Teach you how to take wonderful photos underwater.

Lead: The scenery on land is wonderful, but the scenery under water is not bad. How to shoot the magical underwater world? Learn from me!

Teach you how to take wonderful photos underwater. Photographer Raul Touzon is good at taking pictures of natural scenery. Let's learn how to take wonderful photos underwater with him.

Breathing tube diver, Biscayne Bay National Park, Florida Photo: Raul Touzon

Shooting skills: make yourself feel comfortable

The most important thing for underwater photography is to find a comfortable environment. Don't forget that the photographer with the camera is a floating platform. Good swimming skills are necessary. Sometimes you have to swim very fast to catch objects.

Compared with snorkeling, scuba diving has the advantage that it can stay underwater for a longer time, dive deeper and get closer to underwater creatures. If you want to shoot successfully underwater with scuba, you must always control your position and don't float. Like I said, most of my successful photos are taken upstairs, where there is plenty of light, and I can take pictures of big guys, such as whales and sharks.

Great white shark photography in Guadalupe, Mexico: Raul Touzon

Shooting skills: understanding underwater creatures

If you want to take a good photo, you must know your subject first, and then you can grasp the key points. This is very important in underwater photography. What can you approach? Is it dangerous? After you know the fish's action patterns, you can take wonderful photos and study their swimming patterns and other details. How to learn these, how to get close to them? Where is the pectoral fin of the shark? Is it aggressive?

Underwater photography, Turks and Caicos Islands photography: Raul Tucson

Shooting skills: Choose the right camera.

There are two basic points that are really different, the card camera in the water tank and the SLR camera with underwater flash, as shown in the figure.

The first system has some advantages, such as easy to use (no complicated setup) and relatively cheap. Fool cameras are also suitable for shooting upstairs, where there is plenty of light. But the main disadvantage of this system is that the photographer can't deal with this direct light, which is caused by the integration of the flash in the camera in most cases. And manual exposure is also difficult to achieve.

Professional photographers mostly use SLR cameras because they can fully operate the system. Aperture and shutter can be set according to the site situation and the desired effect, such as the effect of fast moving. You can also make the flash flash from different angles. Of course, SLR cameras also have shortcomings, such as being bulky, difficult to carry and expensive.

Yellow lionfish, photography of Turks and Caicos Islands Raul Tucson

Shooting skills: be familiar with the main settings.

There are several basic settings that can help you take better underwater photos. Some stupid cameras can't be set up effectively and quickly underwater.

White balance: In most cases, the white balance is set to daylight mode, especially when a flash is used.

ISO: keep your ISO between 100 and 200, with a higher setting in most cases? Noise?

Aperture: Depending on the depth of your work in the water, in most cases, you can set it to F8 and F 16, which will provide sufficient depth of field.

Shutter: In some manual settings, the correct combination of aperture and shutter can bring the correct exposure. I tend to regard shutter as a creative tool. If I want my object to be clearer and still, I will set a higher shutter:1125 seconds or 1/250 seconds. If I want to express or capture sports, such as fish swimming, the speed of115 seconds or slower is.

Focal length: I tend to set autofocus and single focus, which can automatically align the focal length. In this mode, as long as you hold down the shutter, you can stay in focus, even if you reselect the picture.

Miami Swimming Pool, Florida Photo: Raul Touzon

Shooting skills: You can practice in the current swimming pool.

You can practice in the swimming pool before going into the sea. There is a safe and controllable environment. You can learn to set up and test new technologies to ensure that your machine is in good condition. Practice with family members, especially children, who often swim around like a swimming fish.

After setting up the camera, focus on what you are doing and avoid inadvertently letting the camera get into the water.

Manta rays in Baja los cabos, California Image source: Raul Touzon.

Shooting skills: use the existing light source.

Double light can't solve all problems, and it will take great photos, but remember that this is not the only choice. If you use the card camera well, you can also take very good photos. Correct exposure is very important. If you want to show interesting contours, reduce exposure compensation by one step. If you want to freeze the light in water, use a shutter of 1/250 seconds or higher.

Coral reef diving, Baja's los cabos, California photography Raul Tucson.

Shooting skills: learn to use the principle of composition

Underwater photography is also photography, and the same rule applies, but because you shoot in the water, you can't guarantee a good shot. Good photos are not taken, they are created. Learn and then contact the principles of composition, including one-third principle, frame principle, line-of-sight guiding principle, movement principle and so on, and make full use of them in shooting.