Careful Composition in your Underwater Photos

A lesson on underwater composition

With a little bit of work, you can get good compositions in your underwater photography. Very good compositions, however, can be very difficult. 

No matter if you are using a compact camera or a dSLR, sometimes the slightest movement of the camera can throw off a composition. Such is the case for a composition like this 3-inch long Coralline Sculpin, taken at Santa Cruz island in the northern Channel Islands.

Diffraction tests with the Nikon 105mm lens

I had done some diffraction tests previously when I reviewed the Nikon 105mm VR lens, but I hadn't tested the diffraction at 1:1 magnification, and I often use this lens at 1:1 when doing underwater photography. There were a couple reasons why I thought the results might be different, so I sat down and did some tests. Here are the results:

Cal Mero has written a great article on how to shoot models underwater in a swimming pool. He covers model selection, lighting, compositon, and many other helpful tips. His work is fantastic - check it out!

Read more here

Understanding your Underwater Camera Settings

I often see people asking about settings for their underwater camera. What settings for low light? What settings for wide-angle photography? Macro photography? Etc.

F5.6, 1/25th, ISO 250

People seem to like to memorize settings, and use them all the time. I can understand that, sometimes there's so many other things to worry about. Strobes, buoyancy, air, no deco time, finding subjects.

But I hope I can convince you to take a different route. Instead of memorizing settings, try to understand your settings. Then you can adjust to different scenarios.

Let's look at the big three, F-stops, Shutter speed, and ISO.