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Water Housing Photography

Lesson 7 from: The Outdoor Photography Experience

Chris Burkard

Water Housing Photography

Lesson 7 from: The Outdoor Photography Experience

Chris Burkard

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Lesson Info

7. Water Housing Photography

Lesson Info

Water Housing Photography

you guys what I wanted to go over we're gonna I'm gonna show you guys is water housing videos on di didn't bring them all here but I kind of brought a couple quick things I just want to show you here um water housings are incredible now this image right here shot with water housing um there is so many instances where you can shoot unique and engaging photographs with the water housing that don't have to do with action sports and this is kind of what I want oh what I really want to kind of dive into is this idea that you know we we think about every time people think about water houses they think like and that's not really for me you know that's ah that's something that is you know it's more for like somebody who really wants to know either shoot under the water or shoot you know in some other scenario and that's really I want you to lose that concept because that's not I think what what the beauty of water housings are four I think that anyone who wants to push their craft and work on ...

something a little different or try to get a little creative could could benefit from using a water housing I'm just trying to find this folder I have right here where I talk about water photography now this image right here um this photograph was shot with a m with this little nikon eight of you won all waterproof all together tiny little camera no housing needed right just shooting a whiting on their has a one inch sensor produces amazingly clean images this is a photograph I produced for a brand we did some commercials for them and catalogue and this was one of the ones and this is just shot basic on the surface it trillium or at a lake crescent in washington right and I just given me a unique perspective right this's over under with that camera I mean totally lose the idea that your water housing is on ly for shooting in you know action sports scenarios right this's mohr images from that shoot that we did you know just trying to work with the reflection there this is an iceland at skagen foss shooting a photograph in the river right I mean how many scenarios have you been to places in your like I've seen this place photographed a thousand times I want to produce something new okay well this is an amazing way to do that right to pull out of water housing or something that can give you a new perspective right imagine shooting portrait ce with a camera like this or shooting like that and you guys lose the idea to the big professional dslr I try to talk about every scenario I can in the video but cameras like this cameras like this that go into a housing like that gopro's action camps doesn't matter to me what you use they're all available too proves amazing unique imagery right and uh obviously you have your typical you know in the barrel surf shop right and uh you know this is this these are more fisheye perspectives right really wide england why do you use fish eyes in water photography will a fisheye like this one right here what we're one of the features of a fish eye you guys has no like what makes it unique yeah yeah the curvature right so if your chute fisheye right here in this classroom every single one of you guys would look bowed and super weird and you shot a typeface shot it would look really abstract but the reason that you shoot them in the water is because this is already a curved surface so you weren't really paying attention to the fact that this horizon line is not really straight it's because it's basically the whole thing's wrapping up around the fish eye right you're never really gonna get a straight horizon line with the fish eye so you're actually all you're doing when you're using something like this in a wide angle scenario is you are um kind of making whatever curvature a little more dramatic and it actually looks really good when the service is already curved this is also a fish eye too I'm just a little a tiny bit cropped in and basically you know working with the sun there the silhouette this's another fish I shot you know very very close this wave is really close to me and the cameras maybe like seven eight inches away right so this is a longer lens now I'm going to talk about all these different syria's but in the water you can have a variety of different lenses this this is a wide angle right here for this there's also another lens I have that zoom lens gopro's even have fish eyes a little bit longer this was shot with a seventy millimeter so full size you know camera like this with a sixteen to seventy or something like that I'm shot at seventy millimeters so this would be like me to that wall away just sitting on the inside um further away from the action okay now um fish I fish I obviously very close compressed telephoto lens right um now I want teo kind of just want to play these videos and give you guys kind of this this breakdown of how these cameras how these cameras operate and can be used in these different housings but just as faras first well I have this this one housing here um I think most guys you're used to if you ever look housings are usually these big bulky objects right that are you know a couple thousand dollars each there that they're they're made especially the ones we're talking about remember this is all above the surface stuff dive housings are different they are meant to seal underwater they're meant to the pressure is what actually makes them work like that these air really for the surface for diving you know decent depths but not really massively deep em usually when you see these things you're thinking oh my gosh water housing it's like a couple thousand dollars a massive set up that really big and bulky well this little set up right here this is a meek on housing I think it's three d printed in china or something like that it costs like two hundred fifty bucks and it works for this camera right here just pops inside and works like that they're awesome I use them all the time of use among commercial projects shooting portrait's of people I'm using for all types of things I've also used my surf housing but the beauty of one of these is that this is an entry level that anyone could get into it what are other entry level things to get in the water for target v gopro's action cam's a camera like this the on ly advantage to a big heavy water housing is the fact that when you have a larger when you have a pistol grip right that allows you to swim in the surf now when you're producing photographs you know like something like this and you're swimming it's an extension of your body you are never looking through the viewfinder at all when you're shooting wide angle and why is that because wide angle allows you have everything in the shot as long as it's kind of in the same field of view is you're shooting so when I'm shooting something that's I'm swimming towards the wave and I'm seeing it start to break and I'm basically breaking through the surface of the wave aiming my camera hoping everything's lined up because I'm not there I'm not like this right I'm like this so when this moment actually happens I'm just my hand in the housing okay so to give you that perspective that's kind of why what those can't houses they're used for right there usually made from injection molded epoxy aluminum or some other material that can withstand the beating of maybe getting pounded in the surf zone or something like that now this thing could withstand a great beating as well so could this one but they just aren't optimized to shoot like this because these ones you have to hold and kind of look through and it would be awkward to go like this you know you need to be able to hold it like this so just keep in mind that's kind of that's kind of the differences of how they're set up now these these uh smaller lightweight and inexpensive housings I think you're great kind of gateways to working in that field and thinking about different ways you can you can shoot apply now one of the thing about the larger housings that we uh I wish I could even pull it up on the internet and show you really quick um is the fact that the buttons on the back you don'thave every button and every function there minimized to be light to be efficient in the water so you can tread water and you can get your shot and you convey your image and that's really it and you have to dial ls this thing has every button every function on the camera you khun touch everything this one too you khun adjust every setting right so those ones are really just there sport housings made for kind of being in intense fascinators anybody here work to the water housing before yeah you guys have won what kind what kind of eleven protect great architects they're amazing they're awesome but the only thing this is this is great because you know having a five day mark three in a housing belts around on the tube it just doesn't work is you know you missed so many scary I've broken my nose put my nose open multiple times having that housing hit me in the face having the housing hit a surfer almost breaking their hand their heavy objects you put a seventy two hundred in a housing as well or like something like this large I mean these were mere lis cameras they're smaller but imagine like a five do you seventy two hundred in there we're talking like a fifteen pound housing and intense surf it's it's a can be a scary scenario but it what's that I just called you focus when you hold we're going to talk all about that that's what the sex subject is all about which I'm glad you asked because this is a great segway it's all about focusing okay so there's different methods to shooting in the water there is wet and dry can't really want you to pay attention because this video as I have never been able to explain this is somebody I'm sure nobody will ever be able to explain this via phone or or like in a email or some like that this is why watching on video are watching in person really is important but what I want to do is any notes you have any questions make sure we're going talk between these two videos so we'll play this one right now hopefully answer all those questions about shooting wet and shooting dr specifically a pay attention of those parts and then we will and then we'll we'll play the next one so thiss next video is basically our water housings from land we go over them then we go in the water and I kind of demonstrating we're going to basically go over some of the logistics of water housings basically you know I don't know if any of you guys have an interest of shooting in the water I'm hoping that you do um and and you know the process of understanding how they operate how they function and how they function with different lenses is kind of tricky so I'm really really glad to be able to get this you know and really dive in deep too like the nuances of what makes each housing function and how you can use it with different cameras right uh there's a lot of different housings out there I'm sure you guys have seen you know everything for my little plastic bags like full on metal ones and and kind of trying to cypher hq you'll what's the best for me and what's the best solution for what I want to shoot you know if you just are wanting to go out and you know take photos and a really calm bay like this and take photos someone supping or whatever you know that you probably use one thing if you want to go out in the surf from big crashing waves and shoot somebody surfing use a different housing so my goal today is to kind of go over a couple of logistics of what you use where and why and let's just get started so I have a couple different systems here um I have first thing is by the most traditional housing that you are used to seeing and that would be an aluminum or an injection molded a poxy housing now this housing is specifically set up to shoot surfing and why is it set up she's serving well that one of the first things the pistol grip right pistol grip allows you to have the camera away from your face okay so that you don't have to focus on trying to look through the lens this is set up for a wide angle because with the pistol grip you're not looking to the camera right so with a wide angle you can have the camera away from you and you're pretty much getting everything you need to it's a fish I wre are extremely wide like twenty mill or sixteen right thiss housing is built with the concept in mind that you're going toe put it in some pretty harsh conditions meaning like it could hit it could hit the sand it gonna hit the reef and its prime knocking a crack and cameras not gonna exposed to water okay um downsides are they're a bit heavier okay uh they also are kind of minimize they don't have all the all the buttons and and things that you'd want to be able to touch to be able to get into the settings of your cameras they're a little limited but they're also kind of leaned down right just to be the bear base because they're already heavy so because of that they don't have all the settings um this camera right here has a flat port as well we're gonna discuss a lot about that a second um or this housing right here rather once again like I said this is this one's actually aluminum based and it is just basically has the pistol grip trigger down here it's a two stage trigger so it auto focuses and shoots the same time you have a pretty limited amount of dialogues you usually just like you know you know you're s so you're kind of your shutter speed some of the basics maybe some of your dial wheels but you can't touch everything you know you can't usually review images and stuff unless you get a lot of custom buttons put in which costs a lot more money right these set ups yeah these setups usually range between eight hundred to five thousand bucks and we're not talking about dive housings here keep in mind you guys everything that we discussed today has nothing to do with diving absolutely nothing diving and dive housings are meant to happen under the water even the seals even the seals and the houses were meant to seal under pressure ok hee you khun go fairly deep with these they're great they're just not they're just not built for that meaning oh yeah they're fine they're soup they're totally fine under the water surface like that I just mean like if you're planning to die like thirty meters deep and shoot fish or something like that this is gonna be really a pain to use because mainly because putting your eye up to it it's really hard to shoot there just not just not set up like that to function that way really well so you just end up kind of creating a little more it just ends up being harder but those housings are a lot different they're like lights or you know some of those other ones where they have two handles and they're kind of meant to dive with you you know that's where this has really meant to be in the surf zone lifted up so you could be paddling through away with one hand and shooting with another hand it's one handed operation right for intense wave scenarios so the necks just the next kind of housing uh that that I I want to show you guys is it's a bit different this is am this's a meet khan housing and this is just basically uh eh I think it's ah japanese brand or something that that makes them think that I believe the three d printed and as these things are about two hundred eighty bucks okay um and don't be scared by the price for how cheap they are but they work really efficiently on one of the perks of these things is that because of the fact there you know plastic you know a poxy molded they have every function every button you could want right here so you can change everything even from like turning your camera on in the housing what it doesn't have its doesn't have removable port system um like this one does it doesn't have the pistol grip which allows you to be in more intense wave situations this one is really meant to function mohr as a camera where you know you might be you know you might be shooting something from aboard or you might be shooting appear you might be shooting a boat in the water right or say you want to shoot surfing at a really like mellow wave or it's a point break and you can kind of sit out on on a surfboard and shoot into the waiver from a boat right this is a great solution for that this house is actually made and set up for a six thousand so I'll put that in here in a little bit later I'll show you guys kind of what what this thing is like right just a couple of things about this you know the beauty of these guys they're lightweight their small uh it's okay forget thrashes air not a ton of money right they also that the optics are great the quality is great you can essentially achieve the same images is just this one's gonna be more optimized for certain situations this one's an optimized for different straight to make these for all different sizes of cameras this one's optimum this one's made from I a six thousand uh and the specific lens but you can literally get these for any size camera almost like cannons and icons they make them for a lot of stuff so the next solution is this one and this is a bag housing right and you might be thinking oh man that looks so sketchy but you're cameron now the last thing one of my cameron but you know what this actually works extremely well yeah because this is a nice thing about this is basically you could shove various different sized cameras in here this fits my six thousand if it's my seven it'll fit most smaller and icons whatever and they make more to the sizes for these write with the beauty of this is that unlike these two setups where you need they can only fit specific lenses because the lens port is only a certain size this one can fit of a variety of different lenses right because it can expand you also khun touch every button and dial in the back right because you have soft case and you have the trigger button where you can just hold it up and shoot it now what's a disadvantage this well you wouldn't really want taken intense you know shore break scenarios I've definitely pushed the limit and put this thing into a lot of scenarios where I didn't think it would last but it's worked really really well this stuff is extremely strong extremely strong yeah well you'd be surprised me to tear the stuff you can't you can't do it with your hands like it's ah it would take a real abrasion to a camera to get it to get injured they're not they don't leak I've never had never had it leaked the only time any ever had any housing league has been operator error I had sand I had you know sand on this line inside and cleaned out for I put it on uh but basically that the beauty of the beauty of this system is that you basically just put your cameron you can you know you line up all these little dots right here and you're gonna basically plop this guy on here and it just creates a clamp system that like suction seals it down ok you put these little dials on and it just tightened it up right you have your camera in your bag it works and functions super well this is a camera that this is a housing that I've actually shot covers with tons of editorial stuff with the beauty of it is that it can fit in any bag so when there's those trips where you're like I you know I'm not going to bring this set up this thing is massive it requires own bag it's heavy feel it the back plates not on so just hold that but it record requires its own pelican case it's heavy okay that's something that you're not always gonna pull out mainly because of the size and the weight but you are going to keep your are going to take this with you because it falls down in the nothing you know and fits into a little tiny plastic bag right so the unique thing about it is that you might be in a location where it really calls for cool unique underwater shot you know and this is the solution right so I find these these air about you no one hundred one hundred or so bucks for something like this yeah they and they and they work great let me just touch base on sealing these things with you guys a little bit so um it's come back to this this's ply the most basic no brainer solution for stealing so you have this black roaring right all these things have essentially some sort of a ringer a sealing device one of the key things you always want to do is you put some little silicon grease on it okay in the little bags you'll always have like in this little bag right here like a little tiny tube of silicon grease right you basically just put a little bit on your finger you rub a tiny bit not a time like literally just just a little dab around this whole thing every couple times you use it not every time okay every couple times you use it before you do that excuse me you have to clean it off ok make sure there's no sand on here before you do that okay that's the first thing it should be clean it should be debris free you put your grease on right then you're good to go you can plop this plate on here and you start you start to manually by hand put on all of your small little uh little wing nuts okay when you do this you want to do this by hand okay it's really really important that you that you hand tightened everything first and when you tighten you want to go in a criss cross pattern when you're doing your final tightenings okay you do not want to go in a circle you want to go boom boom boom boom boom boom crisscross okay that allows it to seal evenly and when you're tightening all you look for all you look for is this little black ring to look solid see if it looks like it's smushed down that solid that's all you need you don't need to keep cranking creep pranking you can over tighten these and they will leak ok super super important just when you crank it it could just be hand tighten with these no problem you crank crank crank everything and then you do one final little turn at the end so that's all nice and black and tight great I find that like once you use is a little bit maybe your first time you test it you get it going um that's really good uh and then what you can do is uh I would just you know you put your camera you get on in there you walk out about waist deep and you just kind of dip it in the water and if you see any bubbles start to arise ring like that then you'll know that it's not sealed its butt but usually you know right away now really quickly I don't have the materials here but I just want to go over one thing if you do spring a leak in your housing if anywhere in your housing if one of the porch is a cracker there's something in the seam or one of these old you know one of these old spots down here isn't sealed and you can't find it and you're just trying to find it trying to find it there's a really good solution for finding it okay um what you do is this you take your housing like this you place a cup right here sitting right here on your porch okay a little tiny dixie cup in that dixie cup you put water and you put alka seltzer okay you put that in there you put your port on top you seal your port up just like you would go in the housing you're keeping your housing like this okay directly like this right because you have a cup that's sitting in there balancing on your port with alka seltzer and water inside of it you dip your housing in the water that pressure from the alka seltzer will show you exactly where your leak is ok it works in any housing it's the same universal rule it's just basically creating bubbles right and those balls were being forced out so it gives you a really quick easy way to decipher where that leak is right so let's go over the other ceiling methods for these um this one it's really basic same exact thing uh what I do is you just take a little bit of that silicon grease you just barely any on your finger you know and you just kind of rub it along this thing it shouldn't be glob dawn at all it should look like you just took a little bit chapstick and put on your mouth and just f y I I like a big part of what I like to teach photography is useful applications like really life applications and you know what sometimes crap it's the fan you don't have silicon grease on you you know just use chopstick okay any type of greece material like any type of silicon based product is gonna work right you just are trying to create a seal so that it kind of bonds right so a little bit of that on here works you tightened up like this then you put your seal on here you apply this guy on there and it works great okay um for this housing it's the same scenario it has it has a seal on it is well sealed this time is in two places one right here one right here now this one might be a little trickier to like clean sand out if saying it's in there so what I recommend letting it dry obviously because what happens when this thing is when you open it up water is inevitably going to get a little bit around the seal so it's always good to like clean it off as best you can I use it like a clean t shirt usual just like wrap my camera in a t shirt I could clean cotton t shirts like that sealed like wipe it off clean all that off then take a little blore maybe blow the sand out or water out right I would just do a little dab of silicone here little dab a silicone here close it make sure it's sealed go from there this housing one of the unique things actually has a sensor if water gets inside which is kind of nice couple their little doodads and and stuff it's always gonna have a couple extra leashes on hand like just some random leashes that seeking attach those you never really want to go into into the water without a leash okay um on your camera um but that being said leases are super important are really great okay uh but you don't want our super super tight leash you don't want something that's like this tight okay because if you're swimming under the surf ok and a big wave crashing in front of you the last thing you want to do is go like this and dive because that current could force the camera right back in your face and I broken my nose enough times that you know that that can really happen so it's always important to put this camera like this into your chest port in your chest this is the most is the most important part right this is the part you don't want to get scratches on you don't want to get you know deigned and nick and you really want to be careful of how it's how it's interacting with water so when I dive down I go like this right right dive like this and I'll maybe dive through like this if it's a really big wave in the last thing I care about is protecting anything and all I want to do a self preserve all just let this thing go behind me right and I'll just dive down just make sure it's behind you you should never be between you and the wave are you in the ground if you're sir if you're something now yeah because of the logistics in this class I can't bring everybody out of the water and go over like techniques and how to shoot how to do that I'll probably do that in the workshop a little bit but I really do want to go over the port systems and how they operate in how they function so before I go into the water and demonstrate all this stuff I want to just I want to go over these things with you guys so that they make sense okay so two different ports systems right one is curved one is flat one is for wide angle one is for telephoto okay doesn't mean I'm having ideas of why that would be fish I was one of you had officially now when you wouldn't feel true yeah you would the fish eyes met to protrude up into this element and then so it's not seeing it because the fish eyes level with this like in this port you're going to see black right so that's what that's the first reason also the curvature of this helps to helps to make the fish I do not have any reflections or any issues inside of the port right um when I'm talking about fish eye I want you guys understand that any lens okay any lens between a fisheye and a thirty five millimeter is meant to go in a curved port because those are all pretty much wide angle lenses anything thirty five and below is considered a wide angle the actual curvature of the glass is is is curved on dh so when you put it into these ports it's it's it has proper function you know it's just not it's meant to not the store yeah exactly so um remember wide angle thirty five millimeter to fish I okay flat port okay any port that has a flat surface of the end fifty millimeter to two hundred millimeter which is larger doesn't matter but in the water that's pretty much as far as you go so that being said this is kind of standard protocol now let's let's dive into flat to fish reports first or wide angle ports whatever you wanna call him um I was calling fisher reports they just look like fish eye blend is right so when using these ports all right you guys can take a look check out look through uh when using those ports you you shoot in a method called shooting wet okay um isn't even guys ever had a chance to get in the water and and shoot before okay so shooting wet what that means is that you're gonna have water constantly covering the lens covering the port ok so it's gonna be it's gonna be constantly coded by a surface of water you do this for one reason and it's because any wide angle lens you can shoot on manual focus now you guys keep in mind we're talking about surfing here we're talking about shooting above the water not shooting diving when you're shooting diving you can shoot all the focus all the time okay because you don't have to deal with things like water dripping off your lenses or suds of whitewash or anything like that two completely different realms I don't want anybody to confuse it and I'm sorry if I'm talking kind of slow it's because I know that a lot of this can get really confusing even for me so I'm trying to kind of break it down really quickly but with this with this lens basically you shoot in a method called shooting wet okay the entire lens stays covered or coded by water the entire time okay how do you do that well you spit on it and you you put your saliva all over it and basically that coats the lens and it keeps the water on the lens we're gonna show you how to do that in the water it's going to be really interesting for you uh yeah basically that's what you do yeah it's the most effective method there are other materials and chemicals you can use the problem though is that you put those chemicals materials on you're out in the water they stop working then you're having the lich those materials or chemicals off right so when you shoot webs the poor it is constantly covered uh you do this for one reason one reason only because any wide angle lens thirty five two fish eye you can shoot manually focused meaning I can set my focus between three feet and infinity and I can leave it there and I could go and shoot my entire session the reason being is because when I'm shooting a fisheye right um it's a really wide perspective and if I'm I'm never really gonna be closer three feet away so three feet infinity everything's in focus and it's really it's the same thing to get about a thirty five which is about six feet and infinity everything is in focus so um what I find is that in shooting in the water you're really trying to make things easy as you possibly can you're trying to set yourself up for success and so the less you have to deal with the better so shooting wide angle lenses fisheye thirty five twenty four millimeter those air kind of the typical lenses that all shoot sometimes I'll shoot zoom like a sixteen to thirty five but typically it's a fisheye twenty four to thirty five are the typical lenses you put in there and what you do is you basically go and you would take a camera like this now I don't know you guys have your camera bags on you right here but basically most most lenses they have a little window that'll show you the feet and meter's distance right so you can basically take that and you can go you can roll it to where you put your camera manual focus you roll it to wherever you want like you go to the infinity mark you'll back it off two three feet and then you'll put it right there and what you do is you put a rubber band on it that van holds it there so it's not going to move the entire time as long as your cameras in manual focus it's not going to move now that works great for those lenses but nowadays we're seeing a lot of lenses I'm sure you guys have some I have a lot of them they don't have windows okay they're all like these smaller marylise cameras and they tried to make the lens of smaller so they don't have that they have nothing they just have a ring right so what you do then it's really simple you walk it off so he's three feet I'm shooting a fisheye okay cool I'm gonna focus on him focused boom I said it then in manual focus after that hasn't moved to change then I put this on there and I'm good to go is that is that kind of makes sense like you're just locking off your focus right so you're doing the same thing essentially um so now that I have this it's all good to go um I would take basically something so you can see it's like this is my fish eye lens is curved glass right I would take it and I would put it in this housing this housing actually has this lens that can go in the front of it it's an adapter so so I would I would take it and put it inside basically um it would allow me to basically have that whiting perspective now in terms of settings for your camera it all depends on what you're shooting but just a really quick brief overview um depending on the housing you use if you're using a housing like this that has every setting I would go ahead and sue shooting manual because you're able to view your images and built a kind of adjusted accordingly if you don't have all these buttons you're using something like this usually you want to kind of put it in like the most quick user friendly easy thing to do and if you're using a housing like this you're usually shooting action right because your shooting you know big waves crashing surf so you might just set it to tv mode or shutter speed priority um eight hundred to six hundredth of a second and just leave it there because it's going to set your aperture foryou I usually would set my white balance it's a cloudy if I'm out shooting surfing it's a sunny bright day I someone white bounce too cloudy because it warms up the tones a little bit right it's a really nice thing to do um I set my eyes so around two hundred I'm not using anymore auto focus just purely for firing and my auto exposed my exposure is I usually using the center spot dot the reason being because if you're shooting in the ocean and all of a sudden a wave is cresting over you it'll change that exposure really fast and what you're really concerned about is that little subject in the middle of that you know circular area in that barrel like being being lit up enough correct um now if you're shooting above the water and just shooting kind of suffers out there you'd probably put it teo your exposure to kind of wide or multiple spot or whatever you want to do right shutter speed priority between eight hundred sixteen hundred this is obviously if you're shooting action you know you have you understand like I'm kind of just giving you the basics here but you know you can shoot whatever shutter speed or whatever settings you want just depends on what you're trying to capture typically with a housing like this or something that you might be using for action you're going to be trying to freeze that action shooting a fast shutter speed er s o two hundred or between two hundred four hundred I find um as well as you know senator spot uh auto exposure is great white balance on cloudy if I'm in california and I'm just driving to the beach outside my house I'll probably use something like this you know because I could just get it all ready to go some out there no big deal but if I'm traveling too remote russia and I've got very limited bags I'll bring something like this and maybe a go pro you know as a solution right don't discount the quality of go pros and action cams and those little tiny portable cameras they're awesome especially for the water I mean that is probably I would say besides putting an actual dslr inside of housing that would probably the first step of getting out there and getting your feet wet just messing around with those in the water swimming with them learning what it feel like to swim with something in your hand right learning the different angles and stuff as well because sadly the one thing I really can't addressed to much here is just how to approach waves how to approach sir shooting in the water you know want one keeping your calm but also learning howto like stay above the water a little bit because what happens is you'll be in a situation where you're shooting a boat you're shooting something they'll be a little like currents coming off it's hard to kind of get above so what I find is a boogie board really helps sit on a boogie board sit on a surfboard or some like that you can get up a little bit higher shooting off a jet ski is really nice um obviously works great um I think I need those solutions are really good also too if you know we've been mostly talking about still photography here but a lot of times uh the housings when you sent for housing for video they have these port the other little uh little screws I hear what they have a side handles so you put side handles in your housing and then you can stabilize your housing a lot better right so this is really for still photography because you could care less what you're seeing until you take the shot right just kind of like give me out of here shoot it whatever but with these you kind of were watching waiting and what you want to do is you want to lock your elbows into your body and you film like this right and this kind of gives you a really stable surface toe look through and film from right also if you're shooting with a telephoto a fifty millimeter or larger using these side handles really helps because you have the auto focus right so you might be auto focusing with a back button right here and looking through it like this right so these are really good for this this is really optimized for wide angle okay well you're you're not actually looking at your subject when you're shooting them and uh this is kind of another important aspect of shooting in the water is that everything you're shooting in the water that's wide angle is really an extension of your body so when you're when you're paddling through wave like this you're you're looking out towards where the wave's gonna break maybe your subject is over there coming towards you the cameras down in the water right you're going you're going towards the paddling paddling he starts he starts to drop into the way of your picking this camera you're basically swimming through the wave while you're picking up the cameron shooting your face and the camera usually never in the wave together you're kind of like this you know because you're you're focused on getting through it and this thing just there to capture the moment so that kind of makes sense with a fifty millimeter or with a telephoto it's a lot different and the reason is because you're not as close right you're never that close you're usually you know between me and that trucker between me and that wave away so you have a ways to be away so you don't have to worry about all this stuff you can kind of sit there and do this get your shots and then maybe dive underneath or maybe the wave doesn't even hit you you're on the shoulder of a wave right so it's a lot different ok it's a lot different functionality so I guess my question is gonna be how you where you would apply the telephoto lens in this I mean it all depends you know it all depends on what you want to shoot you know I think in the in the aspect of shooting surfing waves waves really determine that if you want to shoot a point break uh and you want to be on the shoulder great that's awesome that work straight or if you want to be on the inside you know kind of just standing in the shallows shooting like that's great if you're shooting you know kayaking you know telephoto is great you pick it up off your off your cock and you shoot someone farther away it depends on if you want a wider field or more in the moment action feel the same thing is like we approach prism appear earlier that telephoto look from the ground where you're compressing in or that more wide angle perspective from the pier more in the moment right so it just kind depends on what the look you're going for it I would I would suggest to really study some of the different looks you can create with those kind of feel what you'd want to make you know typically envision a shot first before I go out and try and executed rather than just grabbing a housing and a camera just jumping out there so um get a question myself so I was thinking more along the lines of uh I mean I've seen I've seen photography and water talking to where you'll see water lines right in the middle of a war or somewhere yes above and below yeah so there's two methods of doing that and that's probably gonna be a bit more advanced than I'm gonna be able to describe right here right now but basically would you use a different yeah you use a different system what it is is you get a port like this it's massive and it's called it's called a big dome port basically and what it does is because it's a dome port it sucks water up onto the lens right the dome like if you put it in the water water kind of pulls up onto it right so when you're shooting above and below there's two ways to do it one is using a big dome port and just kind of lining yourself up so you're kind of half above half below um you won't get you won't get the above surface and the blow service both in focus one will be slightly out of focus in order to in order to get them both in focus you just split off which means it's a it's a filter that goes in front your lens where it actually sets your focus apart because what happens is the underwater surface and the above water service to toy focal planes right so in order to get those really amazing you know david you play like underwater above shots usually eating a split top earner or you can get away with decent results by shooting is the big dome they're both use a big dome ports need a larger dome than this okay so that's kind of the two methods you know split the opener where it splits your focus in two different levels so you could be above and below or just a super wide dome port where you're not really getting everything exactly and focus but it still looks really amazing and super unique so uh that being said the only other thing I wanted touch based on before we actually getting water is some other things that you might want to bring with you always a really good lens cost to clean off those things uh never uh always been a couple silica packets because just in case you're can't your housing does get wet or some like that throw these in let it absorb some water I even we'll throw it in with the camera just in case any moisture and things in there right so we're gonna get in the water in just one second ah and what I really want to show you in the water is just basically this different method of shooting wet and shooting dry okay um once again flat port you know dome port flat port don't put wet dry wet dry okay I'm just gonna describe this and it's not really gonna make sense until I actually getting water and show you but uh on a drive on a dome port you can always manually focus so because you can always manually focus you seem to keep water across the dome the entire time the way I do that is you spit on the lens you have to lick it and it looks really aggressive but it's the best most most effective method to do that right you basically do that you get it wet you dip in the water you dip in the water when you're shooting in the water you can keep your housing in the water for the majority of the time ok because you're only pulling it out that last second which is great right a dog flat port is a little bit trickier a flat port is meant to auto focus so uh you can't have water on lens it has to be dry in order to do that you end up taking greece from your ears hands face wherever you want rubbing it on the lens okay and then basically that grease will allow water to slowly beat off the lens and fall down as gross as that sounds people always at what about ray next well rain x is great until you have to and now you have to wipe the rain ex around right one thing you never want to do just f y I and shooting wet or shooting dry is never put chapstick or never put sunscreen your face then try to use that because that will screw up the whole process it'll ruin everything and you have to go and clean everything off and then restart okay can't have sunscreen on um or in certain parts of your body on your hands or anything so like I said this it's literally just you're taking greece from your nose mouth you're literally applying here we're taking stuff from your face you're going like this you know usually this before I get in the water because I want this thing to be kind of prepped and grows this looks I'll just be the all this piece sort of the uh example here but it's basically this is the most effective method for doing this um and then usually once I have a good coat on there what I'll do is like you can kind of see it spread around I'll take my shirt I'll take something nice and clean uh like a lens cloth even too and I'll just get a little wife wipe off right because it's coated on there this is just kind of hate helping helping to take the smear off so there's that there's a lot of information here you know so I'm sorry kind of got a bear bear with me I want to make sure you guys this this makes sense and that you guys if you have any questions as of right now um we have time for just a couple good um that soft plastic water housing e w a marine and they make bag I mean literally they're just one size fits all bags they have tons different sizes ones like you but flashes in and all kinds of stuff and that plastic is like it's a hermetic you know like least sealed plastic that's very very you know tough and you couldn't you'd be hard pressed leaving that cut with the knife so it's I've never had one of those leak like I said all these housings it's usually operator error unless it's a poorly built housing um but yeah any other questions yeah small uh japanese house in there is that a um door importers well was yeah yeah they make a dome port for it and also to these things come easily modified I mean you have understand like a lot of those big houses like you know the architects the other ones they're all custom housing you know they're made custom the bags and these things are kind of more fabricated you know so but they're easily modifiable on dh that's the hardest thing is that being in the water we all are going to shoot different things you know there's no housing that's like this is a wake board housing this is a surf housing this is a portrait they're all different you know so you kind of got to make them work for your needs you know and find lenses that work and stuff but yeah they do make a dome on there as well and you can change the domes as well or is that that's just it's just a dumb you could do things to put different lenses in there for sure pretty easily that's the beauties like they aren't that much money when you're talking about two hundred dollar housing I wouldn't be super scary put a dremel to it we're making it work for what you need you know a bigger you know massive architect housing that's it's a lot more of an investment you know crack into a couple thousand dollars piece of equipment and try and modify you know I mean the equivalent right now is actually you know selma critic housing bayous ernie it's a uh a six thousand and that for less money than the whole thing is right absolutely and probably have a lot more flexibility totally well the thing that I was trying to get across is that you know you can effectively anyhow any photograph you could shoot one of those big expensive housings you typically usually get with one of these just you know everything to each their own they all of a specific use and purpose and that's kind of what they're made for so do you have questions you don't want the other great yeah because that does seem like a relatively cheap solution and they are just matter of quality depends on your project if you need something that you want to you know shoot something larger than you know goper size you could blow up he'd want one of these but I've seen images from go pros you know for used for massive stuff you know in a lot of ways to like I would imagine that any trip you go on you should be bringing one of those small waterproof cameras like it doesn't make sense not two because they're so easy to use right gopro action cameras like why wouldn't you just bring one of those throat in your bag it's another option other solution for shooting like fisher wide angle and then more questions about the dome so starting with the concept of the dome is it's like the cameras here and it's like a huge don't like this and that pushes the water to that level takes a photo exactly so if your lens like a small dome port would be pretty close to the fish I write would be like here a big dome ports further away and also its larger it's physically like a big dome port like this big as opposed to a small dome port and because it's a larger and it's more dramatic of a curve the water is actually kind of getting sucked up to it writes getting it's being pulled up onto the face of the port so it's actually easier to kind of shoot that sort that that water service above and below right there they look super random and kind of abstract or it's a massive dome but the results are amazing they're really beautiful

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Ratings and Reviews

Sjeupie
 

I've been staying up all night to watch the live broadcast. As somebody else here mentioned (latsok), it's emphasizes on the non-technical aspects (emotion, engagement, colour and composition) rather than the technical stuff like shutter speeds, iso and f-stop. Although I can use some help in both, the technical aspects are not only camera specific but fairly objective as well. The non-technical aspects however are something much harder to grasp. Getting help in this by no-one less than Chris Burkard is just amazing. I bought this class so I can re-watch certain parts of the broadcast again whenever I need it. But also to show my appreciation for Chris Burkard and Creative Live for providing this great online course!

Matt Redfern
 

This class was packed full of amazing knowledge. I really enjoyed the topics covered and have found it super helpful for my work. I have had so many takeaways ranging anywhere from how to put myself out there, finding my style that stands out, practical applications, etc. I would highly recommend this class to everyone interested in photography! Big thanks to Chris and CreativeLive for putting this together.

user-082aad
 

This was a phenomenal class. I highly recommend it to anyone. Chris is not only a sensational photographer, he is a wonderful teacher. He provides such detailed information and freely gives same to his students. He is really really available and eager to answer questions and so easy to understand. I learned so much and I was thrilled. I am very very grateful I found this particular class.

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