When making this important purchase, you must ask yourself a few basic questions...

1) What is you level of expetise in photography ?

If all you know about photography is pushing the shutter button , I would suggest getting the simplest camera you can find BUT. make sure it has a manual shooting mode. This mode is very important underwater and sooner or later you will know how to use it and wish your camera had it.

If you have any knowledge or experience in photography and are familiar with terms like aperture , shutter speed , exposure and so on.. I would suggest that , depending on your budget, you should consider getting a prosumer camera. A good article about these can be see here : Best Prosumer Cameras 2011.

2) Where would you be diving ?

If your diving is in clear waters like the Red Sea or the carribbean then you would be able - and most surely -  want to shoot wide photos or coral rocks, wrecks and reef walls. For this, you should make sure the camera you purchase has a widest angle possible. Some point and shoot cameras have a 28mm wide lens (the basic one is 35mm) and there are even ones in the market that go as wide as 24mm. Of course a wide angle lens can normally be added but it will come at a price.

If you are diving in the Mediterranean or other lakes where water are unclear , you will most surely be taking only macro photos as a wide angle shot cannot be seen in these waters. In this case , make sure your camera has a good Macro mode and can focus easily and quickly on subjects 4-8 inches away.

3) What's your budget ?

The most basic underwater camera starts from 350$. A decent prosumer one is close to 1000$ and a DSLR is over 2000$. Your budget should be a good start point for looking to buy a digital underwater camera. Note that purchasing online can sometime expose you to more deals and better prices so this would be a good place to start looking.

4) Which accessories can be added to the package in the future ?

If this is the first underwater camera you are buying , I wouldn't suggest getting any accessories to start with. It is much better to start diving with your camera and only then understand what you are missing according to the nature of your dives. When purchasing your housing, make sure it can be extended with the necessary accessories such as a wide angle lens, red filter, strobe or video light.

It is always recommended to consult with one of the major retailers both online and locally and take some recommendations and tips from divers who have experienced with many different types of gear and accessories. The underwater photography industry if flourishing and there is a very large variety of cameras for you to choose from that would meet your budget.

-Tal Mor

Tal Mor is a diver and underwater photographer working for Mozaik Underwater Cameras

Fish Underwater Composition

When photographing fish and other creatures try to focus on the eyes of your subject. This will create a center of interest. Finding interesting angles while maintaining eye focus will create unique and intriguing compositions. Keeping proper spacing in your frame of the image will be imperative. Make sure if possible that your subject is slightly off center. Subjects should have good "white space" on either side of them, often referred to as room to swim in fish photography.

Swimming around the subject will allow you to explore different angles and lighting scenarios. Getting up close often gives better image quality and focus on the subject. Many interesting shots have been captured by getting slightly below the subject and shooting upwards, always keeping the eyes in focus.

Try to seek out a background that does not hide the subject or distract from it. If necessary try using a smaller aperture to blur out a distracting or unwanted background. Use of differing angles can create interesting shots. Diagonal composition lines can be difficult to obtain but make interesting photos. This would be when your subject fills the frame from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner.

Getting up close and personal can create some intriguing photos as well. Try filling the entire frame of your image with the subject of your photo. Remember to keep focused on the eyes, and keep your subject slightly off center.
Shooting for color can be fun, try to shoot complimentary colors with one another, blue and yellow are good together, as are red and green.

Use leading lines in your composition to draw viewers into your photo. Leading lines are parts of the image that tend to lead our eyes into the photo, often to accentuate an interesting image that is off-centered. An S-curve is an additional tool used to show off an interesting image. This involves having an S-curve shape working through the photo leading the viewer to the main focus of your image.

The most important rule about composition is that there are no hard, fast rules. Composition is an art form, practicing fearless and imaginative photography will allow you to grow and learn as a photographer.

The Quick Method for Getting Great Underwater Shots

The Aquapac is one such item. The Aqua pack is a heavy-duty plastic bag with an amazing seal that protects the camera from sand, water and anything else. When using this method, make sure you place the camera in the bag in a dry atmosphere to prevent fogging. Also, don't use a flash or it will reflect on the packaging and give you a whiteout. The picture quality with an Aquapac isn't ideal though, so if you want crystal-clear shots try a container made of hard plastic or glass. These containers are much more expensive but will ensure unrivaled quality.

Next, here are some tips to help you get the best possible underwater shots. Don't use your digital zoom above all else. Also, try to cover the housing in front of your internal flash when using an external strobe to prevent backscatter. You should also keep your external flash far away from the housing to reduce the risk of backscatter. If you're having trouble focusing your camera, try using a dive light. This will allow your camera to adjust its focus automatically.

There are a number of mistakes beginners commonly make when shooting underwater shots. Before you head out, make sure your JPEG image quality is set high enough so the pictures have a high quality when you view them. You don't want to spend an entire session shooting on a low picture quality! Also, don't oversaturate your photos. Here's another great idea: think about what you'll see before you go and set your strobe and f-stop before hand. This will prevent you from missing a great shot because you're trying to fix the settings. If you find a great static background underwater look around for a foreground subject. If you find a great static foreground subject you can wait for a background to swim by. These tips will ensure you get the best quality underwater shots with minimal effort!

Underwater photography can be quite a difficult task. You might think that it is the same as all photography, but will find the pictures to be severely overexposed or underexposed due to lighting difficulties. Too much light will result in colors being too white and not true to the subject you are photographing and too little light results in dark colors in the photos. The deeper you are in the ocean, the more difficult the lighting becomes and taking photographs in underwater caves can prove to be a nightmare.

Underwater lighting

To produce quality underwater photos, it is essential to understand the inner workings of your camera. The total amount of light used for exposure in your photo is controlled by the shutter cycle. A long exposure captures more light with less intensity and a series of short shutter cycles captures less light with more intensity. This is the same principal of taking outdoor photos with sunlight taken into consideration, which may overexpose or underexpose your picture.

I find that a good underwater digital camera with TTL (through-the-lens) metering will take all of the guesswork out of your artistry. This type of camera has an auto exposure lens which measures the light through the lens as you are seeing the subject and it chooses the correct exposure for you. A SLR (single-lens reflex) camera is generally digital for the utmost clarity and includes the quality of TTL. This type of camera is great for beginners with it's no fail properties. This camera will meter the light with an imaging sensor that is located under the mirror. It uses light metering and autofocus to obtain perfect underwater photos. Most of the advanced models have a bracket or dot that is visible through the lens and you place the dot or brackets on or around the main subject of your photo. This is where the lighting and exposure is set for that area of viewing. For example, if you are looking at a group of fish and one in particular is your main subject, then you use the dot or brackets to focus on that particular fish.

I definitely recommend these types of cameras to the beginning underwater photographer for success. Many people call this a point and click camera because you don't have to adjust anything. The camera does all the work for you and it is definitely worth it's weight in gold when capturing your memories of beautiful underwater fish and sea life. It is just too disappointing to go diving and see the perfect photo, that when developed, is much less in quality than what you actually saw.

Underwater Camera Settings

F-Stops

The F-Stops setting will control what your background looks like. You may want to have a slightly blurry look to your photo. This can be done by increasing or decreasing the numbers on this setting. The thing to remember is that when the numbers go up, this will mean a smaller lens or range, aornd when the numbers go down, the lens will open me. So, up means less and down means more. This will take some time to remember, but practice makes perfect. Be patient and have some fun seeing what kinds of photos you can get with each setting. You can try one type of setting at a time each time you go underwater. When you go back up, take some notes. This will help you to remember as you write it down and keep track of your photo shoots.

ISO Settings

The next camera settings underwater to learn about are the ISO settings. This has to do with the grain. Grain is basically the speed of your camera when taking photos. Have you heard anyone say the words “noisy photo” before? They were talking about the grain and their camera. They say it is better to have a noisy photo than to have taken a blurry one, but if you were trying to take a blurry photo, that is great! Some blurry photos come out wonderfully!

Shutter Speed

The next setting on your underwater camera is shutter speed. The shutter speed affects motion. Have you ever seen a photo that looks like someone’s hands were trembling when they took the photo? This can be very frustrating if all of the photos developed are like this. Sometimes, with the shutter speed not set right, you can end up with a photo that has blue behind it.

I am assuming that if you are reading this article, you have already done some underwater photo taking and are familiar with diving. If you haven’t been diving yet, you may want to take some diving lessons first to get comfortable with the diving part before you begin underwater photography. Then, you can learn all about camera settings underwater.

Right underwater camera

Regardless of your interest, an underwater camera frees you up to take those shots that previously were off limits. But how do you know what kind of camera to purchase? Like standard digital cameras, underwater cameras come in a variety of price ranges, each with different features, abilities, storage capacity, and quality levels.

Before you begin looking for your camera, determine what you want to use it for. Do you take an annual beach trip and you just want additional snapshots of the family to put in your album? Do you travel frequently and love to take detailed pictures of ocean life? Think about the times you would use the camera, and why you want to take the pictures. If you're an amateur photographer and getting the perfect shot is important to you, you might want to look into which features suit you best. However, if you just want candid shots of your family and don't bother with settings very often anyway, one of the basic models might work perfectly well for you.

Something else to consider is how you'll be printing the pictures. If you intend to use the pictures for posters, advertisements, competitions, or you print them for the purpose of selling them, a higher megapixel camera will be important to you. You need the option to print at the largest size possible. You might look also at the zoom features, especially if you'll be wanting to zoom in on smaller objects.

Overall, the best approach is to consider your usage, your motive for taking pictures, and your desired objects of photography, and then to take a look at which features you do and don't need. Remember, too, to budget in extra money for accessories.

See if you can find something you could use in our underwater camera reviews...

With the many cameras on the market. this will be an interesting shopping experience for you. An important feature for any underwater camera, is keeping it sealed to keep the water out. In the past, the cameras were bulky and large, and even the batteries were big. Now there are very small automatic camcorders that have small long-life batteries.

Underwater camera selection

A wide-angle lens should be purchased with the camera. This will result in less depth of field and focusing problems. I find this to be very helpful in photographing the beautiful coral reefs and focusing on the fish that swim past them. I also prefer the pressure resistant housing that can work well at one hundred feet deep. I don't even like to go that deep, but it's tempting to do it. The housing should have a quick release snap and an o-ring seal.

To pick out your underwater camera selection, try to purchase a popular model that you've heard a lot about on the market. Be sure you can find a companion housing for the camera. Make sure it can accommodate the wide-angle adapter and long-life battery. Check out condensation problems the housing may have. I would personally get something that is inexpensive, small and easy. But you still want something sturdy.

A good underwater camera selection is also that kind that can take still pictures as well as videos. I like to have that choice. If you get a camera with a 4 megapixel or above, this will be the best bet to take that still picture and videos. There are usually two hours of recording time on a camera, as when you are underwater it sometimes doesn't offer the option to open the housing to change between video and still.

If you are more interested in just still pictures, then an underwater digitial camera is a good choice. You can choose between the compact or the dSLRs. The dSLRs have better optics, quality and less focus delay. Hard to imagine, but there are also underwater disposable cameras, and even some underwater cameras are so cheap, they cost less than $5.00. I would be careful in checking out everything first. If you want good results, you may have to spend a bit more. I know I have.

Read the online underwater camera reviews and see what you find...

Beginning underwater photography

The camera you use is not your largest variable. Underwater cameras are available for purchase, ranging from nearly affordable to not even close. Water tight housing cases for land cameras can also be used, for a slightly smaller investment. Add a light source, called a strobe, and you are half way there. In theory.

Most of my research on this type of photography has led me to believe that a masochistic bent to the psyche is nearly a prerequisite since a low ratio of the shots you will take will be considered keepers. Water as a medium is a difficult environment. Thousands of small, even miniscule, particles float between you and that angelfish you were so delighted to stumble upon, making your photo hazy and unclear. Water will also suck the warm end of the color spectrum out of your shots. That's why many underwater photos are studies in blue on blue.

To alleviate the color wash, basic rules have repeatedly been reiterated:

1. Get close to your subject - close enough to touch (however, experts do not recommend touching!).
2. Never shoot down. If you do, you will lose your subject in the background. Here is where a good grasp of diving is valuable. Positioning yourself below your subject will swing the odds in the photographer's favor. The solid blue of the water will create the best background for showcasing your subject.
3. Adding a strobe will be our rule #3. A medium to strong light source will go a long way to bringing back the true colors and textures you have fallen in love with beneath the deep blue sea.

And now you are on the road to great underwater photography.

Happy shooting!

Naturally there are some things you can do to make it easier. Prepare yourself with the following tips and you should be able to get some great photos of your aquarium life.

Clean the glass - Cleaning the glass is perhaps the most overlooked trick in aquarium photography. Dirty glass is responsible for most unsuccessful aquarium photos. You may not notice it while you are shooting, but you WILL when you review your pictures later. Clean the glass thoroughly, before you start your shooting.

Turn off the pumps - Having the constant buzz and bubbles coming from the aquarium pump is a sure way to create disturbance in the picture quality. Turning it off is an easy way to enhance the quality. Turn off all devices that may disturb the water.

Use a tripod - Tripods are always a great help in getting clear and sharp images. They can be really helpful in aquarium photography, even with the fish swimming about. The low light levels lead to slow shutter speeds. So anything you can do to stabilize the camera will help a lot. If you are following a fish to get the best shot you can loosen the levers on the tripod so you can move the camera freely left and right and in some cases also up and down without the camera shaking.

Take lots of pictures. Digital cameras allow you to take lots of pictures without the constant worry about added cost. Just focus on getting the best shot possible, using as many shots as you need.

Use only light from above the tank. Turn off all other lights and cover the natural light from the windows. These sources of light can cause reflections on the glass that might may damage an otherwise perfect photograph.

Aquarium photography is an easy and fun way to underwater photography. Experiment as you go and the result could be better than you suspect!