Take only photos, leave only bubbles
5 Day Underwater Photo Training
Koh Tao Thailand
The 5 day photo course is designed to help you grow quickly into an underwater photographer. We focus on wide angle and close up shots, natural light (and white balancing) and artificial light (strobe or continuous light), strobe positioning for wide angle and macro. Editing is done with Light room or Adobe Photoshop. We do 8 dives.
Course schedule (includes 8 dives):
Day 1: a.m. orientation and theory about housing and camera settings – p.m. 2 dives
Day 2: a.m. check photos and prep camera – p.m. 2 dives
Day 3: a.m. check photos – p.m. 2 dives
Day 4: a.m. 2 dives – p.m. edit
Day 5: a.m. edit – p.m. final evaluation
Additional photo days: 5000THB/day (in case you want to prolong the course)
Price: 27,500THB
More Underwater Photography Info
It all depends on what you are going to do with you newly acquired skills! For some a compact camera will be enough for great holiday photos, for others a full frame Sony set-up works best.
A few good quality, compact cameras in 2021:
- The Olympus Tough TG-6; great for macro photography and has a very user friendly menu. An added bonus is the 4K video setting.
- The SeaLife DC2000. A great underwater camera that comes in combination with the housing. Shoots RAW files as well as JPEG. The camera comes in two parts – the internal waterproof camera and the housing. You can buy this setup as a kit with one or two lights, as well.
- More expensive, but totally worth it: The Sony RX100 VII. Great for wide angle photography, as well as for macro. Different priced housings are available for this little beast, like the more expensive Nauticam or the less expensive Fantasea housing.
- The Panasonic LX10 produces great underwater colour, accurate custom white balance (even at depth), custom controls that feel like using a DSLR, and a shared port for macro and wide-angle.
I’d still put Photoshop and Lightroom at the top of my list, because they are the most used program by professionals and the best-known software programs.
Programs like Affinity Photo do everything that Photoshop does at a much cheaper price. Another program, Capture One, is similar to Lightroom. DxO PhotoLab can make the results from ordinary cameras and lenses look much better and has one-click effects and filters that would take a long time to create in Photoshop.
If you want to keep it simple, go for Photoshop Elements, an affordable program for beginners.
When you get started in the world of underwater photography and you are using ambient light, a red filter is a budget friendly and easy way to begin. It can be helpful in getting better colours in your pictures.
However, a filter will also reduce the amount of light that comes into the camera, resulting in darker or hard to focus, images. Red filters remove the blue tint, but will only work up to about 15m depth. If your camera doesn’t have a custom white balance or underwater white balance option, this filter will help to enhance the colours. Otherwise, stick with manual white balance.
It all depends on the camera you choose to use underwater. Always make sure you check if there is a housing for the camera you’d like to buy first!
For mirrorless cameras and DSLR’s you will probably have to look at more expensive brands like Nauticam, Isotta, Aquatica and Subal for example. These housings will last you a life time, unfortunately your camera won’t…
If you are choosing to use compact cameras, there are high end possibilities like Nauticam, Sea & Sea, Isotta, but also more mid-range options such as Fantasea Line. This company makes great housings for the Sony RX or Canon series. Ikelite, Sony’s own brand housings for the RX series and Olympus Tough for the TG6 are budget friendly options and of good quality.
With the fast changing technology, you no longer have to spend lots of cash to get a quality underwater camera. There are a lot of cameras available that are not only affordable, but also capable of capturing great images. Some of them are waterproof down to 20m like (Fujifilm FinePix XP130), or 30m (Nikon Coolpix W300).
Other cameras are waterproof (Olympus TG-6), but require a housing if you plan to take the camera deeper than 15m.
© 2023 Oceans Below Co. Ltd
4/15 Moo 1, Koh Tao, Suratthani 84360, Thailand
Tel/Whatsapp: +66 81 268 20 31
