Dive Into Your Imagination

The “Art” of Underwater Video Lighting Techniques Based upon Chapter Seven The Camera Coach, Your Guide to Creating Underwater Video

Underwater we lose light as we descend. Red is the first color to disappear due to absorption. Housings come with red filters. A red filter transmits red from the color spectrum and helps correct the loss of ambient red light.

Manufacturers design their filter system differently. Whichever type of filter you use, you want to ensure it is always clean and free of debris or else when you go to look at your footage, there may be funky lines in every shot because of how this affects the light entering your lens. Also if the filter is not cleaned properly, everything may be out of focus. Filters should be cleaned with a dry lint free cloth. Sometimes in temperate waters or where you have green water, some filmmakers use a magenta filter. The same techniques apply when using these filters.

A great rule of thumb to use when shooting video is to put your red filter on as soon as you start descending and leave it there for wide angle video. By using the red filter when white balancing with or without lights, you will maintain a rich blue in your background, this is a great trade secret I discovered after years of practicing with all different lighting conditions. Every rule made can be broken, there are a few exceptions, if you are shooting up close wide angle of silver fish with your lights, then the fish might get too close to you and have a red tint, or if you are shooting a silhouette directly into the sun, the sun may get a red glow. When using the red filter, it is important to take some test footage to insure the red filter is appropriate to your shooting situations.

Once you understand the basics of your red filter, you must think about light underwater. The best light source you can use during the day is absolutely free, our sun. When shooting underwater video many people do not check where the sun is located. Before hitting the record button, you must make sure the sun is at your back. During every dive I continue to ask myself, where is the sun! This is important even on cloudy days. I always look up, around and at my shadows to figure out where the sun is before I press the record button. Shooting in caves or caverns or along reef walls can be so difficult because of the lack of sun. In these cases, you are not only losing the red, but the shadows cast a very blue light and block the sun. In these situations, you must get creative and dabble with backlight. Back lighting is when you break the golden rule of filmmaking and instead of shooting with the sun at your back you shoot into the sun (or bright opening), causing a very contrasty scene of dark shapes and bright light. Effective backlighting happens when there is separation between the camera lens and the subject AND the light and the subject. Illuminating the entire reef with artificial

light would be even a fear for Hollywood.

Each of the example videos selected have been created with the red filter on, sunlight and video lights.

Using Lights

It truly is magic to add light to a reef scene at just the right time of day so that you can balance the sun and artificial light. When I use lights in this manner an hour before sunset, I don’t use the red filter because my scene would appear too red. The depth also affects the amount of light the sun can penetrate. As light travels through the water column the density of the water absorbs light. On extremely overcast and rainy days you can often combine artificial light with sunlight effectively. I can’t tell you how important it is to experiment with conditions and your lighting system! On deeper dives you can sometimes get away with sunlight and artificial light, but you want to run tests with your lights.

Lighting for macro shooting is the easiest. During the day if I film macro and I am close enough to a subject for my lights to become the main source, then I will not use the red filter, only my artificial light. I can do this because instead of the sun being my light source, I add the light. The red is not lost because it is not being absorbed by the water column.

I like to have an extra light source for my model or dive buddy to carry because it adds another dimension to the diver. But the real reason I like carrying a third light source is because of how absolutely wonderful a scene looks when it is possible to remove shadows and to experiment with three point lighting underwater. When you shoot with one or two light sources, you often get shadows. When you shoot with three light sources, you can use the third as a fill light. I round up anyone who is willing to participate as my buddy. Just remember to explain the different hand signals and what you want them to do so there is no confusion. Usually they will use their light as the fill light and a little farther away from the subject than the main lights on the camera.

The creative possibilities are endless. You can turn off your lights and have only your buddies illuminating the subject. You can do top lighting such as this cuttlefish going to feed. Although these techniques may sound advanced it is easy if you experiment and you can get excellent results once you understand the concepts.

You can use three lights of the same color temperature or you can mix and match the color temperatures. By doing this, you are the artistic director. I have a few lights I like to use and will pick and choose which effect I want to convey depending on time of day and the subject. I will often choose a buddy who has their own light that can be used as a third light and convince them how much fun it is to work together underwater. Often at night the third light can round up animals for the camera in ways that bright lights off the camera would only scare the animal.

Get creative… although there are guidelines you want to follow, there is no set way to light. You just need to make sure you are not too close to your subjects with your articial light blowing out your subjects and overexposing the scene with too much light. When filming I can adjust either my aperture or the distance the lights are to the subject to prevent an area from being overexposed, always paying attention to the whites and lighter colors.

When you shoot with daylight balanced lights such as LEDs, if you can white balance your camera underwater you would want to bring a white slate down with you and when you set up your system for your subject, white balance with your lights turned on.

The light beams affect your subject too. The arc of light is the angle of light coming out of the source. Lights designed for underwater filmmaking are usually flood beams and will not give you spot lights the way non-video lights do.

New LED lights by Light and Motion are making underwater video even better! These new lights are more reliable, and easier to use than bulb and filament lights they replace. The new LED lights also have more power and are easy to adjust the output levels appropriate for macro or wide angle work. It is an exciting time for underwater video and being able to “paint our scenes” with light!

Happy shooting

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed