White Balance

    With the evolution of digital, photographers can now adjust the white balance of the image while underwater.  Videographers have been doing it for years, but now still photographers have that option.  The problem is that it often causes confusion deciding the best way to achieve a good white balance.  Then once you've found the correct balance, it is only good for that depth, so you find you need to change it as you dive deeper. 

Here's a couple of tricks to help make white balancing your underwater photos a bit easier:

1.    We have found that taking a reading on sand or spots of dead coral do not provide satisfactory results.  Instead, we use a man-made white card from which to take our readings. We cut one out of white plexiglas and put a hole in it to make it easier to attach to our BC.  You can also use the back of your dive slate, assuming it is white.

2.  The DSLR cameras have CUSTOM modes and the point-and-shoot cameras generally use MY MODES to set custom white balance settings.

3.  Take a reading at 10 feet and put that information into your digital camera MY MODE 1.

4.  Take a second reading at 20 feet and put that information into MY MODE 2.

5.  Take a reading at 30 feet and input to MY MODE 3, and again at 40 feet for MY MODE 4.

6.  Once you are below 40 feet, just use the MY MODE 4 setting.

7.  If you shoot in RAW, you can adjust the white balance when you correct your image in Photoshop or Lightroom.