3 if your lens allow it or simply don't go soo deep!

 

[f3nikon]

Float the shutter speed, use aperture priority and let the camera's meter vary your shutter speed between 1/250 to 1/30th. Yes, 1/30th even 1/15th on stationary subjects. Keep in mind that the aperture will control the strobe lighting; the shutter CANNOT control the light from the strobe so the shutter is used to control the background, basic photography.

Which would you rather have a well exposed blue water background or an under exposed dark unnatural image? But what about image blur at 1/30th of the shutter speed? For the objects lit by the strobe, the strobe's speed will stop the action, we could care less if the background is in focus or not because this is not the main subject all we care about is a natural looking evenly lit bluewater background.

Try out camera angles like this the Poppy Flower, because you already know that your strobe cannot light up the entire reef so why include the reef in the picture? Shoot just the top half of that bright red soft coral against the deep blue background. There is no sense to include the entire coral, base and all, because it will not only look too busy but you will get a lot of dark unnatural areas in the image (near the corals base and the reef). Plus by really cropping in you get more detail and better focusing...on second thought shoot both ways, cropping in and upwards and the way you normally shoot, then compare. Dennis just back from the Philippines and has some fine examples (lion fish).

http://www.olympus-esystem.com/dea/products/e330/sample/index.html

All you have to worry about is the aperture vs strobe power. I wish I could go back there, dive safe and shoot a lot!

 

[Diver Dennis]

If you look in my gallery, starting about page 10 or so, you can see a lot of W/A shots I took in Micronesia in December. All the settings are there if you open the picture. I find the strobes can help a lot, even at farther distances. I'm still new at this, just started taking pictures on that trip but I make sure the strobes are positioned as wide as they will go and pointed straight or slightly outwards.
Have a great trip!

 

[Mo2vation]

After several rough, rough days diving the Kona Coast, we went out to about 6,000 FSW, dropped a line to about 100 feet and hung out for awhile, looking for big fishies.

I brought a lemon (I usually carry one with me... don't ask) and got this shot off in about 88 feet (of 6,000+) of truly blue water.

I used F8 at 1/60. Two Ike strobes, Nikon 10.5mm


---
Ken

 

[f3nikon]

After several rough, rough days diving the Kona Coast, we went out to about 6,000 FSW, dropped a line to about 100 feet and hung out for awhile, looking for big fishies.

I brought a lemon (I usually carry one with me... don't ask) and got this shot off in about 88 feet (of 6,000+) of truly blue water.

I used F8 at 1/60. Two Ike strobes, Nikon 10.5mm


---
Ken

Good example, nice and natural blues.

 

[RonFrank]

Hi guys,

I will be heading to Tubbataha next week and need some tips for blue water shots. So far, I have not been able to get decent color or contrast with these types of shots. What kind of settings do you use? I have tried F5.6 and 1/100 but generally these shots are way too dark. I know the strobes are pretty useless, or at least lose efficiency outside 4ft. What can I do to get enough lights to the subject? Looking to take some shots of fish/ and *crossing fingers* mantas.

Thanks in advance.

Examples, and settings please? RU shooting with a strobe, without a strobe (I'm guessing with) do you use a histogram? Do your shots look dark in the LCD?

If you want some *educated* guess, you need to provide more *education* as to WHAT you are doing.

 

[Wolverine]

here is an examples

f5, 1/80

The subject was about 7-8ft away

 

[alcina]

And how light is the water? Here 1/160 at f5 at 15m will give a blue that could even get darkened more and still be pretty nice blue (on a usual day).

Shooting up more will also help make those blues nicer

 

[Wolverine]

And how light is the water? Here 1/160 at f5 at 15m will give a blue that could even get darkened more and still be pretty nice blue (on a usual day).

Shooting up more will also help make those blues nicer

Thats what I thought. The day (if I remembered correctly) was not too sunny. So that could explain why it is so dark. Just a note. This picture was not touched up in Photoshop. In any case, I have been unable to get blue shots in general. I guess I just wanted to find out is there is any particular setting that works well in MOST conditions, so that I can set it as mode in the 7070. In most blue water shots, it is very difficult to adjust the settings, probably because the encounter tends to be fairly sudden (ie fishes are moving!). If there is a setting which works well in most conditions, I can just switch the mode and fire off and hope that it works.

Just another question, at full power, how far will the strobe actually penetrate the water?

Thanks for your help.