Divers Under Sunball

Blogged by Simon on July 20, 2009 5:01pm | Last updated by Simon on February 03, 2010 12:01pm | Category: Underwater Photography | Get a Print Get a Print |

Divers Under SunballOn Sunday, it was time to go for a test dive with my new 10-24mm lens. I didn’t expect much with respect to marine life, and so I was glad the guys from Dive Centre Bondi ran a course which gave me some opportunity to do test shots of slow moving subjects in the water (no pun intended). Lucky for us, the sun decided to show it’s face and so I started playing with sunball exposures (tricky!) while they descended.

The visibility at the Gap at South Head was about 8-10m. Not bad for Sydney, but still causes you headache when you try this kind of photograph. With subjects several meters away, colors wash out quickly and suspended particles in the water get in the way of using powerful flash guns to their full potential. Like anything really, this kind of photo should be alot easier in the tropics.

The shot is exposed in aperture priority mode for 1/1000s at f/8. I metered against the bright end of the water colum, and ended up with a shutter time too fast for the TTL flash to catch up with. Despite this, the original photo had some minor blown out highlights, which I can only explain with the sun’s power at a shallow depth of around 5m.

Post processing includes increased contrast, to make the subject stand out, and level adjustments from green to blue, like on most other shots in temperate waters.

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