How do you deal with poor visibility and murky waters

I generally shoot in Sydney, Australia. The visibility is generally only good in winter but it has been mostly horrible for the last 2 years due to La Nina, huge rains and run-offs. 

If I use strobed, I get lots of backscatter regardless of how I set the strobes because the visibility is so bad and lots of particles in the water. I even get backscatter in macro shots even though my lens is just a couple of centimeters/inches away from the subject! The same happens with close-focus wide angle shots.

These are with 8-15mm fisheye lens and a Retra snoot. You can see the backscatter is pretty obvious and if you look at the background, it is dark and green. These shots were taking in shallower than 6 metres (2 feet). (As far as I remember, these images are all straight out of camera or have minimal post.)

When shooting with strobes, how do you deal with poor visibility? Any suggestions?

If you look at the issue 129 of UWP there is a short article on inward lighting

You can use this technique when visibility is poor. Frankly a too wide lens does not help so the other option is post processing to reduce backscatter using masks

Thank you for your reply.

By "UWP", are you referring to "Underwater Photography Guide" or "Underwater Photography Magazine"?

14 minutes ago, parrazad said:

Thank you for your reply.

By "UWP", are you referring to "Underwater Photography Guide" or "Underwater Photography Magazine"?

https://www.uwpmag.com/ issue 129

Inward Lighting is a piece I wrote for them check the examples

Personally I have two option when viz is bad. (1) accept that there will be backscatter and enjoy the art of photography. (2) dont tak your camera and enjoy the dives.

On 10/29/2022 at 9:05 PM, parrazad said:

When shooting with strobes, how do you deal with poor visibility? Any suggestions?

 

Switch to a 60mm or 105mm and shoot macro with a snoot......

I really like your 8-15/snoot images though!

I like the UWP article and am keen to try it out for macro. It may be argued it is more a form of cross-lighting than inward lighting but that is only semantics.

Murky waters are less suited for wide angle photography, but we want to get the most out off our home waters. Strobe arms well out is and strobes pointing a bit outward outward is the main rule to avoid backscatter in front of the camera. Another problem may be backscatter at the sides caused by the strobe light. Position your strobes behind the plane of the housing to avoid this.  I wish that there are more tips as it remains a struggle.

On 10/30/2022 at 8:44 PM, Interceptor121 said:

https://www.uwpmag.com/ issue 129

Inward Lighting is a piece I wrote for them check the examples

Thank you - great article

8 hours ago, TimG said:

Switch to a 60mm or 105mm and shoot macro with a snoot......

I really like your 8-15/snoot images though!

Thank you so much for your kind

Great point

6 hours ago, Floris Bennema said:

I like the UWP article and am keen to try it out for macro. It may be argued it is more a form of cross-lighting than inward lighting but that is only semantics.

Murky waters are less suited for wide angle photography, but we want to get the most out off our home waters. Strobe arms well out is and strobes pointing a bit outward outward is the main rule to avoid backscatter in front of the camera. Another problem may be backscatter at the sides caused by the strobe light. Position your strobes behind the plane of the housing to avoid this.  I wish that there are more tips as it remains a struggle.

Thank you. The inward lighting is such a great lighting technique for CFWA shots and works very well with 8-15mm fisheye lens. But sometimes when visibility is very poor then it doesn't cut it anymore. 

Another "technique" that I've tried a couple of times and works relatively okay is with inward lighting (strobes are set to the lowest possible power that can light up the subject and set on rear-curtain sync), relatively open aperture and slow shutter speed. this way the background is blurred, and all the backscatter's also blurred due to the aperture and slow shutter so they won't appear in the shot as much. 

9 hours ago, Dann-Oh said:

Personally I have two option when viz is bad. (1) accept that there will be backscatter and enjoy the art of photography. (2) dont tak your camera and enjoy the dives.

Agreed sometimes it's impossible to defeat the physics of light

I like the UWP article and am keen to try it out for macro. It may be argued it is more a form of cross-lighting than inward lighting but that is only semantics.
Murky waters are less suited for wide angle photography, but we want to get the most out off our home waters. Strobe arms well out is and strobes pointing a bit outward outward is the main rule to avoid backscatter in front of the camera. Another problem may be backscatter at the sides caused by the strobe light. Position your strobes behind the plane of the housing to avoid this.  I wish that there are more tips as it remains a struggle.

I feel your pain @parrazad, this winter in Sydney has been horrible for diving! I’ve only been around for a couple of weeks this year, but each time I tried going out it was disappointing. Good job with the shooting of the octopus and the cuttlefish with snoots though!

A few other ideas:

 - For more “standard” wide-angle strobe positioning, pulling the strobes well back (as well as out to the sides) helps - you may still get some scatter, but at least it’ll be more uniform. You may also find that for your snooted shots pulling the strobe further out of the frame reduces that initial hotspot.

 - If you shoot with the sun behind you using only natural light you’ll get very little backscatter - but you’ll also lose the selective lighting and colour pop your strobes are providing (and you’ll need to stay shallow to achieve any sort of colour). One of the winners of this years Australian Geographic photo comp used purely natural light around Sydney.

 - Although it’s much nicer not to have any backscatter, if it’s in regions that are a uniform colour (black of a uniform green) this can be dealt with fairly easily in post.

And one other thought from left field: you might find it helpful to head out with another experienced photographer in Sydney, both to see how they manage their strobes and for them to watch you and give you some feedback. I haven’t done this in Sydney, but I’ve been on a few of Alex Mustard’s trips and learnt an incredible amount watching others.

A few Sydney based photographers (who might also throw in some ideas in this thread!) are:

 - Nicolas Remy @Nicool(https://wetpixel.com/full_frame/nicolas-lena-remy-sydney)

 - Vanessa Torres Macho in Bondi (https://aquaticimagingaustralia.com.au/)

 - Matty Smith down in Wollongong (https://www.mattysmithphoto.com/)

 - Kevin Deacon in Neutral Bay (https://www.dive2000.com.au/)

 - I think Chris Ross might also be Sydney based @ChrisRoss

Best of luck!

Shane

23 minutes ago, shanesmith.photos said:

I feel your pain @parrazad, this winter in Sydney has been horrible for diving! I’ve only been around for a couple of weeks this year, but each time I tried going out it was disappointing. Good job with the shooting of the octopus and the cuttlefish with snoots though!

 

A few other ideas:

 - For more “standard” wide-angle strobe positioning, pulling the strobes well back (as well as out to the sides) helps - you may still get some scatter, but at least it’ll be more uniform. You may also find that for your snooted shots pulling the strobe further out of the frame reduces that initial hotspot.

 - If you shoot with the sun behind you using only natural light you’ll get very little backscatter - but you’ll also lose the selective lighting and colour pop your strobes are providing (and you’ll need to stay shallow to achieve any sort of colour). One of the winners of this years Australian Geographic photo comp used purely natural light around Sydney.

 - Although it’s much nicer not to have any backscatter, if it’s in regions that are a uniform colour (black of a uniform green) this can be dealt with fairly easily in post.

 

And one other thought from left field: you might find it helpful to head out with another experienced photographer in Sydney, both to see how they manage their strobes and for them to watch you and give you some feedback. I haven’t done this in Sydney, but I’ve been on a few of Alex Mustard’s trips and learnt an incredible amount watching others.

A few Sydney based photographers (who might also throw in some ideas in this thread!) are:

 - Nicolas Remy @Nicool(https://wetpixel.com/full_frame/nicolas-lena-remy-sydney)

 - Vanessa Torres Macho in Bondi (https://aquaticimagingaustralia.com.au/)

 - Matty Smith down in Wollongong (https://www.mattysmithphoto.com/)

 - Kevin Deacon in Neutral Bay (https://www.dive2000.com.au/)

 - I think Chris Ross might also be Sydney based @ChrisRoss

 

Best of luck!

Shane

Yes I'm in Sydney, don't shoot wide angle that much here, though I use a 12-40 on my Olympus offhore and also at places like Oak Park.  It can be done but there are limitations. 

On the inward lighting the main benefit there is to adjust lighting so you don't light up the water behind your subject, but you are fully illuminating the water between you and the subject - so you need to be in really close and if there's too many particles then it won't work so well.  I have quite a bit of success using standard lighting where you aim to have wedge of water between the lens and subject not illuminated where there is reef in the background - tends to hide the backscatter. 

Don Silcock seems to do OK, I dived with him a few times during lockdown.  He uses a 10-17mm Tokina I believe and he manages to produce nice shots without too much backscatter at Clifton Gardens, here's an example:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wetpixeluw/permalink/10157084881836017/

Other than that you can work on your cloning skills in Photoshop which I use, believe it's quicker and simpler than cloning in Lightroom.  Of course that can only go far and can't really deal with a snowstorm.

On 11/1/2022 at 12:09 AM, parrazad said:

Another "technique" that I've tried a couple of times and works relatively okay is with inward lighting (strobes are set to the lowest possible power that can light up the subject and set on rear-curtain sync), relatively open aperture and slow shutter speed. this way the background is blurred, and all the backscatter's also blurred due to the aperture and slow shutter so they won't appear in the shot as much. 

parrazad, could you explain how rear-curtain sync helps here?

On 11/3/2022 at 3:47 PM, shanesmith.photos said:

I feel your pain @parrazad, this winter in Sydney has been horrible for diving! I’ve only been around for a couple of weeks this year, but each time I tried going out it was disappointing. Good job with the shooting of the octopus and the cuttlefish with snoots though!

 

A few other ideas:

 - For more “standard” wide-angle strobe positioning, pulling the strobes well back (as well as out to the sides) helps - you may still get some scatter, but at least it’ll be more uniform. You may also find that for your snooted shots pulling the strobe further out of the frame reduces that initial hotspot.

 - If you shoot with the sun behind you using only natural light you’ll get very little backscatter - but you’ll also lose the selective lighting and colour pop your strobes are providing (and you’ll need to stay shallow to achieve any sort of colour). One of the winners of this years Australian Geographic photo comp used purely natural light around Sydney.

 - Although it’s much nicer not to have any backscatter, if it’s in regions that are a uniform colour (black of a uniform green) this can be dealt with fairly easily in post.

 

And one other thought from left field: you might find it helpful to head out with another experienced photographer in Sydney, both to see how they manage their strobes and for them to watch you and give you some feedback. I haven’t done this in Sydney, but I’ve been on a few of Alex Mustard’s trips and learnt an incredible amount watching others.

A few Sydney based photographers (who might also throw in some ideas in this thread!) are:

 - Nicolas Remy @Nicool(https://wetpixel.com/full_frame/nicolas-lena-remy-sydney)

 - Vanessa Torres Macho in Bondi (https://aquaticimagingaustralia.com.au/)

 - Matty Smith down in Wollongong (https://www.mattysmithphoto.com/)

 - Kevin Deacon in Neutral Bay (https://www.dive2000.com.au/)

 - I think Chris Ross might also be Sydney based @ChrisRoss

 

Best of luck!

Shane

Thanks Shane. Great points  

On 11/4/2022 at 8:55 AM, Floris Bennema said:

parrazad, could you explain how rear-curtain sync helps here?

The rear-curtain sync setting itself doesn't help with reducing backscatter, but it helps with the aesthetic of the image. The idea is to take a shot with slow shutter speed to blur out the water particles and use the rear-curtain sync to help with placing the shadow of the subject on the back of the subject so it kind of implies a forward motion. You still want to use low strobe power and place it correctly well behind the dome port to reduce illuminating the water particles/backscatter. Images produces this way can look a bit strange if overdone. But if you strike the right balance between background details and slow shutter speed, they can look very beautiful.

Hope this helps  

On 11/3/2022 at 4:11 PM, ChrisRoss said:

Yes I'm in Sydney, don't shoot wide angle that much here, though I use a 12-40 on my Olympus offhore and also at places like Oak Park.  It can be done but there are limitations. 

On the inward lighting the main benefit there is to adjust lighting so you don't light up the water behind your subject, but you are fully illuminating the water between you and the subject - so you need to be in really close and if there's too many particles then it won't work so well.  I have quite a bit of success using standard lighting where you aim to have wedge of water between the lens and subject not illuminated where there is reef in the background - tends to hide the backscatter. 

Don Silcock seems to do OK, I dived with him a few times during lockdown.  He uses a 10-17mm Tokina I believe and he manages to produce nice shots without too much backscatter at Clifton Gardens, here's an example:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/wetpixeluw/permalink/10157084881836017/

Other than that you can work on your cloning skills in Photoshop which I use, believe it's quicker and simpler than cloning in Lightroom.  Of course that can only go far and can't really deal with a snowstorm.

 

Thanks Chris. I agree, shooting wide-angle in low visibility can be very complex and difficult. However, if done right, it can be very rewarding just for defeating the odds and difficulties of low visibility - such as the photo that Don took. Or this photo that Matty Smith took:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159588065547410&id=744807409&set=a.10150089862357410

This image was shot with 14-30mm/f4 S-Lens on a Z7 (if I remember correctly!) in Clifton Garden. Considering the general visibility and conditions of CG, the mind-blowing part of this image is if you see the RAW version, it is almost identical to this version with some very minor contrast and colour adjustments!

15 minutes ago, parrazad said:

Thanks Chris. I agree, shooting wide-angle in low visibility can be very complex and difficult. However, if done right, it can be very rewarding just for defeating the odds and difficulties of low visibility - such as the photo that Don took. Or this photo that Matty Smith took:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159588065547410&id=744807409&set=a.10150089862357410

This image was shot with 14-30mm/f4 S-Lens on a Z7 (if I remember correctly!) in Clifton Garden. Considering the general visibility and conditions of CG, the mind-blowing part of this image is if you see the RAW version, it is almost identical to this version with some very minor contrast and colour adjustments!

That's a nice picture, but I'd hesitate to call it wide angle. If CFWA at best, and arguably just a macro shot.

Here is a wide angle shot I took this week in challenging conditions, 15ft of visibility and hazy water. I shot this with two strobes, using inward lighting. Left strobe up at 11pm position, pointed down. Right strobe at 3pm position, pointed inward toward the lens.

Nikon D850 w/Nikon 60mm lens, Kraken KRL09 WideAngle wet lens, f13@1/50th iso320, Pair of Inon 330 strobes