Special request for Wetpixel members - capturing motion underwater

by Matt Segal Friday, July 13th, 2007

Article Summary:

How do you capture motion underwater? Do you want your name and quote in an issue of Sport Diver Magazine? Eric Cheng and Jason Heller, of Wetpixel & DivePhotoGuide, have entered into a special partnership with Sport Diver to write the “IMAGES” column.

They are currently working on a piece about “Capturing Motion Underwater.” Send us your tips, tricks, advice, mistakes to avoid, or even one image to be used as an example (with proper photo credit), and your quote and name may appear in the upcoming October issue of the magazine. Anything you send will be considered and much appreciated!

If you are interested, please email a few sentences directly to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

I have been playing around with capturing motion images underwater for well over 8 years now. I love getting an image that looks more like a painting than a captured, frozen still life image! After all the whole thing about being underwater is all about motion. Rear curtain sync and slow shutter speeds are the key to these photos. In my early days I had to trick my Ikelite strobes by using a custom housing with pop-up flash and lexan window. The camera could be set for rear-curtain sync and I used Ikelite TTL slaves to trigger the strobes. It was clumsy, but it worked! I use shutter speeds from 1/2 second to 1/60. The faster the subject the faster shutter speed is needed. Digital is really nice for this, as in the film days I usually round-filed 90% of what I shot. Stuart Westmorland
Posted by westwar on 2007-07-31 19:31:31 Alex Mustard's cover of "The Art of Diving" is a great example of the latter... and thanks for recommending Martin Edge. Fantastic stuff - http://www.edgeunderwaterphotography.co.uk/
Posted by KarstenMoran on 2007-07-16 09:29:57 Martin Edge recommends panning and rear curtain sync as well, in _The Underwater Photographer_ - he offers some great examples. I've also experimented with zooming while taking the pic to create motion (though my experiments so far haven't produced anything particularly good).
Posted by tjgreen on 2007-07-16 09:22:43 Panning might be my favorite, and the easiest, way to capture motion underwater. And yet, most underwater photographers, advanced and amateur alike, tend to shy away from long exposures and panning underwater in favor of crisp, bright strobe-lit compositions. But employing a rear-sync flash and a +1/30 sec. shutter speed can --with determination, an inquisitive subject, and a fair amount of luck-- produce excellent results. http://karstenmoran.com/Projects/Underwater/index5.html Also take a look at Paul Nicklen's National Geographic Story on "Vancouver's Wild Tides"
Posted by KarstenMoran on 2007-07-14 14:38:09