Underwater Photography Settings For Sony A7III
Hey Everyone, Welcome Back!
Todays guide is going to be about the settings that i use for underwater photography.
I am currently use the sony a6000 and the sony a7iii for my underwaterphotography, however the settings that i will talk about today should be universal, regardless of the camera brand.
Before we start off here are some of my favourite underwater shots ive taken in the last few months and the settings that i used to take them.
Baby Green sea turtle - A7III/Aquatech ISO: 160, SS:1/800, F:4.0
White tip reef shark - Sony A7III/Aquatech ISO: 250, SS: 1/640, F:4.0
The three most important settings when taking a photo is the ISO, shutter speed and the F value. This still applies underwater too! Its good to get familiar with what the values do as you will get completely different results depending on which ones you adjust.
Shutter Speed
So lets start off with the shutter speed. The faster the shutter speed, the less light the camera captures, and the more it freezes the movements. If you have a slower shutter speed, more light is allowed into the camera, however the more motion it captures.
For example if you use a slow shutter speed when capturing a fast moving creature like a dolphin, then the image is going to have some motion blur. This can be also be used to enhance your picture however, giving it some action.
If were shooting fast moving creatures like sharks or dolphins i like using 1/800 or even 1/1000 to get crisp shots without any motion blur.However, if you do want a little motion in the image then using 1/500 or 1/400 is great. Going lower than that is difficult underwater as you cant use a tripod and its impossible to keep your hand completely motionless when swimming!
ISO
ISO values i use when taking a photo depends on the condition of that day. I aim to use values between 100-1000, the lower values being better as you get less grain in the image. In general there is less light underwater even during the day, so i like to start around 400 iso on a regular day as a baseline value.
If its really sunny and i am filming close to the surface i might drop the iso to like 100 or 200.
On the other hand, during sunsets or on overcast days i might raise the iso to 800 or 1000 but i dont like going too much higher than that.
Manta ray - Sony A7III/Sony 1018mm lens
ISO: 640, SS: 1/650 , F:5.6
Mother and calf Humpback whale
- Sony A7III/Aquatech ISO: 250, SS: 1/640, F:4.0
F Value
When shooting underwater i usually shoot in the S mode not manual. The amount of light underwater changes very often and using a preset f value can sometimes make the photo too dark or too bright. To avoid this i leave this on auto and allow the camera to adjust so that the picture is correctly exposed.
Also, if you plan to shoot high quality and professional looking images ALWAYS SHOOT IN RAW. A raw file just has so much more detail and information stored inside the image when compared to a jpeg file. Also it gives you alot more flexibility when editing the image in post programs such as lightroom!
Anyway thanks for reading and i hope you have/had a great day. I post most of my underwater shots daily to instagram so please consider following that if u havent already! My account is @ryuta_og
If you prefer video format guides then i also have a youtube channel with many underwater filming guides.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIQnVbLMpn_Sqor7dxSDcyQ
Thanks for reading all the way through, please let me know in the comments section if you have any questions or thoughts.
This is a list of the gear that i use!! Let me know in the comments if you have any questions or need recommendations :)
My Main GoPro’s
[Hero 10Black]: https://amzn.to/3pbiEIn
[Hero 9 Black]: https://amzn.to/2YZVwS2
My Backup GoPro
[Hero 8 Black]: https://amzn.to/3DRrKOz
[Hero 5 Black]: https://amzn.to/3DSUqa1
Micro SD card for GoPro [128gb-fast]: https://amzn.to/2Z62fuf
SD card for Sony Camera [128gb]: https://amzn.to/3ANFpEw
External Hard Drive [2tb]: https://amzn.to/3jgNXh8
My GoPro Mounts:
[3 Way Mount]: https://amzn.to/3n9XjN7
[Bite Mount]: https://amzn.to/3FYcd1y
[Neck Mount - for pov]: https://amzn.to/3ANEGTO
My Main Camera
[Sony A7III]: https://amzn.to/2YXTH8R
[Sony A6000]: https://amzn.to/3psXS7x
My Lenses
[Sigma 100-400mm sony e mount]: https://amzn.to/3aMIRoj
[Tamron 17-28mm sony e mount]: https://amzn.to/3jh0YHB
Links used in the description may or may not be an affiliate link. By using the affiliate link I earn a small fee of your purchase, however it does not cost anything extra for you to use them. Thank you for the support!