We cruised out to Planet Rock in Astrolabe Bay Saturday morning for our regular weekly dive. It was murky with fresh, green water from the Golgol River down to about fifteen metres. At that depth there was a thermocline (a sharp change in water temperature). Below, it was much clearer.

The best shooting was up-close because of the murk.

I’ve talked before about my preference for available light shooting. I’m most particular about it underwater.

Here’s an example of why:

The image above is exactly what I saw with my eyes. The colours are as I remember them. Having been a photographer nearly all my life, I’m pretty particular about colour being correct. I took the image without flash and then used Photoshop to correct the colours so that they looked as I remembered them. To me, this seems to portray the scene more naturally – as a diver would see it.

It’s good to note here that this trick works only to a certain depth, depending on water clarity, topside weather (sunny or cloudy), and the time of day. These all affect how much and the quality of light that you have to work with.

This is the same nudibranch shot with flash. Since the colour temperature (how reddish or bluish) of the flash is designed to mimic sunlight, using flash underwater actually shows you how the subject would appear as if it were seen at the surface in sunlight. Not necessarily what you’re after, if you want ‘realism’ – whatever that might be.

As you can see, the whole image takes on a pinkish glow and areas that appeared to the diver as white can sometimes look reddish:

It’s possible to correct for this in Photoshop, but it’s simply easier to skip the flash and take the naturally lit shot.

Sometimes, there’s simply no choice. If there is insufficient light, you’ll not get a decent image without flash. If you’re too deep, there’s hardly anything left but blue and some purple light. You can’t, as they say, squeeze blood from a turnip. You can’t get reds, yellows, greens, etc. If there’s nothing left but blue light. You have to turn your flash on.

Here’s a little hermit crab shot at about thirty metres:

Though to me he looked mostly bluish-greenish, with flash he appears ‘natural’ to our eyes. If fact, he appears as if he were sunlit in a couple of feet of water instead of one hundred.

There you go. Flash has its place underwater. I have to admit that, if I had the kind of money it takes to purchase fancy underwater photographic equipment (thousands and thousands of bucks), I probably would. In that case, I’d probably use flash a lot more. The dinky flash on my Canon G9 is effective only to about a half-metre.

It reminds me of the old ‘fox and the grapes’ story. As the grapes were out of reach of the fox, he concluded that they were probably sour anyway, and he went about his way satisfied. Since the pricey gear is out of reach for me, I am quite happy to learn to squeeze the most possible performance from the equipment that I can afford. The fancy gear is probably more trouble than it’s worth anyway.

That’s my sour grapes.

NOTE:  All the above concerning shooting with available light applies only if you are shooting in the RAW mode on your camera and processing with the Photoshop Camera RAW filter or some equivalent. If you’re shooting photos underwater in the JPG mode with no underwater filter mounted on your camera or your camera does not have an ‘underwater’ shooting mode, then you will probably never get shots that really satisfy you unless you use flash. Everything will simply look greenish or bluish.

Related posts:

1. What Colour IS IT? I love the colours that I see underwater. It is a different world. But it is not all bright garishness down there. Like all underwater photographers, I strive to capture colours that mesmerise the viewer while conveying an approximation of what I saw with my eyes. While I want to...
2. Diving at the Country Club No, the Madang Country Club doesn't have a dive shop. However, we did do a dive to 40 metres just in front of the club house on Saturday. Nice canyons there!...
3. Planet Rock – Nudibranch Metropolis I peeped on further evidence of a sort of nudibranch Woodstock. Naked nudis doing the boogaloo right out in the open. Shocking! I wonder what they were smoking....
4. To Flash or Not To Flash – That Is the Question When shooting underwater, the big question is, "Should it look real, or should it look colourful?" It usually comes down to whether you use flash or not....
5. Parrotfish and Deep Focus Fooling around with your f-stop can give you deep focus. No this is not a meditation technique. However, it can give you a greater depth of field....
6. Underwater Guest Shooter – KP Perkins You've seen KP here before, but this time she has the Canon G11 in her hands. UW Photo lessons and Photoshop instruction make for very nice shots....
7. Doing It in the Dark Every dinky camera made has a flash built in. That goes for even the most expensive of the point-and-shoots. A big clunky external flash unit puts you squarely in the geek realm insofar as fashion goes. However, most internal flash gizmos are next to useless if you want to create...

This entry was posted on Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 13:18 and is filed under Photography Tricks, Under the Sea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.