The Art of Control in Underwater Photography: Manual vs. Automatic

Introduction: 

Underwater photography is an exquisite art that allows us to capture the mesmerizing beauty beneath the surface. To achieve breathtaking results, photographers rely on the right camera and strobe settings, as well as skillful post-processing techniques. One of the fundamental choices in underwater photography revolves around using manual or automatic controls. In this blog post, we'll explore the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches and understand their impact when processing images using Adobe Lightroom.

Manual Controls: Manual controls grant photographers complete command over camera and strobe settings. This level of control can be advantageous in several ways:

1. Precision and Creative Freedom: With manual controls, photographers have the ability to fine-tune every aspect of their camera's settings. This includes aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and focus. This precision allows for creative exploration and empowers photographers to capture images with the desired depth of field, motion blur, and exposure.
2. Consistency in Challenging Environments: Underwater environments present unique challenges such as variable lighting conditions, particulate matter, and erratic movement of subjects. Manual controls enable photographers to adapt quickly to these conditions, making necessary adjustments on the fly. This ensures consistency in capturing the desired image even in challenging situations.
3. Avoiding Overexposure and Underexposure: By manually adjusting the strobe's power output, photographers can achieve balanced lighting, eliminating the risk of overexposed or underexposed areas in the frame. This control is crucial in maintaining the natural colors and details of underwater subjects.

Disadvantages of Manual Controls: Despite their advantages, manual controls may present some challenges:

1. Time and Effort: Operating in manual mode requires a good understanding of camera settings and strobe controls. It demands constant monitoring and adjustments, which can be time-consuming, especially in fast-paced underwater situations.
2. Steeper Learning Curve: Photographers new to manual controls may initially struggle to grasp the intricacies of balancing settings effectively. It takes practice and experience to achieve optimal results consistently.

Automatic Controls: Automatic controls, also known as semi-automatic or program mode, rely on the camera and strobe's built-in algorithms to make decisions based on the scene's conditions. The benefits of automatic controls include:

1. Ease of Use: Automatic controls simplify the process, especially for beginners or those in fast-moving underwater environments. By delegating settings to the camera and strobes, photographers can focus more on composition and capturing the decisive moment.
2. Quick Adjustments: Automatic controls are designed to adapt to changing lighting conditions, allowing photographers to react swiftly. This feature proves advantageous when capturing fleeting moments or unpredictable subjects underwater.

Disadvantages of Automatic Controls: While automatic controls have their merits, they also come with certain limitations:

1. Lack of Customization: The camera's algorithms may not always interpret the photographer's creative intent accurately. The automated system might produce results that differ from what the photographer envisioned, particularly in challenging lighting situations or with complex subjects.
2. Limited Control over Lighting: Automatic strobe settings may not always deliver the desired lighting effect. Precise control over light output becomes challenging, resulting in potential issues like blown-out highlights or insufficient illumination.

Processing with Adobe Lightroom: Regardless of whether manual or automatic controls were used during the capture stage, processing in Adobe Lightroom plays a significant role in enhancing and fine-tuning underwater images. Lightroom's powerful tools allow photographers to:

1. Correct Exposure and White Balance: Lightroom enables adjustments to exposure, shadows, highlights, and white balance. This is beneficial for both manual and automatic images, as it helps restore proper tonal range and accurate colors, ensuring the underwater world looks vibrant and true to life.
2. Fine-tune Colors and Contrast: Underwater images often suffer from color casts and reduced contrast due to water's absorption and scattering properties. Lightroom's tools such as the HSL (Hue, Saturation, and Luminance) panel and Tone Curve allow photographers to selectively adjust colors and contrast, bringing out the richness and vibrancy of underwater scenes.
3. Reduce Noise and Enhance Details: High ISO settings or low light conditions in underwater photography can introduce noise and reduce image sharpness. Lightroom's noise reduction and sharpening tools help mitigate these issues, allowing photographers to maintain fine details and produce cleaner, crisper images.
4. Cropping and Composition: Lightroom provides photographers with the flexibility to crop and recompose images. This feature is particularly useful when capturing underwater subjects that require slight adjustments to enhance the overall composition or remove distracting elements.
5. Workflow Efficiency: Lightroom offers efficient batch processing and synchronization options, streamlining the editing process for underwater photographers who often work with large volumes of images. The ability to copy and apply settings across multiple images saves time and ensures consistency in the final results.

Conclusion: 

The choice between manual and automatic controls in underwater photography ultimately depends on the photographer's experience, preference, and shooting conditions. Manual controls provide precision, creative freedom, and adaptability, but require a deeper understanding of camera and strobe settings. Automatic controls offer ease of use and quick adjustments but may limit customization and control over lighting.

Regardless of the chosen control method, Adobe Lightroom remains an indispensable tool for underwater photographers during the post-processing stage. It empowers photographers to correct exposure, fine-tune colors, reduce noise, enhances details, and optimize composition, resulting in captivating and visually stunning underwater images that truly capture the essence of the underwater world.

Allow me to show you how to process your photographs/memories in my upcoming online training course which I will be announcing soon. If you have an interest in learning more, send me your email and let me know (bob@robertherb.com).

Visit my website (Robert Herb Photography) to see examples of my work.

I also look forward to all comments and suggestions.

Bob Herb

Robert Herb at  Robert Herb Photography A  Roatan, HN or Aliso Viejo, CA (USA) P +1 (714) 594-9262‬  M +504 9784-0024  E Bob@robertherb.com  W www.RobertHerb.com