Houston's Premier Scuba and Dive Shop Oceanic Ventures Inc.

(713) 523-3483 (dive)
5808 Newcastle Drive
Houston, TX 77401

photography

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Photo Tip – Using Your Smartphone’s Camera Abilities

By Tobias Friedrich

Using all of the available features of your camera or phone will result in better images of your dive as well. For instance, it’s always a good idea to use the different lenses of your phone correctly for the particular subject. For large animals it’s of course better to use the wide-angle lens, for medium subjects and best quality of the image, use the standard lens. And for smaller subjects, like this Lionfish, it’s ideal to use the tele lens.

Equipment: SportDiver housing with iPhone 12 Pro Max using iPhone Tele Lens

If you’d like a copy of the above underwater image, please email: lindsay@pioneer-research.com

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Photography Contest Entry Form Open

It is official, the 2022 Oceanic Ventures Photography Contest entry system is live and you can now start uploading your entries!

The Prizes this year include a trip from Reef Divers and Clearly Cayman! You will also find really cool prizes from the Huish Brand Companies (Atomic, Bare, Oceanic, Stahlsac, Suunto, Zeagle) and from the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism. So don’t miss this opportunity!

Photography Contest Information and Entry Form

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Using Lights to Capture Best Color

It’s very important when underwater to compensate for the missing illumination from the sun. Using high-performance underwater lighting like the Sea Dragon lights, the powerful and color-friendly lights will illuminate the missing red and orange colors from the beautiful reefs for your eyes and your camera. The closer you are to the corals, the better the colors will come out. [Tobias Friedrich]

Equipment: SeaLife Micro 3.0, Sea Dragon 3000F

Settings: Deep Water White Balance

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Travel Photography: Lighting Hints

I recently ran across a video from photographer Karl Taylor who has a series of YouTube videos and some on-line classes. In his video “Essential Skills that Will Transform You Photographs,” Karl introduces you to a few ways to look at lighting and how you can incorporate it into your photography.

He first defines light in to several categories. These primary light categories he uses are hard light, and soft light. You can think of hard light as direct light like that which comes from the sun. Hard light is a high contrast light producing defined shadows and well defined textures. Conversely, soft light is a low contrast light producing an even flat light and soft shadows.

Both types of light are found throughout the day when we are photographing and we just have to work with the light to produce the best image and one that conveys what you are trying to accomplish.

Karl uses a sunset photograph to both demonstrate the light and to show how to use it to create the image you are trying to create. He then moves indoors and again demonstrates how to use these two categories of light to create a portrait.

Watching the video will probably give you a few things to think about but the best way to understand how to utilize the different types of light is to go out and shoot some photographs around your own house or at a local park. See what using reflectors (remember you can make your own and even use a piece of paper as a reflector) can do to enhance your image.

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Our Palau Adventure – A Quick Update

What a trip! This was my first trip back to Palau for over 20 years and I can’t understand why I stayed away for so long.
Like on our previous trip we stayed at the beautiful Palau Pacific Resort.  This is one of the nicest hotels on the island and over the years since my last visit they have added a small, exclusive hotel within the property as well as some over the water bungalows complete with glass viewing ports.  But while the hotel has grown, the warm, friendly atmosphere created by the staff has not changed.    They excited to be there and made us all feel welcome.  The staff at the poolside bar was simply fantastic (yes we spent a lot of time her).  Maria even remembered every customer’s name and room number as well as what you were drinking the previous night — if only I had her memory.
While on our previous trips the Mantas alluded us in German Channel, on this trip they were in abundance also with sharks visiting the cleaning stations – wait until you see the photos.  The weather was even calm enough for us to visit Pelilu and dive Pelilu wall.
Navot and Tova from Fish -n-Fins have assembled a great team.  Our dive guide, Hiro, was wonderful to work with and he was patient having to work with normal recreational divers, CCR divers and even divers using sidemount.  He made it a nice trip for me taking much of the burden for the group underwater  He was assisted on the dive by his “trainee” IB and Captain Rodney.  They were all fun to work with and kept things light and fun during the day as we visited multiple dive sites each day (3 dives a day).
I am only sorry the trip had to end but I and 1/2 of the guests were headed to Truk Lagoon for another wreck diving adventure.
I hope it doesn’t take me so long to come back.
 

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Getting started with Underwater Photography

Photo by Zaide Scheib

Everyone like to have photographs of their experiences, and from their vacations and travels.  Divers are no different.  The only issue is that taking photographs and videos underwater requires a little bit of pre-planning and some different equipment — well sort of.
There are a number of ways to get started from jumping in with your GoPro to using your mobile phone in a case to take photographs.  But, what is the best way?  That is a difficult question to answer,  It all depends on where you are in your land photography and where you want to go with your underwater photography.  What so I mean by that?  Let’s look at this further further.

IPhone Camera User

If your primary camera is your iPhone or Android phone even on vacation, then you will probably be happy starting with a simple underwater camera.  These allow you to shoot video or still photographs and download them to your computer.  Most of these cameras save files in a JPG format.  However, some of the new models have a RAW file feature too.  Not sure what these terms mean, check-out part 2 of this article about digital files and processing.  Let’s just say that the JPG files are what you are used to seeing in your iPhone which means they have some processing done during the save function.  Some examples of these camera are the SeaLife Micro 2.0 and a GoPro.  You could also put your phone in a housing and take it with you.  Kraken makes a new housing for phones.

IPhone and Point and Shoot Camera User

If you use both an iphone and anther camera during your trips, you are probably trying to get better images or different images that what you can get with your phone.  For you, the SeaLife Micro 2.0 or the SeaLife DC 2000 might be good options.  Both have basic functions but also expand to let you “tweek” your photos and your experience.

Eric Keibler in Yap by Joe Thompson

DSLR & Mirrorless Camera Users

Now this is a wide-ranging area of underwater photography.  You could stick with the simpler camera from above or you can expand to take your land camera underwater in a housing.  A lot of it depends on what you want to accomplish underwater and how much you are willing to invest.  The housings for your underwater camera can cost more than your initial camera investment and then there are the strobes…  So you could look at the SeaLife DC2000 or a housing from Nauticam or Aquatica.

How to get started

Our Club Aquarius meeting this month will be focusing on “How to get Started in Underwater Photography.”  We will be discussing how to meet your various goals and what equipment you might consider.  We will also be discussing some things you can do to improve your photographs once you start with a system.

Club Aquatrius Meeting:

  • Speaker:  Zaide Scheib and Eric Keibler
  • When:     22 February 2018, 7:00 PM
  • Where:   The Black Labrador, 4100 Montrose Blvd.  Houston, TX