When did you start shooting UW?

So glad I discovered this great community!

My wife and I have been diving twice, not including open water certification. During our last dive in the Florida Keys, we really felt very safe and relaxed, and we fell in love with diving. We planned a cruise to Bermuda this summer, where we hope to dive as much as humanly possible!

I would love to house my D70 for the trip, but are we experienced enough for UW photography? I would like to know how others knew they were ready for the added responsibility/distraction of the camera. Did you start photographing after 5 dives or 50 dives? If I behave (avoid getting distracted, or wondering away from the group) would it really be unsafe to bring the camera for a few casual shots? Or would it be better to save the camera for snorkeling this time?

If I go ahead with purchase, I know it is important to have some pool practice first. Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Best Wishes,

Dan

Hi Dan, and welcome to WP.

The general advice is that you should be comfortable and competant in the conditions you are diving before you take a camera in. Even experienced photographers will abide by this rule when they start diving in new, unfamilar conditions.

It is also important that your buoyancy and awareness skills underwater are well developed before you start taking a camera down. Distracted by a camera it is easy to damage the environment - which is the last thing any photographers wants to do.

The fact that you are asking this question is a good sign. And since you are planning lots of diving in Bermuda, you will probably develop these skills quickly diving everyday during your trip. I would suggest that you look into getting a housing for this trip. But plan to dive without it until you feel your buoyancy and general control in the water is sufficient. This comes at different speeds for different people. And in the meantime you can enjoy some snorkelling photography.

Alex

Ditto Alex.

I started taking UW pictures on my 15th dive. I have a housed D100. I found that it really forced me to work on my buoyancy and my skills. My awareness of my surroundings went way up (especially if you don't want to be left behind). My first several dives with the camera were pretty far from the reef. I took it very slow and very carefully worked my way closer to the coral and fish over many dives.

Good luck

welcome to the obsession.

-Larry

Dont't wait too long. I've been diving since 1991, and only started photographing last year.

A dive with the camera took me still 1,5 times as much air as a non-camera dive (even hauling out an anker we found)

I think it is not only how you personally feel under water, but also how the marine environment feels after you left. You should have sufficient buoyancy skills to avoid damaging the reef.

Dan, If you are unsure of how you might handle a camera underwater or how comfortable you will be, you can always try one of those disposable 35mm housed cameras that can go to 90fsw (you can actually get 3-4 rolls of film out of one if you are careful opening the case). The pictures don't come out great, but you can still record your dive and get a feel for what it takes to be distracted by a camera before spending a wad on a housing/strobe/arms/lenses/etc. That is how I started just because I wasn't sure if underwater photography was for me ...Then the bug hit!

Also, if I could suggest that you take the advanced certification. Hopefully, the instructor will work with you to hone your buoyancy skills and include an underwater photography section to teach you some of the basics.

Hi all,

I started taking pictures on my 3rd dive (not counting cert dives), and have had a camera on every ocean dive since. However, my camera was a small Oly housed p&s to which I added a small strobe after a year. Now I have an Ikelite housed dSLR with a DS-125 strobe which I will use next week in Coz for the first time, I am a little nervous because this rig is much bigger than my previous one!

I am advanced open water certified and feel very comfortable underwater but I hope that the bouyancy of this rig is close to neutral. But for awhile I will take it easy and not worry about getting all the shots perfectly while I figure the new camera/housing/strobe.

To me, enjoying the dive is the most important thing at this point in my life.

Good luck,

Doug

I would recomend you take a camera with you diving. But not a D70. Diving with a camera and diving with a SLR are two completely different things. Maby I am just a slow leaner, but even 50 dives would have been to soon for me.

More than being a just being distraction, a camera the size of a SLR is a logistical problem. Things that were simple before become quite complex. For example, how do you pinch your nose to clear your ears when one hand is on the ascent line, one on your depth guage, and the other two are on your camera. Even 4 arms are not enough...

You can get a very nice small digital camera and housing for less than the cost of a housing for your D70 so the fact that you allready have a D70 is no reason to house it.

Not only will you will be safer with a small camera that is easy to handle. I am willing to bet you will have more fun and get better pictures with it as well.

Dan,

My wife and I are about as new as you and you're wife to this great sport. What I have done is practice...practice...practice. Your local dive shop should have a pool that has open hours that they will let you use for a small fee. I found that I became pretty good at buoyancy control fairly quickly but that having a large camera rig in my hands made for some unexpected challenges. IE..here are some things that I found needed some more practice.

1. Hovering - just sitting in one spot without moving.

2. Even the simply things in diving...ie equalizing ear pressure. I can no longer use my right hand to equalize because it has a large camera in it. You also have to add air with the same left hand as you're descending.

So practicing a controlled descent and ascent suddenly became issues I needed to work on. The ascent because I always used to look at my gauges while ascending to make sure I was heading up too quickly. Holding the gauges while trying to dump some air is somewhat of a challenge. So much so that I thought of investing in a wrist computer instead of the one in my console. Anyway, get your housing, hit that pool, dent your wallet and enjoy.

Gary

Wow. Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and information! This was a good reality check for me! The last thing I want to be is a nuisance to the environment or other people. I’m leaning towards getting the housing but holding off on using it for diving unless I’m very secure by the end of the trip. In the mean time, I can play with it snorkeling or in the pool. I’ll definitely let you guys know how the experience turns out-hopefully with some pictures too.

Thanks again for taking the time to help.

Best wishes.

I took my housed D70 to Thailand at the end of last year for its first outing.

I had done around 25 dives previously using a housed video camera but in no way does it compare to the complexities of using an SLR, especially with strobes in full manual mode!

If you've thought about it I would say have a go but a sound bit of advice is to get your own personal divemaster and don't go too deep so you'll get plenty of bottom time to practice your new hobby.

Maybe take a look at getting one of Alex's magic filters instead of strobes at this stage and just hang around the shallows.

What I always tell students is that if you want to try UW photography, get very familiar with a shallow, easy dive site, be confident if your diving skills by "trying" as you dive instead of waiting for the need. In other words, physically place yourself 10 feet off the bottom and swim. Learn to maintain. Then put yourself three feet off the bottom and swim, adjusting your bouyancy. In California, intentionally tangle yourself (with buddy at your side) in kelp. Learn to get out of it without panicking. Check your guages every couple of minutues. Learn your breathing rate and how it affects your bottom time. The goal is to become comfortable and confident but not over confident. Successful adaptation of these skills, with a smart, reasonable diving mind and then do that same site with your camera. Evaluate what was different with versus without the camera and adapt to those needs. Usually it's more things to fiddle with, a bit more gear intensive.

Joe

Hi Dan

I spent 5 very happy years living in Bermuda and probably did some 400+ dives there. It's a terrific place to start u/w photography - as so many of the dive sites are shallow and have a safe, sand bottom. Dives in the 30' range are not unusual.

As everyone else has said, you can start u/w photog as soon as you have good buoyancy skills; and adjusting your equipment is second nature. You shouldn't have to worry about how you equalise etc with a camera in your hand.

Dive sites in the west end of Bermuda tend to be a little shallower (the 30' range I have mentioned) as opposed to the east end of the island where they can be a bit deeper. I can recommend Blue Water Divers. Water temperatures vary hugely from the low 60s in winter to the low 80s in summer. Viz is usually in the 50'-70' range but on a good day can be over 100'. Because of illegal fishing some years ago, Bermuda is a bit fish-lite. But there is a reasonable range of Caribbean reef fish - if not quite as abundant. Coral structures are very good. Lots of swim throughs. Lots of mangled wrecks. A wide-angle lens works well for the reef structures; and probably a 60mm macro for fish portraits.

If you want to know more about Bermuda diving, feel free to email me.