Wide Angle Underwater Photography Course

My wide angle camera set up - Sony a6400, 10-18mm Lens, Nauticam Housing & 7” dome port, 2 x Sea&Sea YS-D2J Strobes

Wide Angle Underwater Photography is a difficult discipline to master - subjects are generally moving faster, it requires greater mastery of the camera settings and better control of lighting. I decided to learn from one of the best in the business, Nurul Yazid at a class organised by Prestige Scuba here in Kuala Lumpur.

One of the hazards on living in a world with on line connectivity is that we get tempted by online purchases, in my case I have brought a new wide angle dome port for my underwater camera system. (Amongst other scuba diving equipment too!) While I’m itching to get into the water and use it, I thought that I would try and learn some of the basics for shooting wide angle ahead of some planned trips to places such as Sipadan and Layang-Layang later this year to improve not only my technical skills but composition as well.

The class was taking place at Prestige Scuba, a well known and loved dive shop located here in KL who not only sell first class scuba equipment and underwater photography kit but also organise dive trips, photo competitions and other training too. Just a few minutes drive from where I live it was nice and convenient and now inter district travel restrictions have been lifted here in KL it was easy to get to without having to worry about being stopped at a road block. The joining instructions were sent the day before and we were asked to bring our underwater camera set up, body, dome, strobes etc so demonstrations of lighting could be tailored to our individual rigs. I spent a good half hour or so at home setting up my camera and rig, there is something really quite satisfying about doing this, even though I’m not actually going diving!

Once I’d arrived at Prestige I was greeted by the shop staff and shown to the training room, thankfully there weren't many students just myself, two others and Nurul, our instructor which allowed for social distancing in the classroom. I felt a little bit embarrassed as some of the photos Nurul was showing us were seriously impressive and one of the other students had won second place in the recent Malaysian RAW Photography Challenge competition recently run by Prestige. We all spent a few minutes chatting, introducing ourselves and explaining a bit on our diving experience. Once we had all introduced ourselves Nurul began the class by explaining some of the differences to macro photography and some of the challenges that wide angle photographers face such as having to have good buoyancy control and really understanding your camera and its settings. Part of this includes also really becoming familiar with your camera and housing so that you can make split second adjustments to ensure you get that once in a lifetime shot and don’t miss it fumbling around with all the buttons! One of the aspects I really liked were the illustrations of some of the theories she was talking about with some of her own and also students photos showing both good and bad points. This really helped to drive home the points she was trying to make and ensure that slow learners such as myself could follow along easily!

We talked through some of the settings required for wide angle shooting underwater - the difference to macro being that you need to control all three aspects for wide angle, aperture, shutter speed and ISO where as for macro you can get away with playing around with aperture only for background effects. I really found this aspect fo the days class useful as I always find myself getting a little confused about what does what and the impact that adjustments will have on the picture. For instance, I always love seeing photos that show rays of sunlight penetrating the water and had thought the best way to show this was by bringing it out in post processing but found out that the best way to do this is by having a high F-stop number (small aperture). The morning part of the class passed by really quickly and soon found it was time for lunch which we enjoyed sitting outside in the hot sun which was a welcome change after having the air conditioning blasting us all morning!

After lunch we made our way back to the classroom and carried on with the course, we started getting more into technical aspects such as lighting and strobe positioning - I’d always believed that strobe positions were based on the distance of your subject but Nurul dispelled these myths and she explained the theory behind it, I found it really interesting and was frantically trying to jot down notes to help me remember some of these tips for future. She continued to show us examples of some of her photos which were stunning, some of the split shots (half underwater, half above) were out of this world especially the ones of sharks in the Bahamas! If you have never checked out her work I would thoroughly recommend you have a look at her website. We talked through some of the compositional do’s and dont’s and how there are no real rules to what makes a good photo, but Nurul did mention that for wide angle its all about the wow factor and how many are in the picture - she also introduced me to the concept of Snell’s window which I had been aware of but found out more about it. The end of the course soon came and after bombarding our instructor with questions for a while it was time to wrap things up and head back home - the hardest part was making it out of an Aladdin’s cave of scuba equipment without buying anything which I just about managed to do, but only just. I’m not sure I’ll have the will power to do it next time…….. The team at Prestige were also planning on a trip to Lang Tengah in Terengganu in April when the interstate travel restrictions have hopefully been lifted and I’m thinking I’m going to join this trip to practise my newly acquired wide angle skills!