One of the easiest and simplest ways to dip your toes into iPhone underwater photography is with your mobile phone. You don't need to be in the middle of the sea to get a good photo either. Your local beach rockpools are a fantastic place to learn and improve your underwater photography.
iPhone Underwater Photography can be seen as an expensive, equipment-heavy hobby just for scuba divers. This is not the case! Your phone can capture beautiful photos of the underwater world and you do not even need to learn to dive to do so.
Our coastlines are full of rockpools that give us a little window into the underwater world. Full of marine life, both little and large. Some you would not see if you were to venture into deeper waters. From a photographer's viewpoint, you can use the rockpools to experiment with light, different points of view and even create a mini studio using a white tray to photograph life on.
Phone Rockpool Photography - Keeping It Simple
You cannot get a much simpler route into underwater photography than with rockpool photography. All you need is your phone, an underwater housing such as the ProShotCase and a pair of wellies. With only a metre of water or so it is easy to change your photo settings to suit the style of photo you want and review your photos as you go by simply lifting the phone out of the water and checking. This really helps when starting underwater photography as you can see what settings work best.
A wide range of photos can be taken in the rockpools too. From wide angle to super macro depending on the pools you are searching in. A wide-angle view will allow you to capture underwater landscapes, with the shape of the pool and the colours of the seaweed being the highlight. Use a macro setting and you can tell the story of the smaller fish, crabs and nudibranchs.
Use Natural Light To Capture The Colour
Colour is a big factor in underwater photography, an advantage rockpools have in they are shallow. The sunlight will reach from the top to the bottom of the rockpool, allowing the true colours to show on your photos. As the water is shallow you will not have a green or blue haze covering the photo like when photographing in deeper waters. This leaves you with a much clearer, sharper and brighter photo. It also means you do not need to edit the colours on the photos, so can share them with family and friends quicker. A particular favourite of mine to photograph are the sea anemones as these come in a wide range of colours and shapes, that make interesting patterns, shadows and contrast when in sunlight.
One thing to watch out for with the natural sunlight is reflections. Particularly if you are shooting downwards from above the water. The reflections can distort your subject or make light lines across them ruining your photo. In this case, turn your back to the sunlight and cast a shadow over your subject. Then when you shoot down you will no longer have the reflections but the surrounding light will brighten your subject still. Reflections are not all bad though! With your camera underwater looking across the pool, when the light hits right you can get a mirror image effect with the rockpool bottom reflected on the water line above. This makes for a magical photo.
Getting Close Up To The Rockpool Life
As rockpools are smaller bodies of water the marine life tends to be smaller. Giving you a great chance at macro underwater photography. Using your phone for this type of photo is handy as it is small enough to get in the cracks of the rockpool for a closer photo of your subject. A lot of marine life living in the rockpools are very well camouflaged and fairly quick moving so you need to be calm but fast when taking your photos.
Ideally, use a macro mode or macro attachment that allows you to get closer in your photo without getting too close to the marine life. A macro mode will help get focus on the smaller details in your subject and not the background. Don't dismiss the seaweeds and algae either. With a macro setting, you can get the tiny textures of each piece of weed. A lot of them are a blend of colours too. You can create a very abstract photo by getting in close to the seaweeds.
Overall rockpools are an ideal place to get started in underwater photography. You can learn the ins and outs of natural lighting, different styles of underwater photos and how best to position yourself to capture photos of marine life. All without the additional tasks that snorkelling or diving would give you.
About the Writer:
Guest Writer
Jo is a certified PADI divemaster with a love for the ocean and photography. She decided to combine both passions and started her scuba diving journey in 2018. With years of knowledge working with cameras, photography, and videography, Jo created her blog, Jo’s Ocean Media, to inspire others to discover our oceans and to share the best advice for taking memorable photos and videos.
