Why Are My Underwater Photos All Blue?
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Those just starting out as aspiring underwater photographers generally run into the same basic problems. The good news is they are relatively easy to fix and once mastered will likely make an astounding improvement in your results.
A common complaint is that pictures turn out blue, not very sharp, and perhaps spotted. What that really says, especially when folks cite how great their topside snaps are, is that they haven’t figured out how to deal with the water.
Think about how the 200’ viz that’s so fantastic underwater would seem on land – pretty dismal. That’s because water is a very good filter and extraordinarily capable of sucking up color and light. Your pictures are blue because that’s the last color to go. Reds disappear first and within just a few feet, followed by orange, yellow and so on across the spectrum.
The solution is to add the light back by using a strobe or flash, but again light won’t travel too far through water. So you’ve got to get close – real close – the closer you are to what you’re photographing, the less water you have to shoot through.
Starting out you should be no more than 2 or 3 feet from your subject. This will also help make images sharper and more likely to stand out against a background, especially if you get down low and shoot upwards as well.
Of course this may tax your diving skills if you’ve not yet become proficient at moving smoothly through the water and mastered buoyancy control. Getting close to critters that can swim or scamper away will take practice at approaching low and slow, and even waiting for them to approach you.
In fact you may want to start with shooting something incapable of moving at first, like a reef or a wreck. That will allow some mastery of the lighting and distance judging before adding the complication of fish that won’t hold still.
Yes distance becomes important. You’ll no doubt recall from your scuba certification course that objects appear about 25% larger and closer underwater. While the apparent size isn’t relevant, since the camera will just capture what it “sees”, the distance could be a problem if you think you’re within effective flash range but are actually beyond it.
On the topic of using a flash, they’re pretty much mandatory unless incredibly shallow, but they can cause problems too. Like those white spots where you thought the water was clear. That’s called backscatter and usually happens when using an underwater cameras internal flash.
The light has reflected off particles suspended in the water directly back into the camera lens resulting in blurry circles covering the image. The solution is an external flash or strobe mounted well away from the lens. Light from the flash will still reflect off any particles, but off somewhere else, thus not spoiling the shot.
If you remember the mantra, to get close, get low, shoot up, and use a strobe, you should see dramatic improvement in your underwater shots. The rest is fine tuning and tons of experimenting and practice.
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