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DSLR
Learning More About Underwater Photography
You can own the best underwater camera equipment in the world and travel to the best diving destinations on earth and still take disappointing images. To really get the most from your investment in your equipment and dive travel, we strongly recommend that you consider taking an underwater photography course with a specialist underwater photography instructor. Ocean Optics stands behind these experts and we are confident that by working with them you'll discover techniques that will truly take your underwater photography to its most rewarding levels.
Martin Edge is the author of "The Underwater Photographer". This is considered by many to be one of the best manuals on how to take better underwater pictures ever published and is now in its third edition. Martin is also the columnist on underwater photography for "Sport Diver Magazine". A regular speaker at our own "Visions in the Sea" underwater photography festival and a recipient of the "Visions in the Sea Award for Outstanding Contributions to Underwater Photography", Martin's reputation as an underwater photography teacher is legendary. Martin runs pool based one - to - one tuition in Bournemouth, allowing him to customise each course structure to the individual needs of each client. From there you can join one of Martin's overseas workshops or photo expeditions to further hone your skills or add to your underwater image portfolio.
www.edgeunderwaterphotography.co.uk
Mark Webster is the author of "The Art and Technique of Underwater Photography", which is currently undergoing a revision to include digital imaging. He is one of the UK's top underwater photo - journalists whose work will be well known to readers of "Diver Magazine" and "Underwater Photography Magazine". The calibre of Mark's images has seen him selected on many occasions to represent the United Kingdom in the underwater photography world championships at which he has been a silver medallist - just one of many international competitions he's been successful in. Mark has been a presenter at "Visions in the Sea" and has hosted special underwater photography events for Ocean Optics. Mark runs underwater photography courses and workshops around the world.
Maria Munn is the driving force behind 'Oceanvisions". "Oceanvisions" specialises in providing users of digital compact cameras with the skills to shoot great images with the minimum of fuss. In an activity that is over complicated by jargon, and cameras with way to many functions and options, Maria has won her reputation for cutting through the chaff. A regular host of underwater photography events for Ocean Optics, Maria provides pool tuition at several UK locations and offers dive holidays overseas that let you practice and increase your skills as an underwater photographer under her personal guidance.
You can also learn more from the regular events that Ocean Optics stages. These include evening presentations, open days and "Visions in the Sea". It's your chance to see some of the very best camera work personally presented by leading professional underwater photographers from around the world. If you'd like to be kept informed of future events, then please ask to be put on our mailing list.
Staying Safe and Getting Better Images
Good underwater camera skills begin with good diving skills. At Ocean Optics, our underwater camera shop in London, we've always been forthright about the hazards of trainee divers and beginners using cameras underwater. Ocean Optics London's owner, Steve Warren, has had many dive safety articles published in "Dive International", "Scuba World", "Dive" and "Diver Magazine" and is a BSAC, PADI and NAUI Worldwide instructor. Many of these feature articles are posted at Mavericks Diving's London website.
Using cameras underwater well to get good images requires that you can concentrate more on your camera and your subject and less upon your actual diving. Doing so safely requires that you can maintain near perfect buoyancy skills, spatial awareness, be conscious of gas and time limits and, if buddy diving, observant of them too, while diving virtually on auto pilot. Getting to that stage where you can dive almost subliminally and really concentrate upon your underwater camera techniques takes time.
Being honest, many new (and not so new) divers do have problems juggling all these competing factors. Another problem, backed up by our own observations and from talking to some very experienced dive guides, is that many qualified divers aren't aware that their personal diving skills are weak. It's very easy to get a scuba diver's C Card and there's little policing of instructors. Shortcomings in diver training are often missed by the diver themselves - after all, surely they couldn't have passed the tests without acing the course? Only with experience and by spending time watching other better trained divers to they see the problems they are having for what they really are. The reality is many divers don't feel comfortable in the water, or if they do, it's a false sense of security. Taking up an underwater camera only makes things worse. Our tailored Mavericks Diving London scuba refreshers can help raise your personal diving standards and increase your ability and comfort in the water.
A key skill that needs to be mastered by any scuba diver, let alone one using underwater cameras, is precision buoyancy control. This is for the divers personal safety, protection of the environment and to help with getting better underwater still images or video footage. Safety first: Time and again investigations into diving accidents that have killed qualified recreational divers prove poor personal buoyancy skills are either wholly to blame or a significant contributing cause. Uncontrolled ascents and descents are a common factor. Poorly skilled divers also kick coral and cause other environmental damage. Clumsy divers also frighten off subjects. When using underwater cameras, where composition is all, being able to maintain your position accurately in the water is an essential skill. Mavericks Diving provides advanced buoyancy control clinics through it's Diamond Reef precision buoyancy control one day workshops . These are held in the 6m/20ft deep filming tank at Action Underwater Studios . We think these skills so important that even our entry level students learn them - we don't sell them as an add on buoyancy course.
Some divers put owning underwater cameras ahead of owning personal diving equipment. Diving equipment is life support equipment. You won't see to many dive professionals using the kind of equipment often tossed out to their own customers as "rentals". Take a moment and ask yourself why that is? If you dive, you are almost wholly dependent upon your scuba equipment for your life and entirely dependent upon it for your next breath. It is much more important to understand why CE certification on a regulator means next to zilch and why a DIN connector is safer than an A clamp than to know what JPEG and RAW stand for. Scarily, it's very much easier to get information about underwater cameras than the low down on the regulator you breathe through while framing the shot. Sadly, even your dive centre might not have know the answers to these questions (although they are on our Mavericks Diving site, along with some useful links).
The crew at Ocean Optics and out dive training and retail arm, Mavericks Diving London, are experienced divers and instructors. And though we make our living from our London underwater camera sales, we have always tried to be open about the importance of dive safety. If you havequestions or concerns, then please raise them with us.