To Auto White Balance or Not to?

[captnpat1982]

If you're sick of the blue there's a few things you can do:

1. Stay shallow. 50' is too deep to get decent colour. Your best depth is within the 0-40' range.
2. Get close- really tricky with some fish.
3. Get the sun at your back.
4. Shoot at eye-level or slightly from underneath.

If your camera can white-balance- definitely use it! Auto-WB usually works only when adding an external light source such as a strobe. Internal flash can help but you need to be within a couple of feet of the subject- 12 inches is better... (she said).

I think the most important tip is staying really shallow- or leaving the camera alone until you ascend to the shallows. You will see a big difference at 10-15'.

See here for tips on getting shots without strobes:
Great Underwater Photos Without a Strobe|Underwater Photography Guide

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I have alot to learn and alot of practice ahead of me.

supergaijin - great pics and advise. Thank you

 

[Pillpusher]

To be clear though, the pics found in the links posted by Peter and Super were NOT taken using a Sealife camera. Unfortunately, the manual white balance is not nearly as good on the Sealife, and it does not support RAW (hopefully to be remedied in a firmware update or Sealife DC1600 at some point?). Below 30', MWB is definitely better than the AWB underwater "dive" filter, but I don't want you to get your hopes up and then think you're doing something wrong when your pics don't look like the ones in the links. If you want good quality pics below 30', I highly recommend investing in a strobe or two.

 

[tplyons]

...If you want good quality pics below 30', I highly recommend investing in a strobe or two.

Or eighteen

 

[captnpat1982]

Timothy - LMAO My wife wants to know the name of that monster fish? I called it the OMG fish.

Thanks for a good laugh to end of a long week.

 

[Steve_C]

These are all manual WB, no flash.


Utila 2012 - a set on Flickr

Nice shots. Were most of them shot shallow. (Less than 30 ft?)

---------- Post added August 18th, 2013 at 02:37 PM ----------

You cannot fight physics. As you get deeper sunlight looses colors. As you get further from what you are photograhing the light goes through the water and you loose colors. Off NC most of my pictures are taken in the 70-100 ft range so I use a strobe always unless I am shooting something while doing a safety stop.

 

[PeterNBiddle]

Nice shots. Were most of them shot shallow. (Less than 30 ft?)

---------- Post added August 18th, 2013 at 02:37 PM ----------

You cannot fight physics. As you get deeper sunlight looses colors. As you get further from what you are photograhing the light goes through the water and you loose colors. Off NC most of my pictures are taken in the 70-100 ft range so I use a strobe always unless I am shooting something while doing a safety stop.

Some were shot as deep as 60-70, but mostly 30 feet or less. The biggest problem I have at 70 feet, provided its a nice sunny day up above, is shutter speed, which results in blur.

I'd get more consistent results with a flashed rig, and I'm sure I'll go that route eventually.

Here's a new set from last week:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peternbiddle/sets/72157635121073299