The spirit of diving is rooted in adventure and exploration. Whether you’re exploring a new site or a familiar site under unfamiliar conditions, you may be confronted with new obstacles to overcome in your photography journey. It can be tough to create strong photographs in advanced conditions. However, the principles of photography can be applied to guide you toward great results despite the challenges.

Shooting on White Sand

Many midsize subjects can be found on white sand, including stingrays, angel sharks, crabs, sea stars and turtles. If you try to shoot a subject from a low position just above the sand, your strobes or lights positioned to the sides of your housing will overexpose the sand while the subject remains dark. This is because the sand is much closer to the light source.

To create a more even exposure while correctly exposing your subject, position the light sources high above the camera so that the distance the light travels to the subject and the sand is similar. I like to think of this positioning as bug antennas!

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Remember that if you don’t have long arms for your lights, you can disconnect the light and hold it in your hand at arm’s length. Naturally, excellent buoyancy is a prerequisite for this so that you do not disturb the sand.

Deep Wreck Photography

Many boat and plane wrecks are found at the deeper limits of recreational dive depths where there is much less ambient light than in the shallower depths we typically dive. Because of this, try increasing your ISO, and then dialing in your shutter speed and aperture from there. If you’re far from your subject, try opening your aperture toward f/4. If you’re working on close- focus, wide-angle with lighting, reduce your light power to compensate for the higher ISO.

Heavy Particulate

Conditions with heavy particulate can be difficult to shoot in, even for seasoned pros. Artificial lighting complicates the process since the light will illuminate all the particles in the frame. I default to three techniques to help create usable images in these conditions.

First, reduce your field of view. Oftentimes you’ll see heavy backscatter in the sides of the frame when shooting a fisheye lens, which can be avoided with a narrower field of view.

Related Reading: Intro to Underwater Photo Composition

Second, position your strobes farther away from your housing, farther back, and at a wider angle than normal. This helps reduce light intensity and will often reduce strong backscatter.

As a last resort made easier with today’s powerful post-processing tools, frame your subject tightly and minimize the light hitting the subject using reduction rings or a snoot. This should give you nice lighting on the subject with a particle-filled shaft of light beaming through the frame, which you can easily remove during post-production. This sort of manipulation of the scene is often not permitted in photo contests, so use this technique only as a last option.