Using Filters For Sea And Underwater Shooting

My name is Jóse Márquez, I’m 24 years old and live in Puerto Rico - one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean. Thanks to my island, I got the bug for underwater photography and today, I want to talk about the equipment that I use when I’m taking underwater photos as well as photos out of the water. 

Underwater/ Water Sports

When you are shooting underwater, you need to first think about what you are going to be taking photos of: surfers, sea turtles, dolphins, sharks, coral, models, etc. Depending on what your subject is, this will determine the type of equipment that you are going to use.

Surfing

When you are photographing surfers, it is good to use a camera that's capable of shooting 6 to 14 frames per second. Why? When you’re shooting surfers or waves the action is extremely fast, so when you use a camera that's capable of capturing multiple frames quickly it makes it easier to capture a good shot as you'll have more frames to choose from. 

Which Lens?

There are a lot of options when capturing surfers. If you want to capture a sports portrait then a 70-200mm f/2.8 is a great option but if you want to capture a wider shot of waves then a 35mm or 50mm lens will be an awesome choice. 

Nikon D7100 + 50mm 1.8 + Kenko REALPRO C-PL Filter

Nikon D7100 + 50mm 1.8 + Kenko REALPRO C-PL Filter

The lenses mentioned above are going to provide images where the action of the surfer or the wave is the protagonists in the scene.

If you want to capture the action with more background / surroundings, you're going to need to use a fisheye or wide-angle lens. This will give those viewing your images a first-person view of all of the action captured in your shot. Also, you'll be able to capture the 'over and under' photos where 50% of the image is above water and 50% of the shot is underwater. 

Tokina provides some of the best fisheye lenses on the market. They have the Tokina Fisheye 10-17mm f/3.5 and the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lenses and I love the quality, sharpness and the bright colours both lenses produce. 

Nikon D7100 + Tokina Fisheye 10-17mm

Nikon D7100 + Tokina Fisheye 10-17mm

Nikon D7100 + Tokina Fisheye 10-17mm

Nikon D7100 + Tokina Fisheye 10-17mm

Do you use filters to shoot surfing?

Capturing images in the ocean is a challenge as you need to swim, avoid currents, deal with rapid changes of light, reflections off the water etc. so by adding a CPL filter to my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8mm helps minimise some of these factors and as a result, saves me from losing the shot that I want. I have tested many C-PL filters but the one that I like the most is the Kenko REALPRO C-PL filter. This filter doesn’t affect the quality of the image, removes reflections and allows colours to remain bright. 

What type of housing do you use?

It is important to know the differences between the underwater housings that are available. You can find two types of housing: Dive housing or Sport housing and the difference between them is the weight and depth range. For surf photography or shallow underwater shooting (10-15 ft) you definitely want to go with a sport housing. Why? Well, it's lighter, it floats (if a wave hits you and you lose the housing there is a higher chance of finding it again) and normally they feature bright colours so the surfer can spot the photographer. Plus, the bright colours make housing easier to find and you can customise which control settings you want to have on your housing.

For sport housing, I use SPL Water Housing or Aquatech Water Housing. For dive housing, Aquatech (10-30ft) or Ikelite (30-120ft).

Underwater

Underwater photography is one of the most beautiful and challenging as there are so many factors that can affect you such as currents, light, underwater visibility, sharks and different depths that you can shoot at.

Do you use filters for underwater photography?

This depends on the depth I am shooting at. If I’m shooting from the surface to 10ft below, I don’t use filters as the ocean works as an ND filter so you can reduce your shutter speed and produce colours with warm tones. If I'm shooting from 10ft-120ft I use a red filter. Why? Well, after approximately 10ft the camera can’t capture the colours of subjects as accurately and everything will have a blue or green tone. By adding a red filter to the front of my lens, it brings back the natural colours of the reef, fish and human skin. 

Photo by: Peter Rowlands

Capturing Images Out Of Water 

I take a lot of pictures from boats, from the shore and of rivers with flash but these kinds of shots can also have colour and light issues. Why? 95% of boats are white and in Puerto Rico the sand on the majority of the beaches have a white tone. These tones reflect the sun's light, confuse the camera's sensor and as a result, you get an over-exposed image. When photographing fish in rivers I use flash but the flash hits the water and creates a white reflection. However, by using a Kenko REALPRO C-PL and Kenko REALPRO ND8 filter it fixes the problems. These filters reduce the bright light produced by the reflection of the sun or the flash on the water and as a result, colours look better and light levels are more natural.

Also, a cool feature about the Kenko REALPRO C-PL filter is that it has an Anti-Stain Coating (ASC) which reduces unwanted reflections and enhances saturation and contrast. This is super effective for me because if I’m in a boat and splash hits the filter I don’t need to worry about removing the drops with a towel, I just need to blow them or shake the camera a little bit and the drops fall off. 

Nikon D7100 + Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 + Kenko REALPRO C-PL

Nikon D7100 + Yongnuo YN565 + Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 + Kenko REALPRO C-PL

Nikon D7100 + Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 + Kenko REALPRO ND16.

Why use an ND filter when shooting in ocean or rivers?

For me, it is extremely important to take the viewer to the place where I took the picture. When a viewer says: "I feel like I’m in that place" I know that my main goal was accomplished. How can you achieve that? Well, a sense of movement is a very important thing in photography as when you can capture a sense of movement in a picture, you are going to transport the viewer to that place. In the ocean, we have the movement of the waves and in the river, we have the movement of water passing over rocks and waterfalls. One way you can exaggerate this sense of movement is with an ND filter as they allow you to use slower shutter speeds as they reduce the amount of light that reaches your camera's sensor. How much dot hey do this by? This all depends on the density of the filter. In the ocean, I use an ND8, ND16 and ND32 while in the rivers, I normally use an ND8 filter because the rivers are full of trees so there is less light than in the ocean.

Nikon D7100 + Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 + Kenko REALPRO ND8

Nikon D7100 + Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 + Kenko REALPRO ND8

Nikon D7100 + Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 + Kenko REALPRO ND8

Nikon D7100 + Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 + Kenko REALPRO ND16 + ND32

Which filter do you recommend?

I recommend the Kenko REALPRO C-PL, ND8, ND16 and ND32 filters. Those are the ones that I have and I’m extremely happy with the results and image quality that these filters produce.

By: Jóse Márquez - Instagram: www.instagram.com/marquezpr009

The filters mentioned in the blog are Kenko REAL PRO filters which are available in the UK through WEX.