By La Galigo
8 Tips On How to Take Good Underwater Photos with a GoPro
Scuba diving is an expensive pursuit, necessitating consideration of expenses such as equipment, upkeep, repairs, certification, and travel costs, all of which can be quite costly. One aspect to consider is the necessity of having equipment like underwater cameras in order to capture your most memorable moments while diving.
Most photographers start out with a small compact camera or a cell phone with a waterproof case, so if you just want to get some unforgettable photos, spending a lot of money is not recommended. Having said that, you don’t always have to use sophisticated camera equipment if you want to shoot good photos underwater. Practising composition, lighting and post-processing can help you get the ideal photos.
Go Pro is one option for taking stunning underwater pictures
GoPro is one of the most famous action video cameras, it is affordable, and has the ability to take both photos and videos. GoPro is great for action sports, outdoor adventures, and hardcore adventures. In addition to being a tough and easy-to-use camera, diving enthusiasts like us can take this little camera into the water.
Underwater Photography Tips With Go Pro
GoPro is an affordable and easy-to-use camera option for most people when it comes to capturing amazing underwater footage. As a beginner underwater photographer, you should work within the limitations of your GoPro and utilise its strengths, here are 8 different ways you can improve your underwater photography and get the most out of your GoPro.
1. Upgrade your GoPro model
Technology changes every year, and GoPro has come a long way since the launch of its first model in 2004. Undoubtedly, cameras have become smaller and easier to use. If you compare a GoPro like the Hero9, Hero10, or Hero11 with the newer Hero12, you will notice a significant difference in terms of colour, stability, and sharp shot quality, whether you are recording or taking pictures.
2. Buy a Stabilising Tray
After reviewing your GoPro photos and video footage, the first thing you’ll notice is that they are all very shaky. This is because, underwater, you face forces greater than gravity. We realise that things like buoyancy, tides, currents and depth need to be considered. Two-handed trays are a great tool for maintaining image and video quality. While not visually noticeable, it can have a significant impact on your media. For both photography and videography, Ikelite Digital Camera trays with stabilising dual handles and mounting points for arms or lighting are great.
3. Be a Professional Diver
To improve your underwater photography, no matter what type of camera you use, you need to become an experienced diver, learn how to control your buoyancy, and learn to move slowly and methodically. However, these skills cannot be achieved overnight. Before picking up a camera, I spent more than ten years diving. You don’t have to wait a decade like me, but you should practise and record how long you dive to gain this very important skill.
4. Use a Separate Dome for Shots
It’s easy to take above and below water photos with your GoPro; however, to achieve split level photos and keep water away from the lens, you’ll need to purchase a dome port. One of our options for shooting above or below water is a GoPro Shot 6 “Underwater Dome Port.” Make sure that the top of the dome port is not wet; if you don’t have a good absorbent cloth, it is difficult to remove water droplets from the lens. Shooting in water is the best example of this. By placing something underwater in the foreground of the frame and the action on its surface, or vice versa, you can create lines in the photo.
5. Clean your lens and housing
Dirt and dust can easily get into the smallest and most inconvenient areas, such as the housing and lens of your GoPro. To keep your equipment able to record high-quality media, thoroughly clean the lens inside and out after each use. No one likes water or salt stains interfering with the focus of a camera or lens. Cleaning your equipment will also make your GoPro last longer.
6. Create a Light Exposure on Your GoPro Images
With scuba diving, you will obviously be very far from the surface where there is less light, even though we want the lighting found in shallow water. Invest in artificial lighting if you are going to deeper water depths or want to improve your GoPro shooting capabilities. Artificial lighting is a great tool to increase the sharpness of your images and bring back the warm colours that are often lost when you are deeper. The red spectrum of light is the first to start to fade out, and this begins as shallow as 6 metres, and progressively lessens as you dive deeper. Making your subject stand out and distinguishing the background from the foreground is another benefit of using this to expand your shots.
7. Shooting in Shallow Areas
When shooting underwater with a GoPro without strobes, depths above five metres are great for retaining almost all of the bright, shallow natural colours. If you don’t shoot silhouettes, the sun will still be behind you, which will illuminate the subject if you don’t shoot it.
8. Use Shoot or Filter in RAW, and then colour correct
You know how things underwater switch to blue and green? That’s mainly because red, orange, and yellow are the first colours to fade from the water column at depth. To restore colour to faded blue or green footage, use a colour filter such as a red, orange, or magenta lens in water from 3-25 metres (10-80 feet) deep.
A more complex fix? You might be wondering, what is RAW? GoPro cameras from the model, HERO5 to HERO12, can capture photos and videos in RAW format. High quality and editing flexibility for photos and videos are achieved by shooting in RAW. Instead of saving media in format.jpg, format.gpr allows you to shoot your footage and insert it into an image editing program such as Photoshop or Lightroom to change colours and apply other image editing techniques.
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