Using white balance for underwater photography

All about the white balance?

Lots of advice on using compact cameras underwater will tell you the trick to it all is using the white balance. The basic technique is to carry a white card, such as a diving slate, and then when at depth, set the white balance on the card.

However, I think a lot of nonsense is made of white balance for underwater photography. It is not a cure-all for problems of shooting through blue water. The short way to describe the issue is that you cannot put in something that was never there.

You can’t get these colours using white balance!

Many people will assume that using the WB underwater will put the colours back it. It won’t. What it will do is reduce some of the blueness, but it isn’t going to put in colours that are not there in the first place. The water sucks out the red light, and unless you add that red light back in, then it will not miraculously reappear. I have seen some nice shots in shallow water where the WB has enhanced the shot, but taking your camera deeper than 10m will mean a significant loss of red light. I think that’s fine. Blue is good. The water is, after all blue. Here is an example of why blue is good:

Yes there are some amazingly coloured fish out there. So if that’s what you want to do then a strobe is a good investment. Unfortunately the small, basic strobes have only a small coverage. It is therefore only suitable for macro work and not wide angle photography.