Underwater Photography
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Select a course option below.
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Or email us for our expert advice.
info@thailandliveaboards.com
+66 (0)81 2727556
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| PADI Underwater Photographer (Digital) The PADI digital underwater photographer course is suitable for any diver who is Open Water certified. No experience is required. The course will cover how to choose the right underwater camera set up for you and how to prepare and handle the camera.
The course will explain PADI's SEA method for getting good underwater photos. You will be taught the three primary principles of good underwater photography. The PADI course is a great intro to underwater cameras, it gets you taking good photos quickly. The manual that comes with the course is a good resource to keep and refer back to. |
1 day
2 dives |
9,800 baht |
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| If you want to take things a bit further we have tailor made some more intensive courses which we get great feedback from our students about. The progression is very quick on these courses. | |||
| Basic Underwater Photography Course. Includes theory, pool practice and a day boat diving. Learn about composition, white balance, macro, wide angle, strobes and more. Plus editing, retouching, sharpening and printing tips and tricks. | 2 days 2/3 dives |
12,900 baht |
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| Basic Plus Underwater Photography Course. Includes the basic course features plus a day of post production workshop. This extra day is very good value. The tips that you learn here will save you hours of self learning and greatly improve your understanding of what works and what doesn't in underwater photography. | 3 days 2/3 dives |
13,800 baht |
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| Intermediate Photography Course. Continues the development from the basic course as you start to develop your own style. Dives will be at some of Phuket's best dive sites. | 4 days 5/6 dives |
15,300 baht |
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| Advanced Photography Course. Tailor made to your needs. Please ask us. | Please ask |
Please ask |
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It is important that you have dived recently (last 6 months). Without good buoyancy control you probably won't take good photos so consider taking a buoyancy course first if necessary. Course prices do not include SCUBA equipment or camera. It is also possible to do an underwater photography elective dive as part of the PADI Advance Open Water course. Please ask us for prices. |
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List of all available specialty courses here
Why Digital Underwater Photography?
Digital underwater cameras turn even the most mundane dive in to an exciting dive. There is always something to point your camera at and the memories last forever.
We still remember trying to take underwater photographs with film cameras. Nikonos V or Sea & Sea MX 10 produced pretty average results in our hands. They seemed to require expert skills, a couple of strobes and a fair degree of luck to get quality photos. Bulky SLR housings required remortgaging a house to afford. Worst of all we could only take 36 shots per dive. So many times the best sightings happened when the film was already spent. Using a new roll of film each dive got expensive and we didn't even know if we had a good shot until we got back on land and had our films developed. Film cameras rarely seemed to capture that magic that we saw underwater.
All that changed with the digital camera revolution. Now you can snap away to your hearts content with gigabytes of memory to store your snaps. Digital sensors pick up the ambient light so much better than film did. Live view screens do away with looking through a view finder. Even entry level point and shoot cameras can produce excellent results with just a few basic techniques and a bit of practice.
Instant play back allows you to see your results as soon as you've taken the shot. If your are not happy just delete and snap again until you get it right. See a fish you don't know the name of. Photograph it and show your DM on board. No waiting for film developing.
Cameras are now much cheaper than they were. Entry level underwater camera packages can be had for a few hundred dollars. Want to take it further? The options are endless. Move up to a micro four thirds, add a strobe or a wide angle or a macro lens. Then move on to a D-SLR camera and take pro quality shots. Many cameras now also shoot High Def video. Photo editing packages like photoshop and GIMP allow you to make the blue sea bluer and remove any backscatter.
Underwater cameras on Liveaboards
PADI Digital Underwater Photographer Specialty Course is one of the best specialty courses to combine with a Thailand Liveaboard because:
- The course can be integrated seamlessly into the liveaboard trip dives.
- You get to take photos at the best dive spots with the best visibility and the best marine life.
- You get to photograph wide angle underwater vistas as well as macro critters.
- You can show off your photos in the evening on board.
- The photo specialty course is cheaper when combined with a liveaboard.
Underwater camera rental
If you would like to rent an underwater camera please ask us. Many of the liveaboard boats rent out underwater cameras on their trips.