ColdDarkDiver

Yes, there was about 2-3m of ice this year that we were diving through. This site had a pretty solid dusting of snow on top of the ice, which is what made it so dark.

This was an image I captured with natural light at the end of dive as I was heading to the exit and saw the other buddy pair in the water doing their safety stop. I think it captures the expansiveness and the feeling of clear-water, ice-diving of floating under expansive clouds. Plus, I like the grain as it gives it a bit of a classic feel like I was shooting hi-iso slide. The story of the image was I forgot my flash sync cables (doh) on this dive so was forced to shoot everything with ambient and very little light. This dive was pretty much pitch black so I pushed the camera to its limit throughout the dive and ended up taking pretty different pictures than I frequently do and this ended up being one of my favorite images I took during the year. This is from Dayton's Wall, Ross Sea, Antarctica.

I completely agree with Davide about the amount of light. I would also suggest another consideration or way to look at it is what you want the background to look like. I like to have the background exposed correctly and filled in with the light and if you have a bright background, you need lots of light. Dark background that you don't want black, you need the ability to really dial your video light way down and balance it with increased ISO (or maybe wider aperture within reason...) Or just go with a less powerful light in the first place. In dark environments, I am frequently shooting at 10-20% power of 18k lumen lights. In bright... more is better since you want the background to not be overexposed but get the color in the subjects closer to the lens.

Greetings all, I'm an avid research diver and collect still and video imagery to communicate my science and the amazing underwater world - plus I just love underwater photography and videography. I started shooting imagery using an Nikonos V more than 2 decades ago and now use a variety of Canon gear, mostly in Marelux housings. Looking forward to contributing and learning from Waterpixels. -ColdDarkDiver