pictures at night in pool

[Brian Gilpin]

An instructor I sometimes work with asked me to take some u/w pictures of OW students at a recent pool session. I had a basic Sealife digital camera with a large attached flash. When I looked in viewfinder it looked like a good picture on the screen. The shots turned out very dark except for faces and pool bottom which is bright blue. It was at night but pools lights were on. Any ideas of where to start diagnosing problem?

 

[marpacifica]

Brian,

I started with the same setup last year and had similar problems from my first dives. The first place to start is to get closer than 3 feet. Light underwater doesn't travel as far as it does topside because of the absorption/diffusion qualities of water, so you need to get closer to your subjects in order to get the lighting good enough for the camera to get a decently lighted shot. Also check your dial setting -- it should be on external flash when using the external flash, and on "regular" without it. The external flash washes out colors on close-up shots (but you need to use the 16x or 8x lens, remember), but if you make a diffuser out of some semi-opaque plastic the closeup should be fine. Good luck!

 

[Brian Gilpin]

Thanks for the advice. One who think that the picture would equal whats on the screen. In computers we call this WYSIWYG.
Doesn't apply here I guess.

Brian