PHOTO PRO
How to Shoot The Perfect Over/Under Shot by Mark B. Hatter , owner, markbhatterphotography.com
S INCE THE EARLY 1990s I had been part of a handful of film shooters specializing in fly fishing photography and was fortunate to have carved a suc- cessful niche in the industry giving me assignments around the world to shoot and write stories for a number of different publications. My world changed with the advent of digital imaging. No longer was I exclusive in capturing publication quality images. With the instant gratification of digital capture, anyone could skip the learning curve and jump immediately
physics, there are three considerations which should be un- derstood and addressed in order to capture quality split level images. First, the air/water interface results in different lens focal points for your subject. As you may recall from basic scuba, water has a magnifying effect at the air/water interface of your face mask. Objects appear closer and larger than they are due to the lensing effect of that air/water interface. The same holds true for your camera system, your underwater subject will have a closer “virtual” focal point, which will be different from the farther “actual” focal point above the water.
to quality images that editors were happy to publish. Suddenly, competition was everywhere. So I ditched all of my film camera bodies, including my trusty Nikonos V systems, and dived headfirst into digital media. This, of course, required me to purchase housings for my new digital bodies with requisite lenses and associated ports. Ironically, the acquisition of an ul- tra-wide fisheye lens, sporting an amazing 180 degree field of view, and an ultra- wide eight inch diameter domed port, gave me an idea on how I might separate myself from the growing fly fishing shooter competition.
Fortunately, the fisheye lens, with a very short focal length, provides an in- herently broad depth of focus when shot at very small aperture settings, providing the shooter an opportunity to overcome the focal point differences. But while the smallest aperture settings enable the broadest latitude for obtaining sharp focus across the scene, secondarily, they reduce the amount of light to the subject necessary for proper scene ex- posure. However, another advantage of very short focal length lenses is their ability
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Thus, I began hauling my ultra-wide kit with me on as- signments for a different kind of image capture, something new to the industry which could only be achieved by using the fisheye dome port combination: split level images. My first system was a Nikon D200 body in a Sea & Sea housing with a Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens behind an 8- inch Sea & Sea acrylic dome port. Even though there was much trial and error, because of the instant image review on the camera’s LCD, capturing publishable images proved not too difficult. As an educated film shooter, both above and underwater, I was aware of the air/water interface physics impacting image capture, which allowed me an advanced starting point from where I could shoot, review, learn, readjust and improve. Mastering the Physics of Split Shooting : With regard to
to freeze motion at very slow shutter speed settings. For ex- ample, a 16mm fisheye lens can be shot as slow as 1/16 of a second and, with proper technique, image blur from motion can be avoided. Recall that the rule of thumb for minimal shutter speed to obtain a sharp image is 1 over the focal length, e.g. a 50mm lens would require 1/50 of a second. This means that we can use the smallest apertures to obtain the broadest depth of focus and not worry too much about the slower shutter speeds required to provide correct scene exposure, especially since we are generally shooting using natural daylight at the surface of the water. Still, there is another potential scene luminosity concern; the water medium on the lower half of the scene may have a different luminosity need than that of the surface subject. This will occur if the UW subject background is dark and
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