[#3] UW Photography: Taking Photos (White Balance)

Water absorbs colors as light ray travels through water, and the color Red is the first color to be absorbed; followed by Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

As you go deep, you will find that, without using your flash, your photos will be blue. The corals will be blue; the fish will be blue; the nudibranch will be blue; the subjects will all be blue. If you use flash, colors will appear. However, you'd notice back scatter; the light starts hitting small particles that exist between your source of light and the subject and the light that bounces back create back scatter effects. This is especially true if your subject is more than 1 meter away from your camera.

So how do you tackle this problem?

One way is to adjust the white balance of the camera, which actually will help the camera to identify the color temperature. When underwater, the colors are cooler, so they are more blueish than when on land. We can adjust the white balance by telling the camera what the color white looks like at the depth you're at. Luckily for us, our cameras are able to analyze the scene and compensate the overly warm or cool colors. They are usually able to produce colors that are pretty similar to real life. However, underwater, our cameras may not be able to do it as well as they are on land.

In short, if you have good ambient light, and you're less than 5 meter deep, you may want to consider using ambient light, without any flash or strobes. You can adjust your white balance as you go deeper.

Next would be tips on using your camera's internal flash underwater.