Beginner Underwater Photography Tips

After an embarrassing cache of photos from our trip to the Great Barrier Reef last year, underwater photography is an area we are working to improve this year.  We recently picked up a Canon G7X and underwater housing, and are very much still learning.  Here are our beginner underwater photography tips, along with a couple videos to walk you through the setup process.

Last year, we attempted to photograph our snorkeling trip at the Great Barrier Reef, with a borrowed GoPro.  Unfortunately, we were not versed in underwater photography, and even if we were, the GoPro does not allow you to see what you are shooting below the surface. We are thankful that the tour operators knew their stuff and took some amazing photos from our trip!

From our first attempt at Karloo Pool

Recently we had an opportunity to play with a family member’s Sony RX100, during our trip to the states.  He also is the owner of a nice DSLR, but loved the portable lightweight camera that offered much better quality than iPhone photos. Combined with his impressive pool photos of their little one, this clinched our decision.  We decided to purchase a high quality point-and-shoot, with a reasonably affordable underwater housing.  While the Sony is a great camera, the G7X has a nicer lens, and we were able to find the camera and the Canon WP-DC54 housing for a very agreeable price.

We have since tested out the underwater housing a few times, twice in the rain, and twice to swim. While our photos are slightly more usable (1 out of 50, instead of 1 out of 300) than our trip to the reef, we still made newbie underwater photo mistakes that you can easily avoid.

Beginner Underwater Photography Tips

• Bring Goggles – This might seem obvious, but we rarely take goggles with us to the beaches or pools, unless we plan for open water swimming.  One of the reasons we bought this setup instead of a GoPro was to see the composition, which is not really possible without goggles!
• Breathing – When we did remember to bring the goggles, we struggled adjusting to holding our breath for long enough to get the shot amidst the cold water, waves, and currents.  We recommend a trip to a local pool so that you have a calmer environment to adapt to holding your breath and managing camera settings. A snorkel would also be helpful, and we plan on using one when in Hawaii.
• Bring a lens cloth – We took a few half-in / half-out photos, as well as a few beach shots of CZ that we discarded because water droplets obscured the photo.  If you have a lens cloth, you can wipe them off, but EZ also had some success gently blowing on the lens to remove the droplets.
• Shoot in RAW – While we are still learning, it is important to be able to significantly edit our photos to produce an image that we are satisfied with. Shooting in manual mode outputs images in the RAW format, which provides more flexibility to make the photos pop in post processing.  If you set the white balance correctly there are supposedly advantages to using the underwater mode, but for our current ability shooting in RAW makes things a bit easier.

Video Tutorials for Canon G7X Underwater Housing

Our tutorials on leak testing and installing your camera + intros/outros from CZ

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