“Anyone, meaning YOU, can take good picture underwater”.
This series of web pages is all about digital underwater photography for beginners and those of you that want to increase your "survival rate" of pix.
If you're a pro at this move to something else. But if you're not, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll teach you a tip or two.
WHERE TO START: If you fall into any of these categories we can help.
I'm brand new at this and don't really have a clue what I'm doing.
I haven't bought my camera yet but will soon.
My pictures suck and I stink at this.
I just want to learn more to make my pix look better.
If you want just macro/close up photography information go here. If you want all of the rest, just keep reading.
ABOUT THE PICTURES HERE: Some of these pictures were given to me by contributors or I have taken them. The images represent only examples for each subject and no "sweetening" was done to them except re size them. Remember, I'm a videographer, not a purist photographer.
  WHAT DID I USE? Most of these images were taken with a Sea & Sea DX-1G camera with the YS-27 strobe and 16mm wide angle lens made for the camera. This is a great system thats small, very portable, has tremendous capabilities for all types of photography. Land included.
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Digital u/w cameras, and the ever increasing features that are built into them, have changed everything. You don't even have to know much about photography (but it helps a little) as long as you follow a few very simple concepts. Call em' rules.
Basically, There are 2 different types of photography. Close up or macro, and normal/wide angle. The close up/macro means you want to get as close as possible to (usually) only one subject. The normal is simply what your camera lens “sees” if you're not taking macro shots.
What's a photographer wannabe? Someone who swims around cranking off shots, about 50 a minute, with NO thought on what they're doing. And THEN they try to show them to you. Awful. Here's how not to become a wannabe.
Note: With the exception of close up/macro photos, the rest of this applies.
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The STUPID EASY rules of u/w photography.
If you violate these rules your camera will automatically flood! If you follow them you'll smile a lot more when you look at your images.
THE WATER RULE: Never take a picture unless it has at least ¼ to 1/3 of nothing but water in it somewhere. We dive in it and people expect to see it. The water helps identify what you're shooting at because everyone recognizes water and then won't look there. They'll try and figure out what else is in the picture, and the water adds a feeling of "depth" to your images. Remember, we said NEVER. Here are some bad examples:
 
These two are classic wannabe shots. Both are shot downward and too far away. There is absolutely no distinguishing subject in either picture. Really boring. Delete em'.
Yeah, I know you have this big fat SD card in the camera and it can hold 800 images. But they haven't created the "intel" SD card to correct all of your lousy pix. Crap in equals crap out.
Challenge #1: Before you go on to the second part, go to Tim Rock's web site and look at the gallery of pix he has posted. EVERY normal shot there follows the water rule. http://www.doubleblue.com/Mainpages.html/frameset.htm
OK, If he doesn't violate this rule......
Get the message?
>>On to part 2
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