We are lucky to live right near a scenic river and big reservoir in Colorado. Our front yard in the summer looks like a yard sale of boating gear. One day whitewater kayaks, the next day sea kayaks, and the next day canoes. Since my wife likes to sea kayak as much as she can in the summer, this provides great photo ops for me. The other day she was paddling under blue sky conditions, perfect for a sunstar shot. But this presented some problems as you can see by the top image.
First, she was backlit, so no light on her face or paddle in the water. Since I was using an Aquatech housing for my D300s, the fisheye port had water on it which added a lot of little flare marks. The image needed a little fixing.
To solve the problem I put my SB900 in a Aquatech speedlight housing, connected this to the camera housing, so now I had dedicated TTL flash. This speedlight housing is remarkable in that you can adjust setting while the flash is sealed inside, very slick.
I had my assistant hold the flash underwater aimed up at my wife and the paddle. The flash added fill light to the paddle and actually projected through the water onto my wife’s face, perfect. Lake water is usually silty, not Bombay Sapphire blue like the Bahamas, but I still liked the added color underwater.
We also tried some images that were over/under but with the flash above water. This also created a nice effect for this shot.
Tech: Nikon D300s, 10.5 fisheye lens, ISO 200. Aquatech housing used for camera and flash, fisheye port attached to housing.
I’m off to Alaska for two weeks shooting an assignment, stay tuned for posts from the far north!