Underwater Photography Primer
by Philip Greenspun
Underwater photography combines the challenges of (1) trying to make an aesthetic statement that hasn't been made by thousands of photographers who've dedicated decades of their life to the craft, with (2) trying to stay alive.
The easiest way
Get into submarine. Get out camera. Point. Shoot. Here are some examples from a 800' dive in the Cayman Islands.
The second easiest way
Snorkeling is much simpler than SCUBA diving. The key to snorkeling is to remember that the human body will always float. It just doesn't float high enough that you can breathe easily. However, if you add a few inches of extension to your mouth, your natural floating position will be more than sufficient for breathing. You can thus stay in the water for 8 hours without exerting any energy and wait for interesting subjects to drift or swim underneath.
The second easiest way
Snorkeling is much simpler than SCUBA diving. The key to snorkeling is to remember that the human body will always float. It just doesn't float high enough that you can breathe easily. However, if you add a few inches of extension to your mouth, your natural floating position will be more than sufficient for breathing. You can thus stay in the water for 8 hours without exerting any energy and wait for interesting subjects to drift or swim underneath.
If you're staying near the surface, you don't need a camera that can handle the pressure of deep water. A compact digital camera that has been augmented for snorkeling will work fine. Typically these cameras are specified waterproof to 10' but will work a little deeper as well. A good example is the Olympus Stylus 720SW, $320.
How did it work in the old film days? If you can find a Nikon Action Touch, you might be surprised at how good it was. This camera has a very high quality 35/2.8 lens and autofocus above water. Underwater, you set the subject distance with a convenient dial. There is a nice big switch that turns the built-in flash on or off.
The Action Touch sold for about $150 in the late 1980s, after which Nikon took it off the market and no company ever made a similar camera. The Japanese concluded that nobody is intelligent enough to focus a camera manually. All the cheap underwater cameras introduced after the Action Touch were fixed focus underwater and came with lower quality lenses.
Most film photographers would use slide film despite its attendant narrow exposure tolerance. This may have been because prints can never convey the drama and brilliant colors of the underwater world.
Here are some snapshots from an old Nikon Action Touch:
Note that an "underwater-lite" camera ends up being a great camera for rafting, kayaking, heavy rain, or any other time when you need a high quality waterproof camera but don't need high pressure resistance.
The bad thing about snorkeling is that nearly all of your photos will end up having a "looking down" perspective. Here are a couple from Hawaii (taken with the Nikonos V, described below):
