As they were coming into view, I backed away from my spot, did a couple of big breaths, and then swam in and took my shot (note: those bubbles on the left were from another diver, not me!). So, I figured out where I needed to take my photo, got all of my settings down, and waited for other divers to get into position. I also wanted a couple of divers at different levels of the photo. I really liked getting a photo from the bottom of the iceberg, getting the iceberg going up and into the photo, with the mini-iceberg, both iceholes and all of the "ice interfaces" I could get. The next thing I had to do was figure out what position I needed to be in. So, now I was shooting up from below, and I had the pesky bubbles under control. ![]() (This can also be useful when you need to monitor bottom time or keep away from a depth limit while trying to shoot a moving subject - I got a lot of use from this in the Galapagos.) Then I can watch my LCD screen and my depth at the same time, allowing me to stay at the right depth safely while composing my shot. I have an Oceanic Geo as my spare dive computer, so I just strap it around one handle on my housing. I used one trick that I have been doing for awhile now to make sure I was maintaining my depth safely, which I would highly recommend. It should never be done by inexperienced divers, or divers with buoyancy issues. Holding your breath while you ascend towards the surface can cause serious injury, and is done at your own risk. Note: holding your breath while diving should only be done if you are an experienced diver, and only in controlled circumstances. After getting my breath under control, I swam to the spot I wanted and held my breath while I composed the photo. So what I started doing was observing where the divers were, planning on my shot, and then swimming away from where I wanted to shoot up from. Sitting at 40 feet of depth, with the bright light of the icehole above, even if I held my breath for a decent amount of time, I was still going to get bubbles. I don't have the best examples of this, as I already deleted most of them, but here is one example.īig pesky cloud of bubbles: bubbles from exhaling which somehow always manage to end up somewhere really annoying, which precludes you from easily removing them in post-processing.Īs I got my breathing under control, I started figuring out how to keep bubbles out of the photos. Easy, right? Well yes, my photos were better, except.they all had this big pesky cloud of bubbles in them! It was cold, I was breathing quickly and I just kept getting bubbles in my photos. Get down low and shoot upwards-facing photos. I guess that's what happens when you take downward or level-facing photos in a low-light environment. ![]() My first photos were exciting, except.they all had this big pesky dark area around the bottom of them. But it also meant with the extra wide field of view that there was much more opportunity for me to get my bubbles in my photos. A fisheye was the perfect lens to use for this type of subject, as it allowed me to stay close to the iceberg, while also getting a nice perspective of the full size of it. The first thing to keep in mind was that all of my wide-angle photos were taken with the Olympus 8mm F1.8 fisheye lens. So let's talk about some of these photos. With the unique light conditions, there were also lots of things to think about during post-processing. Sounds boring, right? Well actually, it allowed for a large amount of experimentation and creativity, and provided me with a great opportunity to plan out and then hone my shots until I got exactly what I was looking for. It was a unique trip for many reasons, but one that makes it particularly interesting for underwater photography discussions is that I did 17 dives on the same dive site. If you have not read it yet, I would recommend you start there, and then come back to this article. I recently went on an amazing ice diving trip to dive with icebergs in East Greenland, which I wrote about in this article.
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