I have been diving for over 30 years and have been doing Underwater Photography now off and on for over 25 years, my main housings have been Sony Marine Packs, Sea & Sea, and now, I use Sea Frogs and, Ikelite when strobes are a necessity
This picture was taken of me by the late G J Pickett, the man who inspired me to learn to dive and appreciate the ocean
this one of a Clearfin Lionfish I took in the Gulf of Oman
One is able to get images like this without using a strobe, just using natural light.
The above image of a Red Lion Fish in Southern Sinai was shot on a Sony 61mp (great for facilitating cropping) with a 14mm Prime Recilinear lens.
But, I shot this image at 1.8 maximum aperture (allowing that sensor to devour massive amounts of information) and yet amazingly, I still have good depth of field.
I also shot it at 1/50 of a second, again to get as much information onto that sensor as possible ( you can see the bright overexposure on the upper right – which was just darkesh open sea at about 14m deep – it shows how much exposure I was rendering by the wide aperture and the slow shutter )
I too took the shot at only 80 ISO to keep that grain down low ( of course, it helps that my obliging subject was resting and dead still – something you dont often get shooting sea life underwater.
*All this is also testament to the fact that there is no true hard and fast rules for under water photography, only experience, and the right conditions, because underwater photographers would never suggest the above settings
Pulchella Nudibranch (Little Beautiful in Latin) I shot off the coast of Southern Sinai with the Sony 14mm Prime lens
