downunderpix Digital Underwater Photography course

The downunderpix Advanced Digital Underwater Photography course is designed to help you develop the technical knowledge and practical skills to obtain quality photographs with your camera system. It is a materials driven, hands on course intended for divers with a basic knowledge of underwater photography and looking to get better results from their underwater camera system.

This is a live in course conducted at Edithburgh, Yorke Peninsula, one of South Australia’s most amazing shore dives and an ideal location for underwater photography.

The downunderpix Advanced Digital Underwater Photography course will help you improve your underwater photography. The course covers the theory essential to help you understand your camera system and use it to take quality photographs. It also provides for open water practical experience with your camera system including specific tasks and skills to complete as you put into practice the various techniques covered in the theory section. The course concludes with a workshop that includes basic post production image editing and a constructive critique of photos taken on the course dives.

In the self-study theory section you will learn about your camera’s functions and controls, light underwater and how to use it to your advantage, the basics of photographic composition for aesthetically pleasing images, preparing the camera system ready to take it underwater, concepts for taking great underwater photographs, how to maintain and care for your camera system post dive and basic post production processing to enhance your photographs.

After completing the theory section you will undertake 2 dives. Dive 1 is dedicated macro photography. This is followed by dive 2 which is a wide angle photography dive. On the dives you will apply, underwater, some of the theoretical concepts relating to composition and lighting whilst using manual camera settings.

The aim of the macro photography exercises is for you to learn how to white balance the camera underwater, see how depth of field affects composition, what camera settings work best for macro photography and how various strobe positions affect the lighting of the subject. For wide angle, the exercises are about working out how to set the camera’s shutter speed for the best blue colour in the water negative space and how to balance ambient and artificial lighting for correct exposure of the subject.

To participate in this course, as a minimum you must hold an open water qualification with a recognised scuba diver training agency, be 15 years or older and provide your own scuba diving equipment (minimum of 2 tanks) and underwater camera system. Although not essential, bring your laptop if you have one. Also, to get the most out of this course you will have sufficient diving experience to have good underwater buoyancy control.